For instance, there is an engraved stone erected at the Buddhist Kan’ei-ji temple to “console the spirits of the flies, crickets, and grasshoppers that had been killed in the production of a scientific text”.
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If you're into weird little temples and shrines with obscure interests, there's a shrine in Yawata, Kyoto called Hiko Shrine that is dedicated to airplanes, with stuff like an airplane engine right there on the shrine grounds
Wow. Good call. I was just at this shrine as my son lives just down the street.
It was sort of crazy to see a jet engine as the talisman for this shrine.
Actually it’s a shrine for people involved in the business of flying- even airport workers.
Also obscure… Just up the mountain behind this shrine is the Iwashimizu Hachiman-gu Shrine that has a memorial to Thomas Edison. ?? He sourced bamboo from this shrine to use as filaments in his early electric light bulbs. A good, not busy, place to visit. A quick train from Kyoto out in the Japanese countryside.
While a bit out of city this is a major Shinto shrine. Take the cable car to the top.
Oh yeah! I have a photo of the Edison memorial there, mostly specifically because I was amused that it had a car charger directly in front of it
So Greg how is it you are in Yawata? Sort of out of the way place even for tourists.
My son recently moved there from Fushimi.
Built a home.
Oh, I've lived in Kyoto for the past eleven years, and we were down in Yawata for some other event or other that day, just as a weekend outing. Got a house of our own two years ago, up in Kyoto City proper!
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