Kochi
Hi everyone! It’s been a while and I have some catching up to do with a couple of posts about some interesting trips I took this spring. For some reason writer’s block affects me here on a blog that is only probably read by 10 people at best! So anyway, here is the first of a series of posts about what I have been up to this spring.
In the beginning of April, I visited Kochi, a small city on the far south-east coast of Shikoku, the large island east of Ako that separates the inland sea from the Pacific Ocean. Kochi is a regional capital, but since it is far from the major population centers of central and western Japan, it is definitely a provincial capital. It is not completely isolated, however, since it gets a fair number of visitors from other parts of Japan and the world. It is on the popular Shikoku pilgrimage route, a circuit of 88 temples and shrines that pilgrams visit either in stages or in one long trip around the whole of Shikoku. Some foreigners do the pilgrimage too, but Kochi is also a stopping point for cruises around Japan since it is halfway from Osaka and Hiroshima and cruise ships circumnavigating Japan frequently stop here. I saw many white clad pilgrims carrying backpacks as well as a whole huge group of French cruise ship tourists while I was there.
In the middle of town close to where I stayed is Kochi castle, a small wooden castle that has the distinction of being the oldest continually standing wooden building in Japan. It sits on top of a hill between two of the river valleys that converge in Kochi. It was nice to be able to visit the castle several times to see it and the beautiful surrounding gardens at different times of day.
Outside of Kochi on top of a small mountain is Chikurinji, a small Shingon school temple dating back to the late 600’s and one of the sites on the Shikoku pilgrimage. The entire pilgrimage, which vists 88 temples, is about 1200 kilometers long and can take six weeks to do if done in a continuous circuit on foot. Some people visit each temple by bus or by car, and many others do the whole cicuit in stages. The route follows a route reputedly taken by the founder of the Shingon school of esoteric Buddhism in Japan, Kukai (also known as Kobo Daishi) who lived from 774 — 835 BCE. It was a beautiful, quiet temple complex and I had a nice time wandering around the moss covered hillside exploring it.
In addition to Chikurinji, the wooded peaks of Godaisan (Mount Godai) are home to the Makino Gardens and Conservatory, named after the local botanist Tomitaro Makino. Many of the thousands of species that he first described and named are planted on the grounds and in the conservatory here. I spent much of my third day in Kochi wandering around the hilltops here. The cherry blossoms were in full flower and the recent rains made everything vibrant and lush.
