33 Temples round trip completed

Visiting 33 Kannon Bodhisattva pilgrimage tour has been completed on 28^th November 2020.

source(dated 30th Nov.2020):西国三十三所めぐりMAP (plala.or.jp)

We began visiting them since May 5^th 2005 and took us 15 years.

2005 was a year when I resigned the bank which had worked 26 years and change to join an automobile related company.

I guess I was going to be accustomed to vehicle itself although I did not like driving a car.

My wife and I were and are not serious believer of any religion but we started this stamp rally to keep in touch with driving our car and enjoy sight-seeing because those temples are located in the midst or top of mountains which require certain concentration for driving.

I guess ancient Japanese people worshiped mountains themselves because soul of God existed in the mountains and they built temples which had been financially supported by local or national government at that time.

Then, if we go to those temples, we could see beautiful sceneries from those temples and learn long histories every temple which contains religious miracles and damages suffered from various disaster and frequent wars.

The 32nd was Nariaiji in Amanohahsidate and the 33rd was Matsunoodera in Maizuru both in Kyoto Prefecture.

We started driving 9 am on 27th November 2020 and arrived at Nariaiji around 12 am.

It took us 3 hours including lunch time.

I drove speed way 180 km and my wife drove steep slope for 20 km.

She likes driving local roads.

In Nariaiji, we could see wood carving dragon made by Japanese famous craftsman named Jingoro Hidari who also made wood carving three monkeys in Nikko.

We got 32^nd stamp there and climbed up to observatory and saw Amanohashidate which is one of the three most scenic spots of Japan.

We could see long pine trees line in the sea.

“Let’s go there!”

She drove down steep slope again to go Amanohashidate.

Before reaching there, we found winery; ‘Winery of Amanohashidate’

We dropped in to see wine barrels and grape field.

And bought half bottle of red wine as souvenir and soft serve ice cream made from wine (It did not contain any alcohol according to the shop) to eat.

We arrived at Amanohashidate around 1:30pm and decided to walking across the sea.

The whole road to the other side of pine trees was 2.6km

There were lots of pine trees which were given certain names such as dragon and so on.

We also walked a little along with seaside.

After walking 5.2 km in total, we looked for the hotel we would stay.

It was located in the head of peninsula over the sea where we could reach there after 30 minutes driving.

After checking in the hotel, we enjoyed hot springs and had delicious meals and local beers bought at the service area on the highway during driving brought into the room to avoid COVID-19.

I had expected sunrise running along with the seaside, but it started raining hard at night and continued to the morning.

I gave up my running plan and changed to go to hot spring again with my wife.

Under the light rain after breakfast, she started driving to our 33^rd destination Matsunoodera in Maizuru City.

While she was driving, I saw ocean view. Even in the rain, it was good.

Also we saw battleship of the Self Defense Forces.

However, as we became close to the temple, we found the road to the temple was quite narrow for vehicles to pass each other. Moreover, it was steep slope again.

Without having serious problems, we arrived at the parking space and walked up to the very old temple. One person of the temple friendly talked to us and explained the history of the temple and explained about Hayagriva Budhisattva which is a saint having horse face on its head.