Jiganji Graveyard

 Looking at the pictures I took, I am still amazed at the lack of caretaking in this graveyard. The grass is completely wild and it looks like nothing has been cut or trimmed since last year or maybe longer ago.

 Even the private plots have grass growing in them. The fresh flowers indicate that people come here but usually the grass, such as in the nearest plot above, would be pulled out so that just bare earth or crushed stone remained. On the left side of the picture you can see a whole row of empty plots.

 I found signs like this on many of the small plots. It says that for only 500,000 yen, a little over US$6,000, the plot can be yours.When I said the plot was small, I meant it. The sign also says that the plot is 1.5 square meters.

 As I left, I found this sign on the wall. It says that the this is part of Zenshoji temple, which is not the temple that is on the grounds - the one I showed yesterday. Very strange. It must have something to do with the inscrutable East

 On my way home, I found this sign built into the sidewalk. Apparently this sidewalk is considered to be a jogging trail.

Just past that sign, I found some kind of chemical plant beside the road. There were no signs so I have no idea what this is used for.

Going across the street to Jiganji

I had seen everything interesting in Kamo Jinji, so I walked out of the grounds. My goal was Jiganji, a small Buddhist temple that, according to my map, was just behind some trees on the other side of the street.

 Nearing the street, I noticed these chunks of tree trunk that had rotted out from the middle. Cleaned up a bit, they would make good bodies from Japanese style drums, but I expect that they will just remain here until they completely fall apart.

 I walked up a driveway and found the temple building. There was only one. The first thing that I noticed was that the windows were a very unusual shape, like a temple bell.

 Turning around and looking into the graveyard, I discovered this frog watching me.

 I walked around the temple building and found that be back side contained what looked like living quarters but as far as I could tell there was no one home. There was no way to get into the building or to see the altar except through the sliding doors into the living area so I gave up and went into the graveyard.

I began to wonder if there was a priest in residence. The graveyard looked like it had not been mowed in years. Rather than a graveyard with a temple, it reminded me of the little family graveyards hidden up in t he hills behind farming villages in the mountains.