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| Crest of the Miura Clan |
A former Imperial Japanese military acoustic location station, a long disused and increasingly decrepit sentinel from the wartime years, still sits in Tokyo Bay's Uraga Channel near the Kannonzaki Lighthouse here.
The station, built in 1937 to detect submarines, is about 10 meters off the shore on the eastern tip of the Miura Peninsula. The closest land is managed by the ministries of defense and finance, adjacent to Kannonzaki Park. The concrete oval structure rises about 5 meters above the sea's surface. Many spots on its outer wall have crumbled under the steady toll of wind and waves, exposing rusting reinforcing steel.
It was breathtaking to see this relic of war soaked in the midsummer afternoon sun, framed by the blue sky and blue sea.
According to a history book compiled by the Yokosuka Municipal Government and published in 2012, the former Imperial Japanese armed forces began fortifying Tokyo Bay in the Meiji era (1868-1912), building artillery batteries at the bay's mouth along both the Miura Peninsula to the west and Cape Futtsu in Chiba Prefecture to the east. The military built the acoustic location station in 1937 to catch the sound of enemy submarines accessing the bay, but it never entirely fulfilled its function.
The Ministry of Finance, which inherited the station from the former military, says it has no plans to make the facility a public relic of war because of its aged condition and location in the sea.
But as a witness to history, the facility's condition -- deteriorating without repair or conservation work -- is proof of the fact that this place was at war until 76 years ago.
There are temples all over Japan, and in just about all of them you’ll find some sort of Buddhist sculpture or painting. What are much rarer, though, are magaibutsu, or giant Buddhist images carved into mountain rock walls.
However, we recently heard about a magaibutsu on a mountaintop not far from Tokyo, and so we went to see it for ourselves.
The carving is located in the town of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, about 45 minutes south of downtown Tokyo. Getting off the train at Keikyu Oppama Station, we made our way to Takatoriyama Park, where a sign labeled magaibutsu (磨崖仏) pointed us in the way of the statue.
The “yama” part of Takatoriyama means “mountain,” but with the elevation at the peak being just 139 meters (456 feet), experienced alpinists might scoff at the name as an exaggeration. The path gets very steep in parts, though, and it’s not a straight shot to the top either, as it rises and falls repeatedly as it winds its way towards the peak.
As you leave the sounds and crowds of the lower parts of the park behind and below, the paved path intermittently gives way to soil and grass.
While the hiking course isn’t treacherous, it’s a comprehensive workout for the legs, as it continues to undulate on its eventual ascent.
After about 10 minutes, we came to a bend in the trail…
…and once we came around it, we saw what we’d come for: the magaibutsu.
Looming above us and framed by lush greenery was a carved statue of bodhisattva Miroku Bosatsu, also known as Maitreya. The eight-meter (26.2-foot) tall carving shows influences from the Gandhara art style that mixes Asian and western aesthetics, and Miroku Bosatsu’s kind and serene expression had a calming effect on us as we gazed up at it.
As we mentioned earlier, these kinds of statues aren’t particularly common in Japan, and many of the ones that do exist were made in the late Heian period (which ended in 1185) or Kamakura period (1185-1333). Standing there in the clearing alone with the magaibutsu, it did feel like we’d discovered an ancient artifact, but it turns out that the statue is remarkably new, having been created by a local artisan in 1965, who spent a full year carving it.
But what it lacks in physical age, it makes up for in significance as a symbol that Japan’s present is still connected to its past, and we’re glad we took the time to visit one of the country’s newest magaibutsu.
Listen to the song here:
Yokosuka's Port Market is currently undergoing renovation .... here is an update:
Scheduled to reopen in May 2022 .... It is a public-private venture which, in 2013, converted a refrigerated warehouse and created a market area where various local food-related business set-up stores...
DVIDS - News - Historic landmark reconstructed as heritage museum (dvidshub.net)
YOKOSUKA, Japan – For some people, the idea of building a house is a simple one. Hire an architect, choose and approve plans and then hire someone to build it. The tricky part comes when a house is no longer needed, particularly if it’s more than a hundred years old and has historic and cultural value. For Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka (CFAY), this was an actual scenario at the turn of the 21st Century.
Located on a hill directly across from Afloat Training Group West and behind the CPO Club stood a house built at the inception of the naval base itself. A sizable house by Japanese standards, the wood frame structure was constructed in 1869 for deputy director Jules César Claude Thibaudier, a 29-year-old French maritime engineer. Thibaudier had been hired to assist François Léonce Verny, also a maritime engineer, in the building of Yokosuka Iron Works, which would later become CFAY when it was turned over to the U.S. Navy in 1945.
