Myosenji Temple – Odawara

I don’t know if it has been fully expressed or if most of you dear readers have noticed already, but a large part of this blog is not about the fantastic, but rather the details of Japan, the small things that you’d miss if you didn’t know about it, or the places, streets, back buildings and lesser known festivals you’d never visit as a casual tourist or even as a native of this great country. Tokyobling is as much about details and hidden places (although – hidden in plain view) as the grand, large, cool and fantastic. Take this post for example. Who in their right mind, with a blog that received thousands of visitors every day, would blog about a small temple in a suburb that no one ever visits in a small town that hardly draws the big crowds? Tokyobling – that’s who! Your purveyor of the ordinary!

Myosenji is a very local temple that is happily advertising their main business – the leasing of funeral plots and funeral services (which is true of most local Buddhist temples in Japan), hardly marked out even on local maps and absolutely not on anything a tourist might ever look out. For some reason I was drawn to it, certain that there must be something interesting if only I looked hard enough. Sure, the temple is above-average in terms of grooming and quite well kept. There is even an interesting tombstone commemorating the war dead of the Imperial Army Artillery! Not a common find at all! The mausoleum next to it is built to correspond to the large tree giving the roof an interesting shape. But even that is not enough to warrant a Tokyobling post, until you take a closer look at the Buddhist statuary (the usual demons and guardians protecting the entrance to heaven and hell), and beyond that, to the small granite guardian statues of… Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Hello Kitty. Did I miss a hidden Buddhist meaning in the works of Sanrio and Disney? Who know. Still, I’m glad I found it, and glad I could show it to you, because in a million years, I promise that no readers of this blog would ever chance to pay a visit to the beautiful little secret that is Myosenji, in Odawara City, Kangawa Prefecture, Japan.

Besides, it is really close to the beach. Enjoy!