Still looking inside the building, I saw that one of the cabinets had a small lock. I wonder what was in it that it required such security.
This sign over the door says "Kannon Room" so I suppose that the locked cabinet must have contained the statue that is the focus of this stop on the pilgrimage. The object in front of the sign is a bell, which people ring to get the attention of spirit world. I should point out that this is not really a part of Buddhism, but rather is part of Japanese folk religion that has been incorporated as a 'skillful means', upaya, to get people into the flock, so to speak.
These little statues were extremely strange. They were only about a foot high and had at some point in the past lost their heads. However, someone has place a stone on the remains of the neck. If the stones had been bigger, I might not have even noticed, but they are so disproportionately small that the stood out like sore thumbs, or maybe shrunken heads.
Off to the left we found the only newish building in the compound, the main meditation hall. In the extreme left hand portion of the building [almost out of sight in the picture], we found someone to give us the page of calligraphy and stamps to show that we had been there.
As was frequently the case, peeking in through the door gave us a view of the altar.
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