Find, connect, feel.
New Yokosuka.
What is Yokosuka Route Museum? The historical and cultural attractions and nature-rich spots scattered around Yokosuka from the opening of the country to the modern era are called "satellite". By connecting them with a "route", the entire city was regarded as a large "museum". This is a new way to enjoy Yokosuka.
Link: Yokosuka Route Museum ｜ The museum you make
At the linked webpage ....
The Yokosuka Route Museum classifies the history, cultural highlights, and nature-rich spots scattered around Yokosuka from the opening of the country to the modern era into 11 themes.
1. Opening of a country
2. Modern architecture
3. Photo spot
4. Flower tour
5. Experience
6. Great man
7. Brick
8. Army
9. Navy
10. Technology
11. Japan heritage
More information here:
Yokosuka Route Museum - Guidoor
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| Old naval dry docks -- still in use |
Link: Japan Heritage Site Guide (cocoyoko.net)
At the link, an interesting line-up of historical buildings and other structures in Yokosuka.
For example, inside the U.S. Navy base, right inside the main gate, are a couple of buildings on what is called "Command Hill", which date back to the Japanese Imperial Navy Days...
-- Building "C-1"
This is the former headquarters building of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) that administered the First Naval District. The headquarters building was constructed from brick, but later destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. It was rebuilt in 1926 with a steel structure. The building was at the forefront of earthquake-proof design and displayed the advanced techniques of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the time.
-- Building "C-2:
This two-story steel building was constructed in 1934 and was affiliated with the IJN Naval Headquarters. It was very ornate for a building constructed following the Great Kanto Earthquake and the nameplates for the IJN Auditorium and the Ship Control Administration Building are still preserved at the entrance.
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| Building C-2 |
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| Building C-1 |
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| (Yokosuka's tunnels marked in in blue) |
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2010/08/08/general/roads-to-nowhere-lead-to-past-times/
On a scorching hot day in late June, some 20 tourists were gazing at the fenced-off entrance of an abandoned tunnel named Taura Zuido (Taura Tunnel) in the Kanagawa Prefecture port city of Yokosuka.
Yoshiyuki Hiranuma, who was guiding that “Old Tunnels of Yokosuka” tour, explained that the Taura Zuido tunnel is 80 meters long and was constructed by local volunteers in 1893 as a shortcut for workers at a munitions factory.
“It was used until 1923, when a new and bigger tunnel was made,” Hiranuma, an authority on abandoned roads and tunnels, told the group.
“It is said that when the authorities constructed the new tunnel, they made sure it was high and wide enough for tanks to go through.”
Conjuring up not only history but past lives, too, Hiranuma went on to explain that Yokosuka has more than 150 tunnels because it has many hills and valleys. Since late in the Meiji Era (1868-1912), when a military port was constructed there, he outlined how the city developed into a major naval base, with many of its tunnels built to house and transport munitions and other military materials — some, like Taura Zuido, by volunteer local labor.
The members of the tour organized by East Japan Railway Co. were clearly fascinated by what Hiranuma was telling them, and some appeared lost in a reverie of times past.
Indeed, one of those on the tour, Takao Takagi from Hayama in Kanagawa Prefecture, looked so excited as he explained, “This way I can see many tunnels that I cannot visit just as an individual. This kind of tour is very rare and it is so intriguing.”
The tour guide Hiranuma, who is a freelance writer and photographer specializing in abandoned roads, explained that tunnels exhibit a great diversity of designs, construction methods and purposes, and that this is just part of their appeal he hopes more people will become interested in.
Since 2004, Hiranuma has been posting pictures and reports on abandoned roads, tunnels and bridges in eastern Japan on his Web site at yamaiga.com, which typically logs around 7,000 views a day. He also coauthored a series of books titled “Haido wo Yuku” (“Traveling Obsolete Roads”), which has so far sold a very healthy 60,000 copies.
No doubt many of the 60-strong audience who turned up to hear a lecture Hiranuma gave at a bookstore in Chiba in mid-June had bought those books. In his talk, the author defined what are haido (obsolete roads) and discussed how many of them came about.
“Generally, when a new and more convenient road has been constructed, fewer people will use the old road rather than the new one,” Hiranuma said. “But because it takes money to maintain a road, those responsible for the old one will often stop spending on it. Then it falls into disrepair and may well just be abandoned.”
