Trip to Odawara & Hakone (3) - Shrine dedicated to peasant sage of Japan

In this blog, I have written about a famous agrarian reformer Ninomiya Sontoku (1787-1856) in the article on January 11, 2019. He is from Odawara, and there is a shrine dedicated to him near the castle. It is called Hotoku Ninomiya Shrine. When we entered from the gate, I thought it a cozy shrine with many trees.

This is the main building. This shrine seemed to be loved by local people as we saw a wedding pair taking pictures near the building.

As a boy, Ninomiya Sontoku was called Kinjiro. He was born in a rich farm, but they lost their fields due to floods. His parents died when he was 14 and 16 years old. He worked hard at his uncle’s house and read books at night by using rapeseed oil made from rape plants he cultivated on his own for light. A boy reading a book while carrying firewood is the most prevailing image of his childhood. Many elementary schools in Japan have a statue like this in the shrine as a symbol of diligence (not in the schools I went to).

On the contrary, a statue of Ninomiya Sontoku as an adult is rarely seen. Maybe this was my first (or second?) time to see one. After he left his uncle’s house, he succeeded to make his family rich again and rebuilt the domestic economy of the chief retainer of Odawara. Later, he reconstructed over 600 poor farming villages with his pragmatic approach and philosophy.

In the shrine, my sister bought feed for carps, so we went back to the moat of the castle. As we expected, carps gathered immediately. But we had also pigeons around us snatching feed we threw to carps. They came so close to us that I was a little scared. There was a sticker near the bridge that told us not to feed pigeons or seagulls, but it was no use. It was impossible to feed only carps.

Then, we went back to Odawara Station. Near one of the ticket gates, we saw a big Odawara lantern. This kind of lantern was invented in Odawara during the Edo Period. For the convenience of travelers in old days, it can be folded up when not in use.

From Odawara Station, we took Odakyu Line to Hakone-Yumoto, the entrance of Hakone. We wanted to eat onsen manju or a hot spring steamed bun, a typical sweet found in hot spring areas in Japan, or something sweet. But it was late in the afternoon, and cafés were already closed. At the end of the shopping street, there was a Japanese-style confectionary store, and my mother bought sweets for us. We had some drink in a café in the station and took Hakone Tozan Railway to the station near the hotel.

The hotel room was spacious. My sister had reserved kaiseki ryori or a traditional Japanese multi-course meal for us. Most of the dishes contained fish, but luckily no meat. Before we ate dinner, we went to their large bathroom with an open-air bath. It was so refreshing to take a bath in cool air outside. I looked up the sky and wondered how the weather would be next day.