Today we went to Yamadera, which is in Yamagata prefecture. It’s a small village that is next to a mountain that has tons of temples all over it. You can see how many in the photo I took of the map they had. Just click on it to see a much bigger version.
It’s actually the second time that we went there. The last time was around six years ago. When you’re there you can see all of these cute monk signs pointing you in the direction of the mountain.
It cost 300 yen to climb the mountain. There are so many steps. At first it’s a little daunting.
It’s so beautiful though it makes you keep going.
The first time we went we didn’t make it to the top, just coming short of it. We didn’t realize how close we were until looking at the map at the bottom. This time we did it and saw the huge golden Buddha at the top (no photos since none were allowed).
The temple pictured above is kind of the mid point of the mountain. One interesting thing we saw almost at the top was this mail box!
Who is the poor mailman who has to hike up the mountain everyday to pickup the mail six days a week. It’s kind of strange because there are about five houses that people actually live in up there. I would imagine stepping out for a moment to the convenience store is impossible for these people. I wonder if the have sofas or big screen TVs. Anyways tomorrow Come back and see some shots I took from the top.
In Sendai 