Cat Island and Grand Shrines. Miyagi Adventures!

4/8/2017

On this weekend my friend Cormac came out to Minamisoma instead of having me travel out to Fukushima City.

Cormac arrived Friday evening and when I picked him up from the bus station I saw some event was going on at Yamanote Park. So we stopped and walked around for a few minutes. The trees were illuminated with green lights, but also had red lanterns hanging from the branches.

 My photos don’t do the view justice. It was really pretty. When we arrived the food and gaming stalls were just finishing packing up. I don’t know the reason for the festival, but my best guess is that it was for hanami.

We snapped a few pictures of the trees and these fish wind-socks and went out to eat at Bar Wizard. I love this place. It has fabulous anchovy fries. If you are in the area, eat them. After that we went home and got a good night’s sleep so we could be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the following morning.

The plan for this week was to go to Cat Island off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. We drove the nearly two hours on the expressway, and bought some squid snacks along the way to feed to the cats.

The island is called Tashirojima, and it is famous for having cats outnumber people. The island has two “towns” on it, and use that term loosely because they are both so small, and the island is so small that I would consider them to be the same town, but oh well, I don’t own it. The island is considered a “terminal town” where a certain percentage of the population is over 60 years old. This means that no, or very few children, are being born in the town, so there is not any expectation for growth unless young people start moving there. So the government stops putting money into it and basically waits for the area to die.

To get to Cat Island you have to get to Ishinomaki and take a ~40 minute ferry ride to the island.

A stained glass window that was on the ferry to Tashirojima.

 While we were on the ferry there was a family feeding corn chips to the seagulls, so we had a whole flock of seagulls following the ferry and waiting for them to throw food.

The birds were really good at catching the chips thrown at them, but as time went on the birds got braver and would snatch the chips from your outstretched hand. It was pretty entertaining and it made the ferry ride feel a lot shorter.

When we arrived at the island there was, understandably, cat paraphernalia and pictures everywhere.

There were a few cats waiting for visitors right when we got off the ferry onto the docks, but a lot of people were crowding around them so Cormac and I left them alone to go see some other cats on the island.

 

We walked past these sleepy kitties on the docks near the town center.

We decided our first stop should be the Cat shrine on top of the mountain in the center of the island.

We walked about twenty minutes before we reached the shrine and didn’t see a single cat on the road. When we did reach the shrine there was a black cat hanging out.

We pulled out our bag of squid snacks and gave him a few while we pet him. He was mostly disinterested with company, but he played along in order to get the treats.

The cat shrine was erected to honor a beloved cat who died on the island a long time ago. Now there are painted stones, cat figures and various other cat decorations adorning the shrine.

We walked on and saw this cat snoozing in the grass.

When we passed it started meowing and started walking towards us for attention. We gave it a squid snack and pet it for a minute before it returned to his soft patch of grass to continue napping. It was so cute!

We saw more cats along the roads, especially when we started getting closer to the town center. One thing we realized was that a lot of these cats were sick and injured. They breathed like they had respiratory problems and a lot of them had missing eyes and scars. It is a sad truth when you get so many cats together, I guess.

One thing that was also apparent was just how many of the building in the town were completely abandoned. There seemed to be a few hundred buildings in the main town, but 99% of them were abandoned and falling to ruin.

Most of them were home to the cats. They had the doors nailed in place with only small openings big enough for the cats. I found this out when I tried to open a door and look inside a building. I could peek through the small space, and I saw boxes, blankets and food dishes.  I was also hit with the overwhelming smell of ammonia, so I didn’t peek through any more doors. These buildings belonged to the cats, now.

There were a few buildings that used to be shops, but they were all shuttered up now. There was one shop on the island, but they don’t sell much. They don’t sell souvenirs, or cat treats or anything. I don’t even remember what they do sell. It was so insignificant. I think was one type of cat toy. A fluffy bob on the end of a stick. I found one on the ground though, so I didn’t buy one. Not that I would have anyways…

One of the grumpiest cats I have ever seen.

This cat was having none of my shit.

This cat wrestled a bag away from a woman cuz he could smell the treats inside.

On the way back to the ferry we passed a small Buddhist temple with some Kannon-sama statues on it and some old grave markers.

There is another shrine on the island, and it is not too far from the port, just about an eight minute walk, but we didn’t have enough time to go check it out before the ferry left, so we went back to the docks to await the ferry.

When we got on, there were a lot more leaving the island than there were when we arrived. Most people sat in the seats inside the ferry and not out on the top outside, the family that was feeding the seagulls chips, included. But Mac and I sat outside in the wind. It was cold and windy, but it was really nice.

