An unexpected surprise at the top of a mountain 🗻

November 11, 2023

I love the nature in Japan.

It's full of mountains which are great for hiking, and you can find lots of shrines and temples both at the bottom and deep in those mountains.

Here in Fukuoka, one of the tallest (if not, the tallest?) mountains is 宝満山ほうまんざん (Mt. Houman), which is located a bit of a walk behind 太宰府天満宮だざいふてんまんぐう (Dazaifu shrine).

Even if you don't like hiking, areas near mountains are worth visiting because you'll often find shrines and temples there.

This is true in Fukuoka, and I have experienced this in Kyoto as well.

Just looking at a map of Kyoto shows how many temples and shrines are all lined up at the foothills of the mountains surrounding the city, or straight up in the mountains themselves:

I drew stars next to all the temples and shrines near or in the mountains. Glad we leave the art to Chie

When looking at your map, just keep an eye out for the ⛩️ symbol which would indicate a shrine, and the 卍まんじ symbol which would indicate a temple.

By the way, this ⛩️ is called a 鳥居とりい (torii gate). If you see one, you'll know you're at a shrine, which is 神道しんとう (Shinto, lit. "path of the gods").

If you see a 卍まんじ, which is called a まんじ (manji) in Japanese, you'll know you're at an お寺てら (temple) which is Buddhist.

Anyway, temples and shrines are really fun to visit.

And after you go past 太宰府天満宮だざいふてんまんぐう, there's another shrine called 竈門かまど神社じんじゃ (Kamado Shrine), which for better or worse shares the same family name as the main character from 鬼滅きめつの刃やいば (Demon Slayer).

So all of the 絵馬えま (wooden prayer tablets) are covered in drawings from that show:

Anyway, hopefully visiting a bunch of cool shrines and such is a good enough reason to make your way to the foothills of mountains^^

But if you have the time and energy, climbing is also so much fun.

宝満山ほうまんざん is 829m (2719.82 feet) to the top. It's a whole lotta up. Depending on how fast you go, you can get to the top in about 2 or 2 and a half hours.

When I went with my friend who was way more on top of his cardio, we got there in an hour and 40 or so.

I thought he would kill me.

But it was great when we reached the top:

My friend standing on rocks at the peak

And something really cool happened while we were up there.

An older man came up to us and showed us this picture:

This picture shows the middle shrine there, which is probably located at around 600m or so.

If you look at the date in the top right corner, you'll see it says 1925.

This picture was from 98 years ago. When the shrine / 鳥居とりい (torii) was first built.

He told us the people in the picture were the people that built it. It is just so cool to see a piece of history from a completely random stranger at the top of a mountain.

I'm still excited about it as I write this.

We finished talking and he said goodbye and went down the path back to the base of the mountain.

Or so we thought.

Because we booked it back down the mountain expecting to see him again, and we didn't. And there was no way we didn't catch him.

He just… disappeared.

My friend and I are convinced to this day that we ran into the 神 (kami // deity) of the mountain. We have no idea where he could have gone.

Though, when we ran down the mountain we did take a second to take in the history that this shrine has been through in the last 98 years.

It doesn't quite look the same:

But there's still something absolutely beautiful about learning its past in the way we did.

This is probably a lifelong memory for both my friend and me ^^

The coolest part is, my friend is using NativShark to learn Japanese as well and we were both able to understand this person who took the time to tell us about this history.

It's things like this that make me happy that I learned Japanese.

Neither of us expected this to happen, but we know it wouldn't have been possible without the effort that we both put into learning Japanese.

It has me excited for my future journeys that would have otherwise been impossible.

And I hope many fun journeys lie down your path as well ^^

Make sure you're ready when the opportunity presents itself by pressing the Study Now button just like we still do all the time:

You need an account to press that button, by the way, so be sure to make yours for free here:

Imagine what cool experiences could be lying down your path if you commit a bit of time each day to learning Japanese

Anyway, I want to share sooooo many more pictures but I've probably already shared too many for a newsletter to begin with.

So come ask for them in the #newsletter channel in the community!!

I still want to share the pictures from all the shrines I visited, and the view of the other side at the top. Along with the shrine at the top. And the video of me panting when we reach the top and my friend being perfectly fine.

You can get me talking about this all day. So I'd love to continue the conversation there with whoever wants to join~

Weekly writing prompt:

You're at the top of a mountain and a random older man comes up and shows you pictures of the people who built the shrines at the top and the middle of the mountain while talking about its history. You react and/or ask…

Post your responses here and let's talk about them!

There's the other picture, from 110 years ago, that I didn't want to bog the email down with as well in that post ^^

Feel free to ask for help if you want to say something specific as well. Both myself and other learners will be in there offering advice and help~

Submit prompts you want to see here.

初詣はつもうで (first shrine visit of the year)

This is an important word to know that is also related to shrines!

Tons of people choose 太宰府天満宮だざいふてんまんぐう as we talked about above as their destination for their first shrine visit of the year.

Go check out this lesson for more information on things you might do on New Year's in Japan. It's quite different than the US, that's for sure.

If the above Japanese is difficult for you, all you need to do is keep hitting the Study Now button, and you'll understand it when you get there. Especially when using a study resource like NativShark, you'll be fine as long as you show up as much as you can. The above comes from a lesson in Phase Two, Unit 34.

NativShark goodie bag

New Units will be coming out in December ^^

Have you been through all of the 645 Units currently available, though? 👀

You know what to do:

If you have extra time and want to practice more, don't forget to…

…check out the native materials list or…
…take a stab at this week's writing prompt and improve your production skills!

The Konnichiwa Podcast

The Sayonara Podcast - Pt 1 - Spotify

Thanks for reading and good luck with your studies,
Ty & the NativShark team