The Nagano Prefectural Museum of Art and Zenkoji Temple are adjacent to each other across a park, so I was able to pay my respects on my way home from the museum visit. Let me post the official website of the museum.
Since I relaxed after leaving the museum I wanted to visit, it was a lazy sightseeing pilgrimage with no enthusiasm. I am ashamed to say that these are only snapshots of tourist attractions that I have been to.
However, I made a fleeting resistance, not wanting to have a symmetrical photo directly facing the main hall as in many brochures, and shifted the angle slightly…not much of an effort, I guess.
The approach to Zenkoji Temple during Golden Week. I’m sorry to say that like me, it is filled with people who seem to be relaxed and at ease. The percentage of foreign tourists was roughly 10-20% of the total.
The powerful statue of Nio is indeed the work of Koun Takamura and his disciple Unkai Yonehara. According to a local newspaper article from some years ago, the statue is not fixed to the pedestal, but stands on its own in a balanced posture (although its back is connected to the wall), which is rare. It is also said to be unusual that the right sides of the A-form Nio in the photo and the left side Un-form Nio are opposite to the usual arrangement.
Behind the Nioh statue, on the side of the gate facing the main hall of the temple, are the splendid statues of Daikokuten and Sanpo-Kojin by Koun and his disciples, but I could not get a good shot of them because they are shaded by the wooden lattice.
In the corner of the schoolyard of an elementary school near Zenkoji , I took a picture of an unfamiliar railroad car(?). After I returned home, I found out that it was a snow-removal machine that was used until the 1970s on the Iiyama Line, which is located in an area with heavy snowfall.
The snow removal machine “Bammo” was nicknamed “Okushinano”.
I have lived my entire life without being exposed to the harshness of the snow country, so I am embarrassed once again for not knowing what it is. I took this photo thinking that the triangular device in the foreground was a machine that pushes away snow like a “russel truck” I saw in a picture book once upon a time, but this is the tail and butt side (wao).
The core of the snowplow is on the opposite side. I’m sorry I was so careless that I did not take a picture of that side.
So, the next day after visiting Zenkoji Temple with shame, I took the limited express train “Shinano”. We headed for Chino/Tateshina on the Chuo Line via Matsumoto.
It is immediately obvious to those who understand it, so I will come out and say that this “Shinano” is actually not at the front of the train, but at the tail and butt side.
I was so close to the departure time that I didn’t have time to go around to the front of the train!