We got back to Ishinomaki and started driving back to Minamisoma. On the way back we saw one of the weirdest looking trees I've ever seen.

I mean just look at this thing!

And of course such a strange looking tree would have a shrine at the base of it.

Mac was getting hungry so we stopped at a Big Boy chain burger place. I was excited to eat a cheeseburger, but I soon found that in Japan, Big Boy doesn’t serve your typical burgers, instead they sell hamburgs, which are basically just a burger patty with some sauces on top. You eat them much like you would eat a steak. I was disappointed, but it was close enough. It was tasty, and it had an unlimited drink bar.

This is the manhole cover for Ishinomaki city.

On the way back we decided to skip the expressway and save some money. This would allow us to see the scenery and stop along the way.

We drove through a town called Matsushima, which is famous for having one of the “three most beautiful views in Japan” the Matsushima Pine Islands. If I had remembered that, I would have stopped and looked, but I had forgotten so we didn’t.

Instead we stopped at a Shinto shrine that we passed called Murasaki Shrine. It had a torii gate visible from the road and I could see a long staircase going up the hill. I stopped at it because I also saw a Buddhist bell on the hill in front of the shrine which made me a bit confused.

When we got out of the car the clock struck 5:00 p.m. and the town song started playing on some speakers nearby.

There was this cute little shrine at the bottom of the mountain next to the staircase.

We climbed the staircase, and made our way to the top. The railings on the steps were painted red, a color most often associated with Shinto shrines. The temple when we got to the top was also painted red, again usually the case with Shinto shrines.

The thing that was weird though, was the big Buddhist bell at the top near the Shinto Shrine. Now, you usually don’t see the Bells at Shinto shrines, they are usually at Buddhist temples.

This is the main reason I stopped in the first place and I thought it was so strange and unique. Buddhist temples often have smaller Shinto shrines on the grounds (an attempt to get the Japanese people to accept Buddhism in the beginning, which worked. You’re much more likely to get people to accept your new religion if you ease them into it rather than force them or attempt to destroy the current religion.) But I hadn’t seen this particular mixing of the religions before.

We drove on through the city of Shiogama, when Mac, who was navigating with Google maps, told me that he saw something that might be pretty cool, so he directed me to our next destination, the Shiogama Jinja Romon.

This is a great Shinto Shrine complex that is said to house the gods of the Tohoku region. It is made of many buildings, fifteen of which have been designated Important Cultural Properties by Japan.
We parked the car and started for the entrance, when I turned the corner and saw this AMAZING staircase ascending before me! My jaw dropped to the floor and I just stood there filled with so much awe. It was such a beautiful sight.

We climbed the steps and we were both pretty tired by the time we reached the top. Halfway up there were these beautiful metal lanterns with Komainu on them, as well as komainu next to the lanterns. A couple of them were pretty goofy-looking.

We finally reached the top and we were greeted with this view.

Everywhere you looked was a beautiful building or lantern. I was impressed with how beautiful it was. The caretakers were doing such a good job with the upkeep! Sadly, a few of the buildings were surrounded by scaffolding for some reason, but it was still beautiful!

I saw a few priests and priestesses running around the grounds and I was able to snap a few pictures.

I saw these cool statues:

I also saw this unique way to display ema. They were hanging in clusters by strings from the roof. I had never seen ema displayed this way before.

We continued wandering around the grounds. The sun was setting, so our pictures, I think turned out better with the fading light and the blue hues. There was a beautiful garden between the shrines proper, and another set of buildings that I think is where the priests and priestesses live, but I am not 100% sure about that.

I saw a bunch of priests and priestesses wearing all white. I had never seen them wear that color before so I snapped a few pictures. Two of the priestesses saw me snap my photos and they were excited to see foreigners and try out their English.

For how big and beautiful this shrine is, it is really not too popular with tourists. I think that should change, because it is honestly one of the most beautiful shines I have ever been to. They ran over to us and started talking. They were super sweet and so excited! They wanted to take a real picture with me. After that we talked with them for a few minutes. Then they ran to catch up with their friends.

There was another building next to the gardens that had some large anchors, a harpoon gun, some harpoons and a hug whale skull! I don’t know why they were here (the shrine grounds also featured a few anchors dotted around,) but it was pretty neat.

Master of photobombs!

It was starting to get really dark now, so we snapped our final photos and made our way back to the car.

From here we drove back to Minamisoma in the dark. When we got home it was a little after 8 pm. We put on Moonrise Kingdom on Netflix and watched that before we retired for the night. It is such a cute movie, I totally recommend it!