Jul 24, 2012

Still walking

 At the top of the hill, I discovered a fairly large, well kept graveyard. Here in Japan, graveyards have a different feel to them, because there are no bodies here, only gravestones. The Japanese believe that they are eerie because of the spirits of the dead, but they do not seem to make themselves apparent to me.
 I decided to walk through the graveyard and discovered this sign. It asks people to keep the place clean and not to leave open food that will attract crows.
 At the far side of the graveyard, I found this flower decorated stairway. I went up it and found to my surprise I was in the same graveyard that I had visit a week or two before. At that time I had not noticed that  the rather informal path actually continued to the other side of the hill.
 I started down the other side of the hill and saw this traditional style family home with traditional landscaping.
 A little further on, I came to a place where the road turned but a path continued straight ahead. I took the path and was rewarded with this woodsy area. Through the trees I saw a building and soon discovered that it was Kifune Jinja, a shrine that I visit in May. I walked through the trees and passed the shrine.

After following the path and going down the stairs, I reached the outer limit of the shrine. When I was here before, I neglected to take a picture of this path. The remains of the torii are on the left and the dirt path is the only entrance to the shrine. There is a fence on the next property, separating the path from a parking lot. This path goes out to the road.

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