Exploring North Yokohama: Sosoji Temple

Sosoji is the head temple of the Buddhist's Soto sect which relocated to Yokohama from Ishikawa Prefecture exactly one hundred years ago, making this is a special centennial year for the temple.

The path across the grounds rises ever so slowly toward an enormous marble Kannon statue.  The main temple is to the Goddess of Mercy's left (and our right).  But we head left first to examine the interesting building on her right which is fronted by an enormous rose garden that should be quite glorious in another month or so.

There's an interesting character adorning each end of the roof's peak. (I have settled on the word 'character' after blowing the better part of a morning exploring on-line architectural dictionaries in order to rule out erroneous terms like corbel, cresting, and gargoyle.  Later I will add a hefty Japanese architecture tome to my Amazon wish list and eventually get around to reading it.  Years from now I'll come back here and insert the proper term in this paragraph.  Because accuracy matters.  And because better late than never.)

Accuracy also apparently matters to this elderly artist. A glimpse of him is what turned my feet left at that Kannon statue. Amateur artists are as ubiquitous as manga in Japan. What is it about this culture that keeps the sketchbook industry in business? Why have I never seen anyone sketching my historic hometown church when I can't remember the last time I've visited a shrine, temple, or garden in Japan without stumbling over an artist or two? Is there something I can do personally (outside of planting myself on the corner of Ganson and Mechanic with a pencil and sketchbook) to export this concept to the United States?

Entering the main temple at last, we are thrilled to see a ceremony is taking place. Ishii-san thinks it is a traditional ceremony for students who are starting high school because dozens of young teenagers in dark blue uniforms are kneeling on the tatami mats just inside the railing. Scores of monks with shaved skulls, chanting in unison, flank the altar. Most are wearing brown robes but some are in muted saffron or orange.

It is quite lovely but we have spent an hour at Sosoji and have miles to go before we eat so we pull out our map, turn our heads in the four directions of the compass, scratch our heads, and finally break down and ask a young stroller-pushing father to point us toward our next destination, Mitsuike Park. He tells us to walk through the temple's cemetery. When Ishii-san verifies his directions with a lady at the cemetery entrance, she learns that a famous actor is buried in the cemetery.

I sense a detour in our immediate future.