Day 72 - A Rainy Day In Oita City, The Kyushu 108 Temple Pilgrimage, Japan

 

Day 72 - A Rainy Day In Oita City, The Kyushu 108 Temple Pilgrimage, Japan

We woke up to a very rainy and cold day.

It was good timing, because we didn’t have an ambitious plan for the day.

We planned to visit Temple #26, which is located in the downtown area of Oita City, and then to walk around town.

If weather permits, we will visit the stone Buddha carvings in Oita, but if not, we will visit them on another day.

If the rain intensified, we thought, we could always sit in a warm cafe or eat a long leisurely lunch, waiting for the rain to subside.

We were planning to stay for a few more days just north of Oita, in the famous hot spring town of Beppu.

We still have to catch up on our walks and cover some of the distances between the temples in both directions.

We will be staying in Beppu, because that Onsen town has hundreds of hot spring hotels to choose from, instead of Oita city which has only a handful of business hotels.

It is only fifteen minutes by train to get to Oita from Beppu.

We bundled up and put on our neck warmers and gloves, and walked to Temple #26, Machiyama Fukujuin (Machi-san, Fukujuin).

It is a city temple, complete with all the paranoia of a city temple.

The doors were locked and we rang the bell of a closed circuit camera with an intercom.

The old sliding wooden shoji doors had another locked inner door with a small hole, just big enough to receive letters or to check out who was coming.

The lady who opened the door seemed friendly.

She checked us out and decided that we didn’t look threatening.

She opened the doors wide and invited us in.

We lit a candle and incense and chanted, while she stamped our book and scroll.

She said a few words of encouragement for our journey.

Fukuju-in temple was established 

in 1594 by the order of Shogun Ietsuna Tokugawa.

The Funai Castle was the headquarters of the Funai domain, which ruled the area of present-day Oita City, in Oita Prefecture.  Three families ruled the domain until the Meiji Restoration.

 

In the year 1658, Tadaaki Matsudaira became the 6th lord of Funai Castle in Oita City.

The ruins of his castle still remain today and are one of the tourist attractions of the city.

Fukujuin temple was a prayer temple for the Matsudaira clan family.

I was unaware before walking this pilgrimage of how much the old temples were tied to the clan families that ruled each domain, which later became prefectures.

Without the protection and patronage of the ruling lords, the temples would not have been restored after the many fires they suffered, nor would they have been able to survive on the small donations from their farming communities.

In today’s world, the temples that are prosperous usually have many  branches carrying the same name, located in many cities around Japan,

Some temples, particularly in Kyoto or Nara, have stunning designs or great artwork or ancient relics that bring thousands of visitors weekly, and they charge an entry fee in order to prosper.

Some temples have huge gift shops and eateries, that supplement their income.

After visiting the temple, we decided to have a Tofu lunch at The Soy Cafe.

This tiny cafe is run by two talented women.

They serve three kinds of set meals for lunch, one of them vegan.

There was also a small bar with two kinds of hot tofu, that you can eat as much of as you want.

I scooped the hot creamy tofu into a small wooden bowl and topped it with some yuzu pepper and soy sauce.

It was delicious.

The main course was a tofu hot pot, with a variety of vegetables cooked in fresh soy milk and a collection of dips.

They also included a soy dessert and a coffee made from roasted soybeans instead of coffee beans.

We could not eat it all, so they packed up for us the risotto that came with the hot pot, to take to eat later.

The whole meal including a salad, a main dish, risotto, a drink and a dessert, was only $8 per person.

I also bought to take with us as snacks on our walks some small donuts, that they baked and didn’t fry, made from vegetables and only lightly sweetened with barely malt.

We sat by the window at the Starbucks in town, and I looked at the rain coming down.

In this season, on days when the sun is gone, it is getting colder. 

Everywhere indoors it is well heated and warm, but it is hard to stay outdoors all day.

Our hotel for the night was a business hotel in Oita, but the room we got was fairly large, quiet and fine for one night.

Certainly it was better than returning to the hotel we had booked in Usuki, and needing to get up really early tomorrow in order to get back to Oita in the morning.

We planned to visit two temples tomorrow, in a mountainous area that has almost no public transportation as a backup.

After we had a simple dinner in our hotel room, trying to finish up our fruit which was heavy to carry, and whatever else we were carrying with us, I did our laundry, which took forever to dry.

We were not very tired tonight, because we had walked so little today.

Still we tried to shut off the lights and go to sleep at a reasonable hour.

We are waking up each morning at seven, and we are out walking by eight or eight thirty.

But sleep did not come quickly, so I decided to stay awake and to book some of our hotels for the next leg of our trip, after we finish the pilgrimage.

I can see that the end of the pilgrimage is fast approaching, because I am less concerned about planning the next day’s walk, and more able to think about our next journey.

Sending you love and strength,

Tali

Stats: 9288 steps 

Today’s walk: 6.5 km 

Kilometers walked to date: 1206.5 km

Temples visited: 

Temple #26 Maniyama Fukujuin (Machi-san, Fukujuin) in Oita City