Buddha-licious

Hey, you remember that bike I bought last October?
I forgot about it too. Until recently it had been sitting next to my bed serving as an impromptu rack for drying clothes.

Well, just yesterday I pulled back out, pumped it up and hit the open road. Saturday turned to be the first beautiful day of what will be a great up and coming spring. In celebration of warmer weather, I head to Izumo, a city just west of Shinji. It's almost as big as Matsue, with almost as many tourist attractions, restaurants, facilities, etc., therefore I like to think of it as Matsue's "Shelbyville". (This is a Simpsons' reference) Shinji is caught in the middle and s therefore I get to experience the best of both cities, though really there is no rivalry of any sort.

Anywho, in Izumo I met up with a new acquaintance. Lisa is another Junior High english teacher working for a different company. She just so happened to bring her bike from the states and had the grand idea of small jaunt south of Izumo to explore a pretty cool Gorge.

Turned out I'd been to this gorge before but cycling there was great. Beautiful weather, blue skies, and old men and women out tending to their private gardens along the way made for pleasant pedaling. The gorge itself is pretty cool too. If you've ever seen old Japanese landscape water colored painting of jagged cliffs littered with pine trees, well thats what this place is reminiscent of.

In a certain section of gorge, there is a Buddhist temple set high off the river bank. Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines are common throughout the country. This particular temple was nothing special, at least to the untrained eye a.k.a. me. What's neat about living in Shimane, one of the least populated prefectures in Japan, is that most of the Shrines and Temples are in the middle of really peaceful settings. Surrounded by forests, overlooking rivers or just valleys they're very refreshing places to explore.

Outside the large stone steps of this particular temple, and along a large naked cliff wall were literally hundreds of what I'm gonna call "little Buddha's". They surrounded a couple tree's. All different sizes, with different expressions, some with the odd red doilies covering their heads or hung around their necks like baby bibs. It was an incredibly interesting little nook.

Across the river from the buddhas was a well placed onsen (hot spring) and after a nice relaxing soak in it, we were back on the bikes and headed back to town. It was a good ride to start the season and I'm ready to get some more miles under my belt with that bike...which is still nameless, give me a bit more time.