story 6/18

there is a shrine near the end of a knurled up street. the entrance to the shrine is somewhat nondescript and easily overlooked, nearly hidden by ancient cypress trees on one side, and the more modern two-story houses on the other. one of the reasons it is so hard to see is that the "entrance" doesn't directly lead to an open space and shrine buildings. rather, it's just the start of a poorly maintained path curling up the slope of a hill. it's only at the top of that path that you arrive at the formal shrine itself.

the view from the top must have, at one point in time, been truly spectacular. the nearby river, with its sandy shoals, resembles a golden trail, snaking its way to the ocean in the distance. across it, lies a more urban center of the city of iwakuni, filled with apartment buildings and karaoke bars, and backgrounding it, green boulder-strewn hills. i say that it "must have been" spectacular because some of the cypress trees are overgrown, and interrupt the view with their misshapen boughs.

the shrine itself is hardly worth mentioning. there is a torii gate, with a large shimenawa rope hanging beneath it, but, like the view, it is partially obscured by the encroaching cypress trees. there is a small courtyard, strewn over with cypress needles, and just beyond it, an ancient wooden building, long overdue for a new coat of paint, serves as the formal shrine, with a semi-frayed rope and tarnished bell to ring when making offerings. within the shadowed confines of the shrine, it is just possible to make out a glass jar containing the coils of a milky white snake, a animal-spirit that is popular in this area. there are no other buildings nearby.

*****

i'm not sure what led me to the shrine. i certainly hadn't been looking for it. in fact, i really hadn't been looking for much of anything on that day. i had just decided to wander through iwakuni. i left the area where i was staying, filled with karaoke bars (the streets there were littered with cigarette butts), and made my way towards where i believed the river was. you would not have guessed you were approaching the river from where i was, because there was no hint that it was coming. i turned a few corners, surrounded by walled off residences, and the next thing i knew, there it was, opening up in the space between two lots.