Mother's Milk Shrine!

(I cant wait until I get internet at home. It will be much easier to whine, complain and chatter about things and edit them in the quiet of my own thoughts. And add pictures. Oh so many pictures!)

This weekend, I was pretty busy. Biked then climbed to a nearby mountain temple, Kiyoumizuyama-san. Which was beautiful, exhausting and for a brief moment... perturbing. Along the path there are many stone Buddha; some have been dressed in little napkin dresses, some have offerings of tea, sake or money and some... some sadly have lost their heads or had new heads attached to bodies weathered away by time. Its a calming and peaceful hike and I think I may wander that way pretty often. (there is also a delightful chocolate shop....)

At the top of the climb is a temple. Its a steep climb but if little old ladies and old men smoking cigarettes can make it to the top, than dang it if you'll see me panting! (.... oh... my... lord.... I was dying... how do those old people do it???)

The temple is not unlike many of the temples in Japan. Old-ish, wooden/bamboo-ish, pond with brightly colored fish, good luck trinkets to buy, Japanese lady to give the strange foreigner sweets and talk to them in speedy Japanese... it was pleasant and not in the least bit crowded. Which is great. If there is one thing about visiting places I dislike, its crowds. Not far from the main temple is a smaller shrine. Local ALTs (people like me, teach'n anglais) call this the Boobie Shrine. That's right you didn't misread anything.... Boobie Shrine. It is meant as a place to honor and pray for productive lactating. 

Not so foreign of a concept if you think about it. I mean where would we be without the nutrition originally feed to us from our mother's breast? In this context its really a pretty neat thing but to the left of the little shrine building is a bulletin wall where.... thousands of pillows shaped like breasts are hung. Some of them have gone so far as to have red painted nipples! Its kinda a funny concept until you see that the red color has run from its original location... Thus producing bleeding nipples. Somehow, all I could think of was OOOOUUUCCHHHHH!!!!!! Ow ow ow ow owwwww.....

Once you get past the shrine of .... ouch! The return hike is filled with a peony farm and more hidden buildings. Its pretty cool. And on the ride home... there's a chocolate shop. :)