Yamadera

 At the next building we met a class of second grade students. Most of them greeted us with an ohayo gozaimasu. They were very cute and extremely interested in the information that the teachers were passing on to them. The one unusual thing was that they were not taking notes, maybe it had something to do with them being in only their second year of school. Older students would have been frantically writing down as much of the teachers' talks as possible.

 This is Basho, the haiku poet, who stopped here during the trip on which he wrote his famous book of travel poems and narrative.

 For some reason this little statue looked very 'continental Asian' rather than Japanese. I really should study the details of Buddhist art so that I could distinguish the styles and know who is represented.

 Here is the altar of the building where we met the students. After the left, I went back and took the picture.

 We finally reached the actual gate to Yamadera. We paid a 300 yen fee, er, donation, and were allowed into the grounds.

We immediately started up a flight of stairs. All around us were stone lanterns, stele and various other Buddhist symbols in stone.