KANONJI, Kagawa Prefecture -- As I stood under the torii gate to Takaya Shrine located atop the 404-meter high Mt. Inazumi in Kanonji, Kagawa Prefecture, I enjoyed the panoramic view spread out before my eyes, from the city of Kanonji to as far as the sea of Hiuchinada in the Setouchi area. With nothing to interrupt the view, the scenery was just magnificent. I felt so refreshed.
The gate to the shrine is known as the Tenku-no-Torii (Gate of the Heavens), drawing an estimated 50,000 visitors a year. However, up until just a few years ago, it was a quiet, deserted place.
"When there was only one steep road of stone steps leading from the base of the mountain to the shrine, it took nearly an hour to reach on foot," recalled Mitsunori Morikawa, 80, a representative of the shrine parishioners.
Just going up the stone steps, carrying tools necessary for mowing, is a hardship. Morikawa and others pressed local public administrators, saying, "There are many elderly people among our parishioners, so we won't be able to maintain the shrine if things remain unchanged." A woodland path was opened in 2008, with the paved road passing through an area belonging to its neighboring city of Mitoyo and leading to a point close to the mountain top. In 2009, the dilapidated wooden torii was replaced with a new one made of granite.
A turning point for the shrine came in 2017, when the shrine gate was showcased on social media as a Gate of the Heavens. Word about the gateway spread quickly. Every weekend, the 20-car-capacity parking lot near the mountain top came to be filled with cars bearing license plates from throughout the Kansai region, including Osaka. The Kanonji municipal government, for its part, began a full-scale showcase of the torii in its tourist brochure.
"Recently, the number of foreign visitors, mainly from the mainland China and Taiwan, has increased. This was unthinkable 10 years ago," said Morikawa, amazed at social media's power to spread information. He also said with a smile, "Regardless of whether they are religious or not, we are thankful that the number of visitors to our shrine has increased."
However, the people in the local community seem to have lost their bearings now that their area has abruptly become a sightseeing spot. For instance, there is a woodland path so narrow that cars have difficulty passing each other. On weekends, there have been days with as many as nearly 100 cars coming through, causing chronic congestion and even accidents. Since last year, the municipal government began taking steps to deal with this congestion by mobilizing four traffic patrollers every day during the Golden Week holidays -- from late April to early May.
"In the city, there are many sightseeing spots, such as Kanonji temple, one of the pilgrimage sites of 88 temples associated with the Buddhist monk Kukai, and the Zenigata Sunae (coin-shaped sand drawing). We hope the Gate of the Heavens will encourage holidaymakers to seeing these spots as well," said Shinji Namikawa, 33, of the commerce, industry and tourism section of the city government.
Yet the local community is still worried about how to deal with traffic congestion near the mountain top. Some are calling for shuttle bus services that would run between the city center and the mountain top area.
Kanonji is a city that takes its name from one of the 88 temples of the pilgrimage. I hope the city government shows wisdom befitting Kukai, considered to be a "titan of knowledge."
Financial luck written in sand
Kanonji is located on a coastal area facing the Seto Inland Sea, in the west of Kagawa Prefecture. Being home to the temples of the 88 pilgrimage sites, it has thrived since ancient times. When I come to this city, I always feel like taking a tour of the huge, coin-shaped sand drawing created on the beach.
Measuring 122 meters long, 90 meters across, and two meters deep at its deepest point, the sand drawing was dug in a vertically oriented oval shape by human hands. As I looked at it from an observation platform set up at the nearby Kotohiki Park, I was able to read the inscription as "Kanei Tsuho," which was also inscribed on old coins circulated widely during the Edo period.
"It is said that those who see it [the drawing] once, will never be hard up for money for the rest of their life," said Eiko Katagiri, 68, curator of Sekai-no-Koin-kan (Museum of the world's coins), which opened in 1988 to commemorate the town famous for the coin-shaped sand drawing.
The city of Kanonji has come to be known as a holy place for raising people's financial luck, but it was in 2013 when that rumor became reality. The "incident" took place at a lottery ticket booth near JR Kanonji Station. In the Loto 7, a multiple figure-choice lottery, the first prize of 800 million yen -- the highest back then -- was drawn on as many as two units of the betting simultaneously, for the first time in the nation's history.
"A throng of people came from all over the country to buy lottery tickets here, sending the ticket booth into turmoil," said Masakiyo Fujiwara, 63, director of the tourism association of Kanonji.
Refreshing broth containing stock made from dried small sardines
Sanuki udon noodles are soul food for people in Kagawa Prefecture. Given that the city of Kanonji, off the coast of Ibukijima island is known as a production center of dried small sardines used for the noodle's stock liquid, it's only natural that it has a lot of udon noodle restaurants.
Yanagawa Udon, run by the Yanagawa noodle-making factory in Kanonji-cho, is a popular shop where locals walk through the doors as soon as the shop opens at 8 a.m. A shop staff said, "Dried small sardines made on Ibukijima island have a strong taste but light aroma, giving the stock a refreshing flavor."
I ordered a small bowl of kake udon -- a plain udon served with a hot broth made so that the flavor of its stock can be distinctly tasted -- for 330 yen. (The photo was specially taken with the dried small sardines spread all over the noodles.) The taste of soy sauce, together with the broth containing stock made from dried small sardines, kelp seaweed and dried bonito were well-balanced and matched well with the thin noodles. I had drained the bowl before I knew it.
The noodles and stock served at Yanagawa Udon are also sold at local supermarkets and available online.
Access route: A one-hour 20-minute flight from Haneda Airport to Takamatsu Airport. From there, it takes about an hour by car to get to the city center of Kanonji. From the city center, it is a 20-minute car ride to Tenku-no-Torii.
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