Until the end of the Edo Period (1603-1867), very few wheeled vehicles were used in Japan, but in the rapidly modernizing Meiji Era that followed, horse-drawn carriages and wagons mimicking those in use in the West were gradually introduced — and they required new roads on which to run.
But by the time the Showa Emperor (Hirohito) took the throne in 1926, Hiranuma explained, those roads made for horse-drawn vehicles were becoming obsolete in Japan’s dawning automobile age. Consequently, enthusiasts can still find those old tracks and lanes on which horses provided the only horsepower there was.
However, it’s not just changing means of transport that can lead to roads becoming disused, Hiranuma pointed out — explaining that natural disasters and depopulation can also make that happen.
In his PowerPoint presentation to highlight the attractions of such forgotten byways, Hiranuma showed a picture of one of those Meiji Era roads he had talked about, commenting, “Look at this road with its stone fence, it’s so beautiful and elegant.”
Then he showed photos of bridges on such routes that have fallen into disuse as well, poignantly noting, “Obsolete roads, and bridges especially, let us feel sorrow.”
Indeed, it is the pathos and the beauty of abandoned roads that seemed to be their key appeal to the 32-year-old freelance writer — though he insisted those weren’t the only reasons he loved to seek out remote routes now largely grassed over.
“I have a mission to record the old abandoned roads by taking pictures of them and writing about them,” he said, citing as his driving force the comments about his photos that viewers of his Web site report. Typical of those comments, he said, “was one that said, ‘I used to walk on this road decades ago.’ ”
“When I get such reactions, I feel I am rewarded,” he said.
However, he also felt obliged to remind his audience that exploring old, abandoned roadways can be a dangerous pastime.
In particular, he reminded those who would follow in his footsteps that out there in the often long grass may lurk not only sharp leaves and spiky plants, but also mosquitoes and leeches. Then there can be falling rocks and sometimes even bears to watch out for, too.
Despite all that, though, Hiranuma concluded by confessing that he loves to explore abandoned roads . . . both for the adventure and to keep knowledge of them alive.
A poster in the Wakamatsu bar district advertising a special local cocktail called "Brassier" .... Pronounced in Japanese as: BURA JIA .... The BURA = BURANDI (Brandy) and JIA = JINJA E-RU (Ginger Ale) .... So, there you go .... Try the mixture and see if you like Yokosuka's famous cocktail
https://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/documents/51230/220_wakamatsumarket.pdf
Wakamatsu Market is a minuteʼs walk from Yokosuka-Chuo Station. It is a retro drinking town with around 70 shops such as bars, snack bars, izakayas (Japanese style pubs), and restaurants lined up. Its defining features are the numerous mysterious and fascinating neon signs and paper lanterns hung all around, giving off the scent of the Showa era.
Since you came all the way to Yokosuka, why donʼt you enjoy talking to some bar owners/bartenders while drinking delicious sake (alcohol)? The famous “Yokosuka Brassiere” is a special cocktail that was born in Wakamatsu Market. It is made from brandy and ginger ale. Since the flavor is different from store to store, you may also enjoy comparing each storeʼs unique taste.
Yokosuka City hosted the 64th Verny-Oguri Memorial Ceremony at Yokosuka’s Verny Park, Nov. 15, 2015. This year also marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of Yokosuka Iron Works, the earliest ancestor of U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility and Japan Regional Maintenance Center (SRF-JRMC). The facility was the first Japanese steam-powered modernized factory established during the Edo-Meiji transition era 150 years ago.
The celebration honored a Japanese samurai, Kozukenosuke (Tadamasa) Oguri and French engineer François Léonce Verny who contributed to the building of Yokosuka Iron Works, which was later called Yokosuka Shipyard and in turn became Yokosuka Arsenal for Japan in 1903. In this regard, Yokosuka Iron Works is the father to Tomioka Silk Mill built in 1872 which was registered as a World Heritage site in 2014.
Important and honored guests included Japanese Princess Takamado; Thierry Dana, Ambassador from France to Japan; Miki Yamada, Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs; François Cuillandre, Mayor of Brest, France (Sister City of Yokosuka); Yuto Yoshida, Mayor of Yokosuka, and from the U.S. Navy, Vice Adm. Joseph P. Aucoin, Commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet; Rear Adm. Matthew J. Carter, Commander U.S. Naval Forces Japan; Capt. David T. Glenister, Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka; Capt. Garrett Farman, Yokosuka Ship Repair Facility (SRF-JRMC), commanding officer, and Capt. Glen Crawford, United States Naval Hospital (USNH) Yokosuka, commanding officer. Other guests included representatives from Japan’s national, prefectural and municipal offices and executives from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.
