A day trip to Raizan Sennyo-ji Temple

On October 26, we made a short trip to Raizan Sennyo-ji (雷山千如寺), a Shingon temple in Itoshima, Fukuoka. Previously there were about 300 temples existed in this area, now there were still remaining this temple.

Passing the nearest gate from parking lot, pay an admission fee (400 yen per person) to go into the temple. You'll see the big maple trees immediately after going through the gate. Big trees, which has been designated as a natural monument of Fukuoka prefecture, has been said to be planted by Tsugitakata Kuroda, the 6th feudal lord of Kuroda clan.

After taking pictures of the maple trees, we were going to the main hall where the Buddha statue is located. There are both way to go to the main hall, the one is going up the long wooden stairways from the priest's lodge, and the other one is climbing the stone stairs from the prescient. How did we get there? We got into the main hall while looking at the beautiful landscape of garden and climbing up the stairs from the prayer hall or kannon-do (観音堂). It's the easiest way to go there.

Looking down the Shinji Garden from a veranda.

Going down the wooden stairs from the main hall, we went into the Shinji Garden. The tree which is curved on the right of the photo below is named juniper. It has been a quite long time in history, with an age of 600 years old.

Going back to the main hall, we saw a big Buddha. The 4.8 meter wooden Buddha statue is the work of Kamakura period.

The big maple tree standing alone in the garden.