After the sunrise, I climbed up the island to this beautiful, vermillion Shinto shrine.
When visiting a shrine, it's customary to wash your hands at the water fountain prior to approaching the shrine. Many such fountains use bamboo for the water pipe and a dragon's head for the water tap/spout.
This colorful dragon is an uncommon sight at a Shinto shrine. I don't know the significance, but it could be a means of warding off evil spirits from the Kami (God) enclosed in the shrine.
In the Shinto tradition, natural items like rocks, trees, etc. are considered to be gods themselves or have god-like powers -- not unlike what you might find with some of the Native American traditions.
Many people write messages of hope or appreciation and hang them on this red rack.
One last shot of the morning sky before heading home.
OK. One more last shot of the morning sky before heading home. This one was taken from where the shrine was located.
A furin windchime ringing in the morning breeze along the shopping promenade as I head back to the parking lot.
And then suddenly, there is this modern-looking sculpture at the bottom of the island which completely clashes with the traditional mood of the island. Japan has a lot of this mixture of old and new mixed up together in a rather haphazard manner!
Pix4Japan by R.D.S. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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