Enoshima Island (江の島)

Ah, time to start up the blog… now that Christmas (ahem… "Holiday") break is over I will begin my weekly trek to find something new in Japan.

Today is all about a little island that is only a few miles away from me… its name? Look at the blog post.

Enoshima Island has a pretty complicated history with its many ex-girlfriend goddesses. Apparently, the Emperor Kinmei built a small shrine dedicated to three goddess (Tagitsuihime, Ichikishimahime, Tagirihime) in a small cave… the original shrine shown below:

You can tell it's legit because of that little placard I left in the picture. You're welcome.

At any rate, Yorimoto Minamoto came along and wanted to defeat this rival clan. To do so, he built a shrine to the goddess Benzaiten. I guess he chose the right deity because he ended up winning the battle.

Access to the island doesn't even require a ferry! Simply cross the Benten-bashi bridge and you're practically at your first temple named Hetsunomiya. This is one of three shrines on the island and this one is reserved for the god(dess?) of music.

We moved along, bypassing the escalators to the top of the mountain. Yes. There were escalators built in. Of course, you had to pay to use them, and since I'm feeling a little chubby from the binging of the holiday season we decided against them. My only regret is of not taking a photo… sigh. 

The best part of the island were these little stands they had for people who wished to take THE PERFECT iPhone photo complete with posing ideas in case you weren't that creative, you see. 

I used it for my mega camera and got a picture of the the Nakatsunomiya Shrine, of which contains the goddess Ichikishimahime. Shaun and I originally tried to use it to get a picture of ourselves, but some kid just walked right into the photo. Rude.

After that, we came across the Yama Futatsu, an area dividing the island in two. It's thought that the island was split in two by the waves constantly crashing into it… just like a miniature Grand Canyon.

There was another shrine dedicated to Tagarihime, and apparently I missed a creepy painting of a turtle who stares at you… wherever you are standing. Awww yeah. :(

But I did NOT miss this awesome little shrine, for which it belongs, I do not know. It did include an iPhone photo thingy though.

That's like straight out of The Hobbit!

We moved along to a cute couples area where single people will be shunned forever because they're so gross and pathetic (just kidding). It's a bell dedicated to "The Heavenly Maiden and the Five Headed Dragon"… I've taken the liberty of showing the story for you below:

Honestly, I'm a little surprised that the only reason she refused him was because of the bad things he did… because I would think the biggest reason would be because… ya know… dragon. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Since there was an iPhone station with an example picture of how to pose, I forced Shaun to pose (much to his chagrin).

Seconds later, Shaun rang the bell with the most force possible, scaring everyone around us with its loud clanging and forcing me to cover my ears in pain. True Love.

At any rate, the bell was surrounded by locks, which were supposed to be placed by a couple. The lock signifies the permanent love of the couple. I didn't know about that, and also due to the loud painful ring of the bell, I decided I didn't feel like putting a lock.

Moving away from the love shrine, we made it one of the coolest parts of the island - the Iwaya Caves and Chigogafuchi! Chigogafuchi is a place dedicated to a tragic love story. A young trainee named Jikyu was on his way from a hundred-day pilgrimage and met a young seducer named Shiragiku, a servant. Because their love was forbidden (I'm assuming because it was homosexual in nature), Shiragiku and Jikyu decided to kill themselves by jumping off the cliff. Incidentally, this is also where you can catch a beautiful shot of Mt. Fuji during sunset, or possible move to higher grounds because of a tsunami.

Next we found the caves. Apparently locals say they look like the inside of a woman's vagina. I'm not so sure, though we did have to crouch to get through a few parts.

As you can tell, the dragon plays a big part in Enoshima's history. The end of one cave had a cool dragon sculpture that allowed you one wish. You hit the drum next to it, and if you were able to create lightning twice your wish was granted! The neat thing about this was that the drum was hooked up to some sort of light switch so you almost always got the lightning. Aw yeah.

Lastly, there was a little stone called the Kameishi or "Turtle Stone." It's apparently a little carving engraved by a stonemason named Kametaro Nakamura, depicting a turtle making its way back to the palace of the Dragon God. Also, "I Like Turtles".

With our adventure completed, we were just about at sunset. Below are a few pictures that just didn't fit in elsewhere with the blog.