Silent atmosphere of Samyoji temple – Japan

Samyoji temple, Kannonji temple, Entsuji temple and Okura Jinja shrine are the religious establishments of Mashiko which falls under the Tsukuba - a mountain. Apart from the temples, Mashiko local government also had developed several museums of pottery and the collections. Some of this museums charge a fee for public access. As our plan for Mashiko is restricted with one day trip, we could not enter into all the listed spots but Samyoji Temple.

Samyoji temple is on the little elevated but not in a highest mountain with aged about 600 year old. It is located on the Tsukuba mountain belt. The temple is not crowded; it’s a clam environment residing in a peaceful location on the green hands of nature. After driving the car in a single hairpin bend the samsoji temple parking area has been reached. The parking area has the food stalls selling squid, octopus and fish varieties.

There are two stone lanterns installed on the stone made stairs which leads to the temple. There were about or lesser than 100 steps to reach the temple from the stone lantern installed. In front of the lantern the temple authorities has a shop to sell some religious items. I have no clear idea about the names of those items but those seem to be a wrist bands, fortune tellers and some memorandums. Also on the parallel side of the 2 stone made lanterns I have also seen a Buddha statue with kids playing, some people had also left some soft toys near to the statue as a religious belief I guess. The stone made steps are neat and divided with a steal pipe climbing and returning people support.

This temple has a 3 storied wooden pagoda, an Entrance and two temples. The primary temple is larger and taller in sized. The temples are erected with statues in it, those were larger in size. As a custom this temple also had the water pot where people wash their hands before entering to the temple. The small sized temple had a giant sized angriest God with two other subordinates in it. Except the main temple, including the entrance had the roof with a sort of grass topping. The entire temple has shown no sign of cement or concrete, everything was made with wood. But it was elegant and had a speciality of Japanese style architecture.

After spending about an hour in the temple, we were rushed towards Tokyo on the car, our visit to Mashiko had turned really interesting as we had chance to see the country side of Japan.

Visit my gallery at: http://www.camera-friendly.com