A Walk Around Shodoshima
Day 3 The Mito Peninsula
Saturday December 26

It's another beautiful sunny day as I begin the third day of my walk along the Shodoshima pilgrimage route. From my guest house I take the bus a few kilometers to Kusukabe Port and head into the small side streets just inland. Here I find temples 22 and 23, Minemoyana-an and Hondo, not far apart.

Hondo was quite delightful, a simple, square, wooden hall with an old Chinese style tile roof, made all the better by the golden shafts of the sunrise illuminating it. Back to the main road and I head west along the coast for about a kilometer before heading into the small village. There are a group of four temples here, 24 through 27, in a little over a kilometer of walking.
Hondo-ji at sunriseThe first, Anyoji, is a small rural style temple. All the buildings are low without the large roofs typical of temples. There is a Daishi Hall here and a damn dog that will not stop yapping. From here the signs point up a footpath that climbs through the woods to a small hermitage, Seiganji-an, unreachable by car.

A little further along the path and there is a sacred spring with a statue of Kobo Daishi in one small structure and a large Jizo in another. There are hundreds of springs connected to Kobo Daishi, but this one seems to be particularly well known. Asphalt begins again here and its downhill to another small hermitage, number 27, and then a small temple, Amidaji, before rejoining the main road.

Anyoji Temple,...