March 31: Moving to Utsunomiya

Moving day again! We are moving to our 5th city and our 4th host family today. I hate to leave Nikko, it's so beautiful and I feel like I could spend a week here, not just one day. But alas, it's time and off we go to Utsunomiya!
Another rush-rush day. We arrived in Utsunomiya around noon and had lunch with some Rotarians at a hotel restaurant. It was the first buffet style meal I’ve had since arriving in Japan. It’s nice to know that it’s not just Americans that like all you can eat food!
After lunch we piled onto a bus and headed for the Oya-Kannon. We first stopped off at the home of one of the Rotary members – he owns one of the stone-making factories and gave each of us a beautiful vase made of stone. They are lovely, but could take us over the weight limit on the flight back to the US!!! We then stopped off at Oya-Kannon to see an amazing statue built shortly after WWII. It’s called the peace statue and is a female Buddha. The statue was in a park area that was stunning, but since it was cold we were happy to be rushed off to the next site – which turned out to be right across the street! This was the Oya-Kannon temple. It was an old oya-stone cave that had some Buddha’s carved into the wall that were nearly 1200 years old – amazing! Unfortunately, like most of the historic sites we visited, we were unable to take photographs. The temple featured a multi-armed Buddha that has links to Hinduism – as well as several other large and small Buddha’s in another room of the cavern. A temple has now been built around the opening of the cavern to both protect it from the climate changes as well as enable the owner to earn some money from tourists!
We then loaded back onto the bus and headed a few miles away to the Oya-Stone Museum. This is a museum that has a small room with artifacts – but is in fact a huge museum – once you enter the underground chamber! It was an underground stone mine that had a lot of steps – ouch! – and was stunning. It had caverns and huge rooms that are now occasionally used for concerts. I would love to have heard a concert in one of those rooms – it must sound wonderful in the cave. If we weren’t limited by the ropes and rules – it would have been fun to explore deeper into the caves as well.
Our final stop of the day was at the Tagesan Temple. This is a temple built upon the highest point in Utsunomiya. The temple itself is 160 steps on top of a hill – billowing flags flank the staircase leading up to the temple. The guide, a former chief named Ito-san gave us a tour. He is a charming man, very quick to smile. I was lucky enough to have dinner with him a few days later. He led us to the top where his son, the current chief, played a type of horn built out of a shell. He said it was his prayer for our happiness. Here’s hoping it works!
On the way down we passed a shrine with dozens of tiny babies carved out of stone or clay. Each was dressed in a scarf, many had hats and some even had baby bibs. I had seen many similar statues around Tochigi, but today I discovered that dressing statues in clothing is a way to honor babies who have died either shortly after birth or while still in the womb. So sad…