The factory complex, with a modernized system of salary plan, working hours, weekends and employees’ health management, laid a foundation for Japan’s modernization. The facility boasted about 1,000 workers unlike any Japanese factories seen at the time. In this era of manufacturing, most Japanese factories had about 10 or less workers far removed from modernization.
The original Japanese name of the facility, Yokosuka Seitetsu-jo means “producing iron.” “Seitetsu” in a true sense of the Japanese at the time, however, connoted broader meanings including all the industrial processes with iron. In fact, the Iron Works was a large comprehensive factory of different shops which processed pig iron into range of iron products, such as pipes, cans, ship engines, boilers, shafts, gun mounts and ordnance parts.
Lord Kozukenosuke (Tadamasa) Oguri was a Japanese samurai who served for Tokugawa Shogunate as a Magistrate of Finance and he played a leading role in modernizing Japan. His proposal to build a shipyard within Japan’s mainland was based on an increasing demand to repair many foreign-built ships Japan had already bought from the Western countries. Since Japan didn’t have large ship facilities to repair the Western-made ships with cutting-edge technology, ships that were significantly damaged had to travel to Shanghai, China, or Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies (present Indonesia) for repairs.
French engineer François Léonce Verny was commissioned to the construction of Yokosuka Iron Works in 1865. He studied at Paris’s prestigious science and engineering university, the Ècole Polytechnique, and majored in naval architecture and engineering at the Institute for Applied Maritime Science. When the Edo Shogunate requested support from French Minster Léon Roches to build a full-scale factory for shipbuilding, the French government, which was a little behind in expanding to the East, happily accepted the request and commissioned the task to Verny who then had finished a job of shipbuilding in Shanghai, China.
Starting in 1853, American Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry paid several visits to Japan that led to the opening of Japan’s ports to the U.S. vessels. The first treaty between the U.S. and Japan Shogunate, the Treaty of Peace and Amity (or Treaty of Kanagawa) was concluded in 1854. Considering the circumstances surrounding Asia — such as aggressive colonialism of the British Empire epitomized in the Second Opium War — Japan accepted America’s request to make a stronger bond with the U.S. and went on to sign the Treaties of Amity and Commerce in 1858. In order to exchange the treaty’s instruments of ratification, Japan’s delegation to San Francisco was deployed in 1860. Among the Japanese representatives on USS Powhatan to the U.S. was Oguri who acted as an inspector/censor for the exchange. The delegates visited the White House, met the President of the United States James Buchanan, and exchanged documents. During his stay in the U.S., he visited Washington Navy Yard, and his impression there greatly influenced his idea of building a comprehensive steam powered iron-processing factory in Japan.
The fact, that Oguri was a harbinger of the advanced Japan is barely known even among Japanese. In the light of popularity, Japanese history textbooks tend to make space for such historical figures as Kaishu Katsu or John Manjiro who, however, just went along with Oguri on an escort ship Kanrin Maru at the time of ramification exchange. The Dutch-built ship was the first steam-powered, screw-driven Japanese Naval ship Japan had acquired.
During the turmoil of political transition, Oguri, who had already resigned from the Edo Shogunate, sought reclusion in the present Gunma prefecture. Following Shogun Yoshinobu’s return of political power to the Emperor and Yoshinobu’s refusal to fight against the new government, Oguri might have lived a peaceful life in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, however, he was charged and hunted down for treason by the new military. Since then, Oguri has been given a bad name in Japanese history, and his spirit of enterprise and contribution to Japan’s modernization have been hardly recognized.
Hakuseki Inari Shrine, lined with red and white torii gates, constructs a beautiful harmony with the temple grounds filled with flowers and a tunnel of torii gates and the surrounding mountains. In 1966, the temple enshrined the spirit of the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto. Rows of more than 50 torii gates are rare on the Miura Peninsula.
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Somewhere off the beaten path… well off the beaten path… lie the remains of a dilapidated Inari shrine nestled within the hills near the Yokosuka Base. This hidden gem is known as Fushimi Hakuseki Inari Shrine and located about as far off the beaten path as one can wander. In fact, the shrine is so secluded that it doesn’t even have a specific address! While I honestly don’t expect any traveler to Japan to actually consider visiting, the shrine has long since been on my to-do list ever since seeing this RocketNews24 article in 2016. So, indulge me a bit here!
