Tane District located in Nagahama City, Shiga Prefecture, is roughly the geographic center of Japan. To get the idea of the location; 180 minutes traveling by train from Tokyo, 65 minutes from Kyoto, 72 minutes from Nagoya, and 90 minutes from Fukui. The district is mostly rice fields surrounded by the cedar forest on the…
A stroll in the temple grounds is a relief from that of a bustling Tokyo streets, here at Kuhon-butsu temple there are various old trees such as a kaya estimated to be over 700 years old (a natural monument), and a huge Ginko tree (ichi, a natural monument) also referred to as a Bodhi tree,…
Actually this wasn’t an ordinary walk. There are many shrines and temples in Yanaka and Nezu district, and among them, there are seven shrines/temples that worship the Shichifukujin or Seven Gods of Good Fortune. Namely, Ebisu, Daikokuten, Bishamonten, Benzaiten, Fukurokuju, Jurojin, and Hotei. Visiting each of these seven shrines/temples with its particular god are called…
