Happy New Year 2013!!
- January 6-2013
- Chikako Takemoto
- Green tour,Kyoto,Shrines,Travel
Happy New Year everyone!
How was your New Year’s holiday? Did you see the first sunrise of the year on the mountain?
I was in Kyoto on the New Year days and on the 2nd, January, I went up on Mt.Daiomonji which is the most popular mountain in Kyoto. (altitude 466m)
On two days of last year-end, I visited Mt.Konpira in the Kagawa Pref. to pray for a good fortune of the new year. That was the first visit to Shikoku Island for me, actually.
Have you ever been to Kagawa Pref. from the Kansai area?
It’s quite easy to go! If we take on ferry from Sannomiya in Hyogo.Pref., we can get Takamatsu, Kagawa for about 4 hours. Just take on ferry!
Speaking of Mt.Konpira, I went up the montain in the north part of Kyoto named Mt.Konpira last spring with GTK friends. Yeah! This is the same shrine of the main or real(!) Konpira in Kagawa. It’ said that one Emperor in the Edo era named one mountain in Kyoto which its sight looked close to Mt.Konpira and then Kyoto people believed the mountain has the same fortune as a real Konpira in Kagawa.
At the real Konpira, people have to go up on about thousand of stairs until they got the main building of shrine. When I went there then, many people tried hard to go up. And I looked the locals prepared some decorations on the stairs for the New Year.
In Kagawa, of course, eating udon noodle is the most fun of the travel. I had some kinds of udon from a simple style to with curry soup!
Another fun in Konpira was to see one thoroughbred which was a race horse a few years ago. I went up on hundreds of stairs to see him next day again.
It was a special fun for me who love horses and sometimes go to a race course to see them.
Next time, I want to visit another place in Shikoku Island such as Kochi, small islands on Setonaikai Sea. They look peaceful, quiet, so I can relax and make energy for some new challenges.