From HAT Kobe to Maya Mountain (and behind)
I could call this entry Deep in Nada-ku 3 (as a continuation of Deep in Nada-ku 1 and 2) if it was not for the Maya mountain detour. But this was an important detour and I can not resist but to break the chronological sequence and start with a single photo from the Maya mountain autumn leaves (momiji) shot:
Nice – isn’ it? I promise that there will be many more like this toward the end of the entry but now we must go back to the start. And the start (at least the photo one) was Oji-Koen Hankyu station:
Most of the following photos are from the area around the Hankyu line (walking from the Oji-koen station in direction toward Osaka). This is really a nice area. Almost no gaikokujins (foreigners), very local, very Nada-ku:). The first photo is a special tribute to the Japanese street wires. I don’t know if there is another country with so many wires on the streets. They are something like a Japanese patent – if you see them you know for sure that you are in Japan and not somewhere else.
And the rest of the photos:
Finally I left the Hankyu line and took a road toward the Maya mountain. I took two more shots of corner shops (indeed they look a little bit like shacks but I must assure you that most of the rest of the houses did not. And in general (even though it is not a firm rule) the closer to the mountain you go the better looking are the houses (presumably the inhabitants are richer) or at least that’s how it is in our ward).
Just one more photo before we leave Nada-ku:
I know – it looks like real but it is not. It’s a statue. May be the owners had a dog and they put the statue in its honor or may be they just like to have a white stone puddle in the entrance of there house. Indeed I saw often cute, small statutes on the front door of the houses. May be it’s a kind of fashion (or it’s just an early and a little bit alternative Christmas decoration – Yes, the Christmas decoration started already here in Kobe).
Just before I reached the Maya Yume – Sanpo View line (from where you take the train and the rope line for the Maya mountain top) I discovered a new temple (or rather temples). I do not know the names of these temples I am not even sure if there are one or two but if you have a look at the pictures (and you have some experience with Japanese temples) you will see that there are both Shinto and Buddhist’s elements (even though I could be wrong). The two temples (or compartments) were separated by a wall but in it there was a small opened door. (it will be really cool if one day we could see similar Christian and Muslim temples).
The most specific thing for the shinto temple were the horses at the entrance gate:
Here are and the rest of the photos (from the Shinto part). The most impressive was the giant tree inside, also nice colorful lanterns in one of the smaller shrines:
And the lanterns:
And here are the photos from (what I think) is the Buddhist part of the temple (I liked the guardians even though they look quite scary. You can see a close shot of the head of one of them on the first photo):
I am sorry but I will have to stop these post here (it becomes too big). I know that in the beginning I promised more photos from Maya mountain so I am starting immediately to work on new post (continuation of this one containing the promised images and movies). Just in case I will post a link to it. Please wait an hour or so – Thank you.
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