Mitoku-san

This morning I woke up at 5am.

By 6am, I met with 4 others in front of my workplace and we headed off on a 3hr (ish) drive to Tottori-ken.

Our destination was a mountain called Mitoku-san and the temple Sanbutsu-ji.

I tried to get some rest in the car, but there were 3 of us squeezed into the back seat, and Nish-san was driving pretty crazy.

I did wake up to catch this crazy fog.

When we arrived, we headed up some steep stairs to the first check point.

This is a pretty old place, and so there's a lot of uneven steps and such. Before getting our tickets, the guy checked our shoes.

I was the only one with "problem" shoes, but he let me through.

We passed by a number of small temples on our way up.

In one temple, these little statues were all lined up, and I thought they were pretty nifty looking, so I snapped a picture.

The scenery was very beautiful, but climbing up the stairs to the next level was awful. The stairs were made of some stone, some newer, some older. Some parts crumbling...

There were some HUGE trees that were in this open area before the final set of temples.

I'm not much of a fan of the sun, but the pics do look good...

Anyways, so we pass through the final group of temples and pay for our tickets to climb the mountain. Again, my shoes came into question, but I was allowed to go through.

We were required to wear a white sash with some writing on it...for any number of reasons.

The gates to the mountain.

We had already walked up some steep steps, and I was curious as to what "mountain climbing" would entail.

Our destination was one of the many temples built on this mountain.

There were no safety ropes or straps used, and I saw a number of kids and old people climbing too. There were definately places...a lot of places, where a wrong step could have been met with serious injury or death.

Our first temple. To get to it, we climbed up this rock with a metal chain for grip. Kyo-san was pretty unsure of herself climbing up. It was pretty scary, to give her credit.

Chillin at the temple.

The final destination. The temple was built inside of this little space.

It's opened up only once every 100 years or 50years or something like that.

But, people can visit and look at it.

After climbing back down the mountain, we went and ate lunch by a small river.

Our next and final stop was a cow and horse farm...type place.

They sold beef, leather goods and other stuff made from milk.

There was an area where people could ride the horses and feed them too.

It was an interesting trip.