After our hamono and shoyu expedition on the hills, back to coast area with the town of Matsue.
Matsue
Evening meal at a Izakaya (sort of tavern), good place to have a drink and food, like yakitori (small brochette of all sorts)
Matsue is also another interesting and beautiful city…
In Matsue, Mimiko brought us to the house where Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo) (1850-1904) had been living for 5 months. But most of the memorial museum on Lafcadio Hearn was both fascinating and enriching (as we didn’t know his story nor work…)
Through the study and translations of legends and ghost stories, with an open mind, he seems to have been then first author to describe Japan of early Meiji era to the West. But maybe his work is even more appreciated in Japan!! Check using keywords “Lafcadio Hearn” + “KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies of Strange Things”, “Japan, An Attempt At Interpretation” or ”Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan”.
More sightseeing in Matsue…
ADACHI – museum of art
How to make a garden into a seasonal museum…
Tottori
We then made an attempt to reach a shrine built in one of the most spectacular place… almost hanging from the cliff: 投入堂 (Nageire-do), or Mitokusan Sanbutuji Temple . As described in guides:
Mitokusan Sanbutsuji Temple is a mountain temple on the premises of 900-meter high Mt. Mitoku. The rear temple, called “Nageire-do,” is a designated National Treasure and is a rare structure built into a depression on a sheer vertical cliff face. It’s unclear when exactly Nageire-do was built, but legend has it that the structure was thrown up (“nageire” in Japanese) from the level ground through the spiritual power of En no Ozuno, the founder of the mountain asceticism-shamanism tradition Shugendo.
It even has its own website within Tottori pref’s sightseeing sites.
So why only pictures of flowers and parading Mimiko?? Well the site closes at 15:00 sharp! We got there at 15:05 and no way to convince the gatekeeper to let us in… actually most likely Mimiko would have not been allowed in anyway, as they check you should be wearing proper hiking shoes, the climb is rough!
We overnighted close-by Tottori, in an Onsen village filled with Minshukus. And in the morning payed a visit to the famous sand dunes of Tottori.
It was the time for us to join our WWOOF #5 and Mimiko to drive back to Odawara …
