Yashima, our next destination, is the site of a famous battle for Japan between the Taira and Minamoto clans where the Minamoto clan surprised the Taira’s by coming from land instead from the sea. For us the major attraction is the Yashima temple stop #84 on the Shikoku temple pilgrimage route (out of 88 temples). The road up is exhilarating with many great views and sharp curves, unfortunately it is also a toll road, quite an expensive one to boot.
The temple is quite close to the parking lot and we see quite a few pilgrims which are identifiable by their white clothing. It is a nice smallish temple with an impressive gate and a few interesting buildings and shrines.
We start exploring the many buildings, only from the outside, we cannot enter them as all of them are closed.
One of the more interesting shrines is the shrine dedicated to the Yashima Taburo Badger, one of the three famous badgers in Japanese folklore. It has two large statues guarding the entrance and we are really attracted to the red torii guarded by the badgers
We decide to explore a bit more, what is the harm in that, maybe we will even find a badger here?
There is no actual badger but there is a small shrine covered with a multitude of badgers of all sizes and shapes, quite nice. We stay here a bit looking at all the badgers before moving on there is still a lot to explore.
Next we take a closer look at the main shrine which has some great roof detail and looks quite old before continuing to the gardens.
The gardens as expected are well maintained and beautiful but relatively small so we pass through it relatively fast while we continue exploring.
We exit the temple and walk through a shopping street that unfortunately is already mostly closed. We are headed now towards the rim of the plateau on which the temple sits, as we hope there are some nice views from the rim.
On the way we stop to examine the different murals and statues lining the path including one about the Yashima battle that happened in the 12th century between warring Japanese clans.
The view of Takamatsu and the interior sea from the viewpoint is impressive especially with the fog making the islands in the distance seem a bit surreal.
There aren’t many other people around so we sit down and enjoy the views for some time before making our way back to the car and the bottom of the hill.
We stop for a few minutes at the bottom where there is a open air museum with typical houses from the region, however it is closed. We visit what we can on the outside including a nice windmill near a restaurant. There is also rather incongruously a typical British phone booth, it seems really out of place.
The hotel room is really small and in fact we have been a bit spoiled by the previous hotels as this will be the typical room size from now on. However it is cozy and it has a nice origami bird on the bed.
As there still is a bit of time we decide to see Takamatsu at night. First we walk through the arcade that is right in front our hotel and do some shopping before walking on to the castle.
Our assumption was that we can at least see it at night but it was closed off completely so we decide to return and find something to eat for dinner.
What we choose is what appears to be a noodle shop however after entering we discover it is a Italian restaurant which in the end is a noodle shop also. The food is good including all you can eat baked goodies which were different every time the server brought them to our table. Full we go back to the hotel and crash for the night.
