Konpira

The next day, July 10th, we went to Konpira shrine.

The roads leading up to the shrine and the bottom area at the lower parts of the steps are all shops selling everything you would think. Shirts, funny looking straw hats, key chains, swords, paintings, etc.

 Of course, anybody who has been reading this blog knows they don't have temples and shrines without a lot of... stairs.

And more stairs

 And more stairs

Finally a building. But this is not the shrine, which is at the half way mark.

 There were some smaller shrines all along the way

Here you could pour water over your hands, symbolically cleansing your soul.

 But there were plenty more steps to go before making it to the shrine

 Only 785 steps and we were at the shrine. We were not done though. To reach the top, we had to keep climbing stairs.

 View from the main shrine

 More steps of course...

To get to the top, we had gone up 1,368 steps in the summer heat.

The view from the top.

 Konpira is a shrine to a god of safe seafaring. So, there are many pictures of boats, from crew who want to remain safe.

There are also other statues and monuments, such as this huge propeller.






So, having reached the top, we headed back down the 1,368 steps. It is a lot of steps, but well worth the journey for any who want to try.