Maki Shrine on Phoenix St. in Fukui

White flag and orange lantern under the blue sky

Takako Sakamoto Oct 18, 2014 - 1 min read

<p>Brilliant orange lantern at Maki Shrine under the blue sky</p>

<p>Looking up at the torii gate of Maki Shrine and tall pine trees standing beside it</p>

<p>Maki Shrine viewed from a side street</p>

<p>Tall white flag of Maki Shrine fluttering in the wind standing high in the blue sky</p>

<p>Water purification font of Maki Shrine...the statue on it looks like something I saw before somewhere...</p>

<p>Ah! It's a dragon head, but doesn't it somehow look like the fortune teller machine called 'Zoltar' in the old Hollywood movie 'Big' starring Tom Hanks?</p>

<p>Long shadow of tall trees on the temple grounds under the late afternoon sun</p>

<p>Orange paper lanterns inside the shrine premises</p>

<p>Statue of sacred horse standing high on the shrine grounds</p>

<p>Guardian dog statue barking to the blue sky</p>

<p>Looking up at the small prayer hall</p>

<p>Main hall (in front), the prayer hall, and a tall pine tree reaching high up into the blue sky</p>

<p>This guardian dog has a horn in his head!</p>

<p>A stone monument of the Great Fukui Earthquake which hit Fukui city in 1948</p>

<p>Sky-high pine trees and the torii gate viewed from Phoenix Street of Fukui city</p>

<p>These trees are amazingly thin but tall, how could they be?</p>

When I was driving back home from Taicho-ji Temple in Fukui city, which is a mere six kilometers away from my place, I spotted a tall white flag fluttering in the wind on Phoenix Street. Intrigued, I slowed down my car and found it was a shrine. Since the white flag and the paper orange lanterns there looked so beautiful, I made a U-turn and decided to explore it. The shrine is called, 'Maki Shrine', or it could also be called, 'Make Shrine', but I couldn't find any other information about it because it's not even on the Internet list of the Fukui Shrines Agency! However, there is a fairly famous shrine called, 'Maki (Make) Shrine' in Echizen city, so it must be related to it somehow. Anyway, it was a beautiful addition to my exploration of the day!

Takako Sakamoto @takako.sakamoto

I was born in and grew up in Tokushima prefecture, and have lived in many places since then: Nishinomiya, Kyoto, Nara, Mie, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Fukuoka and Fukui. I am currently living in Yokohama City. All the places I lived, all the places I visited, I have loved dearly. The histor...