From what I can gather, this shrine was originally constructed sometime during the early years of the Showa period (1926–1989). Fushimi Hakuseki Inari Shrine is located in the middle of an extremely quiet little neighborhood and still used by the locals today despite its shambled appearance. Much like with the parent shrine in Kyoto, Fushimi Hakuseki Inari Shrine sports numerous vermilion torii gates and is dedicated to the same deity. Other than this however, this is little background information available for this secluded shrine.
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Fushimi Hakuseki Inari Shrine (伏見白赤稲荷神社) is a shrine located in the mountain area of Yokosuka. It is famous for over a hundred of red torii lining up. As you can probably guess, this shrine is a spin-off of the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) in Kyoto, and the enshrined god is Inari no kami (稲荷神) who is a god of foods. You have to climb up a little hill to reach the shrine, so make sure to wear outfits that are comfortable to move around.
Fushimi Hakuseki Inari Shrine (伏見白赤稲荷神社) | Seriously Local Japan (seriously-local.com)
In Sarushima, Kasuga-sha, which is said to have received the divided tutelary deity from Kasuga-taisha shrine in Nara during the Heian period, has been enshrined.
In the old days the southern end of the island was in the precincts.
The open space on the southeastern end of the island is one of the places considered to be the ruins of the Kasuga-sha of the Edo period.
There is a great observation point with a wonderful view towards Kannonzaki.
The island became a military site due to the construction of the battery, and in 1884, the shrine was relocated to Miharu-cho in Yokosuka.
Yokosuka is the port city on Tokyo Bay where the “black ships” of the United States, commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry, first landed in Japan and forced an end to hundreds of years of self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world.
During Japan’s amazing industrial transformation, this city of 430,000, located 50 kilometers from Tokyo, became a center for steel, shipbuilding, automobiles and other heavy industries as well as a Japanese navy base.
In 1972, Yokosuka reached a turning point with the establishment of a new Nippon Telephone & Telegraph R&D center in the city. First-class researchers were dispatched from major Japanese telecom equipment manufacturers to the new center in order to work on advanced telecom technology.
The success in attracting NTT caused the city government to investigate the concept of basing future economic development on “info-communications,” a term coined by the Japanese to describe the merging of information and telecommunications technologies. The city published its Yokosuka Intelligent City Plan in 1986, subsequently gained the support of the powerful Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, and in 1998, announced the creation of the Yokosuka Research Park (YRP).
Like Stanford University Park in Silicon Valley or Sophia Antipolis in France, the concept of YRP was to create an international research development base for the world’s most advanced ICT technology.
Today, the Park houses 6,000 research workers, many from overseas, and offers subsidized rental costs to attract new research enterprises such as the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. All workers have access to broadband at speeds of up to 100 Mbps, nearly 400 times faster than typical consumer broadband in most countries.
But thanks to policies of the national government, the impact of YRP extends far beyond its boundaries. Though until recently a laggard, Japan now ranks third in the world for penetration of broadband, a change driven by average retail prices of about US$25 per month for 12 Mbps of connectivity.
Responding to a national e-Japan program, Yokosuka has invested about US$26 million over six years in e-government projects, including an electronic procurement system that is saving over US$30 million per year of taxpayer’s money and increased both the transparency and competitiveness of bidding.
During a long period of economic stagnation in Japan, Yokosuka is leading the way toward a new model of growth for the world’s second-largest economy.
Kanagawa Prefecture’s Healthcare New Frontier health policy package centers on the concept of “ME-BYO,” which, in traditional Eastern medicine, is defined as neither healthy nor sick. Kanagawa Prefecture builds upon this concept by classifying the body’s condition as being in a state of constant transition that cannot be strictly categorized as being either healthy or sick.
Addressing ME-BYO does not stop at a patient’s symptoms of illness, but rather it strives to address the body’s condition as a whole and encourage people to take a pro-active approach to health. This means that individuals are supported to maintain health and prevent the onset or further progression of disease through lifestyle-based approaches that complement medical approaches. And in Kanagawa Prefecture where there are a variety of natural resources, the prefecture has created a ME-BYO strategic area where ME-BYO strategies are on-going.
Issued in January 2014, the “Kanagawa Manifesto of Curing ME-BYO” explains the ME-BYO strategy to the public and outlines areas of focus. As described in the Manifesto, this strategy is built upon two pillars: cultural integration of the ME-BYO concept and community cooperation toward a common goal. To achieve health through “curing ME-BYO,” the strategy focuses on diet, exercise, and social participation.
