Yamaguchi Kannon and more - July 22, 2020

Today we decided to 'wing it' and headed in the direction of Sayama Lake in Saitama. We lucked out and stumbled onto a very interesting Buddhist temple. There were dragons everywhere. It was so cool! In the first picture you can see the Kannon tower. As you may remember from the White Cloud Mountain post, Kannon is the goddess of mercy. It is thought that the 6 sides of the tower represent the 6 forms of Kannon who help humans navigate through the six realms for karmic rebirth. I don't know much about Buddhism, so I am not exactly sure what that means, but it sounded interesting.

The temple was built in the 9th century.

This is one of the most colorful temples we have been to.

This hillside is covered statues placed by grieving parents to have prayers said for children whom died (many of them unborn). Take a close look at the larger statues in the front...

This is the main hall. It was rebuilt in 1751 and 1763.

There is an effigy to a horse who survived a battle and spent the rest of its days at the shine.

After exploring the temple we stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant that overlooked Tama Lake.

The next picture is of our dessert. It came with our meal and I do not know what it is but it was good. It had a texture similar to panna cotta. I took the picture because I thought it was pretty.

After lunch we explored the Tokorozawa Aviation Museum. It's a relatively tiny museum but it would be a good place to take young kids. They can climb in a lot of the cockpits and there is an interactive area as well.

Check out the mustache on this guy!

After the museum we decided to call it a day and headed home. It was not a bad day, especially given we had no plans when we left the house.