Miyazaki! Udo Jingu

I'll pick up where I left off telling you about our October trip to Miyazaki Prefecture. After spending the first night in misty Kirishima, we set off towards the Nichinan coast south of Miyazaki. Our plans for the day included seeing the famous Udo Jingu shrine and finding somewhere to stay for the night. A delicious bowl of soba warmed us at a road-house on our way.

Unfortunately, our trip coincided with a typhoon week and we didn't have one dry day. But the rain didn't steal any of the charm from Udo Jingu, a shrine we had known nothing about before going. I had seen it in the travel brochures we picked up and it looked like a nice stopover on our route. In fact, it turned out to be one of the most picturesque shrines we've visited in Japan. Located on an oceanside cliff, the grounds of this shrine offer incredible views out to sea.

It's a fair walk from the car park to the shrine, going up steep stairs, through a tunnel underpass, and up and down some more stairs. We were a little happy that it was raining rather than steamy summer heat as we walked over to the shrine.

The main building of the shrine is located inside a cave, which is as cool as it sounds. The rain outside added to the atmosphere inside the cave, water droplets falling from the ceiling as we circled the brightly painted structure.

Just outside the cave there is a booth selling ceramic pebbles, which visitors buy and try to land in a rope-marked target on a rock off the cliff.

We had to try (good fortune is promised for those who land a rock in the target, and throwing rocks looked like fun) but neither of us managed to land it. 残念！

We ended our day driving up to Nichinan and finding a great little seaside inn to say the night. We also had our first taste of real Miyazaki-style chicken nanban. And it was amazing! Now we were by the coast, Kam was itching to get out on the waves. We went to bed hoping the rain would ease off tomorrow so that we could enjoy the famous Miyazaki beaches.

x