castle town

We can see a very old well covered with an iron lid at the entrance to the alley. Rectangle flag stones are set around to the well and all the water could drain away on the sloping ground. Presumably residents there shared it in the old days.

They keep fish and shellfish in the water tanks over night, which were brought into by fishermen belonging to Akashi Ura Fisheries Cooperative. Alive fish and shellfish are picked up from the water tanks and sold at auction. Please keep no entrance to unauthorized persons here in mind.

You can see big cranes of the docks from the road a long the sea. The docks are on the inland sea and they make lighters there. You can enjoy seeing unique scenery of down slopes to the water and a group of factories at the seaside.

There is too flat a building next to a memorial park. It is from about 0.9 meters to 1.8 meters in depth. Yet it is a two-story house and has two front doors. It seems to have two staircases.

This is the office building built in the Shown era for former Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, now NTT. Its exterior shows well the characteristic of the building in the early modernization age. The south windows longer than they are wide are efficient to tale in the sunlighgt through them evenly. 

The main image of Chorin-ji temple is Hama Yakushi, Yakushi on the beach, and the temple has stoneworks made in the middle of 14 century, On the other hand, in Iwaya Shrine, they enshrine Gozu Tenno, Ox headed God, as Yakushi incarnate. There is a wide road between the temple and the shrine. 

The Oshataka-bune Shinto ritual is known as the oldest maritime folklore Shinto ritual in Akashi and performed on the third Sunday of July in hopes of sea disaster prevention and the large catch, We can image that the God moved from Iwaya in Awaji Island. This ritual was designated as Akashi City Designated Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1974. 

A pair of stone lanterns erects across the approach that heads for the beach from Iwaya Shrine. The words “Kansei, the year of 12, September” are carved on them. It was in the year of 1800. Matsudaira Naochika, the 13th feudal lord of the Akashi domain, permitted the sacred portable shrine of Iwaya God to march through the town. 

When Matsudaira Nobuyuki, the 6th Feudal lord of the Akashi domain, deepened the port of Akashi, he heaped up its sand and made the artificial miniature hill. People called it Tsuki-yama, Lunar Hill, because the place was famous for moon viewing. It was reported that batteries were built here at the end of the Edo period. You can go to the top of the hill through the beautiful stone pavement. 

Matsudaira Tadakuni, the 5th feudal lord of the Akashi domain, established this in 1657. This is the oldest existing stone lantern tower in Japan. It had been used for 306 years till its light source was removed in 1963. Its stone foundation was laid skillfully in abutment joint that was no gap. 

Chigiri is the method that we use butterfly-shaped wedge to prevent both of two things made of stone or wood from detaching. We can see two iron wedges in the different directions here. That is why they keep stones of the top of the wharf from falling down, The wave has washed them for a long time, so we can find just the marks.