A small but beautiful shrine (almost) by the roadside 👹🍣🎎 Wonderful Japan

As I have mentioned several times before, I am not always in a hurry when I am out and about, but prefer to take my time. And if possible, I even like to plan a little detour or side trip to see if there is anything interesting to discover.

Of course in everyday life, I don't often have the opportunity to do so, but luckily every now and then, I manage to explore something new even on familiar routes. I usually let my nose guide me, which seems to have a pretty good sense of where to take me.

And so on one fine day, I seized the opportunity and made one of the aforementioned detours on my way home. During my trips, I had repeatedly seen a small hill from the highway, with a small shrine standing in the middle of a lot of green trees. Since you can't just turn off the highway quickly, I had only seen this shrine from a distance, but each time I resolved to visit it in person one day.

And now that day had finally come, and small, narrow streets had led me quite smoothly to the entrance of this shrine. There I stood, taking my first look from the street at the small green hill in front of me, where a small stone torii marked the way to the shrine hidden up there.

A sign on the side provided more detailed explanations about where we were now:

Kirio-yama Shrine

This shrine on the hill is dedicated to Ōkuninushi-no-mikoto, Ōyamakui-no-mikoto, and Sarutahiko-no-mikoto. It is said to have been founded in the Wadō era (708–715).

For a long time, it was worshipped as a deity that repelled insects. In times when pesticides did not yet exist, people came here from distant villages to collect sand from beneath the main hall and scatter it on their rice fields.

There are also many legends about the place: one tells of three horses—one golden, one silver, and one bronze—that visited the shrine every evening. When a young man grabbed one of the horses by the tail, it cut off its tail and fled, whereupon the village was given the name Kiri-o (meaning “cut tail”).

Another legend tells how thieves stole the precious scroll “Namu Amida Butsu,” handwritten by Shinran, from the shrine and threw it away at the Katsura Pass in Iwafune. However, the founding priest of Saiganjiji Temple (Shimami-cho, Kita Ward), Eigen, followed an inspiration from a dream, visited the site, retrieved it, and made it the treasure of the temple.

These legends have been preserved to this day, and the shrine is still cherished by the local community. The scroll bearing the words “Namu Amida Butsu” is still carefully preserved at Saiganjiji Temple.

March 2017 (Heisei 29)

Well, when I stood here in front of the Toori, I didn't know any of this information, but I was surely looking forward to whatever was laying ahead of me. A beautiful day was coming to an end, but the setting sun provided wonderful lighting conditions that couldn't have been more inviting.

So off it went, and soon we were standing in front of the small staircase that led straight into the green. After pausing briefly and looking around, I continued and started walking up the stairs in front of me.

Once I arrived, I was greeted by this view. In a small clearing, there were two stone Tooro lanterns at the front, the kind you can find in almost all temples and shrines in Japan.

Right behind it was a small stone basin, which is usually used for ritual hand washing. These basins are often quite artistically designed, but as expected, everything here was a little simpler.

And even though the main building was not as magnificent as the famous shrines in Kyoto and Tokyo, I was by no means disappointed. This is exactly how most shrines usually look like, especially when they are located outside the cities in the countryside, like this one. A small wooden building houses the sanctuary, which in order to protect it from wind and weather, has been reinforced with plastic walls on the outside. Since it snows heavily here in winter and can get quite stormy, I understand this measure very well.

Now we are standing directly in front of the small main building and taking a look at the closed shrine door. It is only opened on specific occasions, such as New Year's Day, when visitors can also catch a glimpse of the interior.

The braided cord with the white tassel is called Suzu-o 鈴緒, and this one seems to be quite new. When visiting a shrine, you are supposed to pull hard on this cord to ring the metal bell above it. This is supposed to attract the attention of the kami living here when you pray. But I think the kami of this place had already seen me coming, even though I was rather quiet during my visit.

Here we see the small bell, which makes a rather clanging sound. Behind it, we see a sign with the name of the shrine we are standing in front of.

Right next to the main building stands a small red torii gate, behind which is an even smaller altar. The color red is omnipresent in many Japanese shrines, and here too, its bright glow could be seen from afar.

Because right next to it was a small gap in all the greenery here on the hill, and you could see the settlement down below, from which you could also spot this very red gate.

The red gate is also clearly visible from the main road, from where I have often spotted it myself. And that is precisely why I always wanted to climb this hill, which I have now finally been able to do.

After walking around the shrine building, it was time to make my way back. There wasn't that much to see up here, but I deliberately took my time to soak up the atmosphere of this place. I was all alone, which made the whole experience even more interesting and intense, and once again brought me closer to the heartbeat of the country.

And now we're back at the little staircase I climbed a few minutes ago. I turned around once more and looked back before I then headed down the steps.

It felt a bit like being in the middle of nature here, and it was really fun to walk through this little green grove. Even though there aren't usually that many visitors here, the complex seemed very well maintained and quite inviting.

And suddenly we were back down again. Right around the small hill there are fields and a small settlement, and you immediately sense that on this side, the big, modern Japan seems quite far away. But I have come to appreciate this feeling, because here you are much closer to the heart of this wonderful country than in the noisy and hectic cities and other often overcrowded tourist destinations you find in travel brochures.

What can I say? It just felt good and I was glad I made this little detour. My little round trip up to Kirio-yama-Jinja was exactly what I needed that day, and whenever I drive past on the highway on the other side of the hill again, I will remember this small but beautiful shrine up there. And I'm sure that the same broad smile will appear on my face as it did the moment I walked through the stone torii gate at the end. Sometimes it's all quite simple...