Enoshima: The Heavenly Maiden and the Dragon

This past Monday was a national holiday -- Mountain Day -- so, of course, Troy and I headed to the beach instead. Well, to an island near a beach since (as some of you may know) I'm not exactly the beach-going type. Plus I'd just climbed Mount Fuji, which was more than enough mountain for me.

Enoshima is a small island off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture, fairly near Kamakura. It's connected to the mainland via a bridge, so you can just stroll on over from the train station.

The entire island is dedicated to Benzaitan, the goddess of everything that flows -- time, water, speech, music, and knowledge. According to the "Enoshima Engi," (a history of the shrines and temples on Enoshima) there's also a legend associated with the creation of the island involving Benzaitan and a dragon.

In brief, the area around Enoshima was once wracked by violent storms and earthquakes. Eventually the tumult ended and a heavenly maiden (Benzaitan) descended from the clouds. Just before her foot touched the water, the island of Enoshima rose from the depths of the water to serve as her home. But a terrifying five-headed dragon, Gozuryu, who had caused all of the natural disasters, saw Benzaitan descend from the heavens and instantly fell in love with her. The dragon went to Benzaitan and begged her to marry him, but she refused -- she would not marry him until he mended his ways and stopped terrorizing the people. It's said that the dragon eventually realized the error of his ways and moved to face south, the direction of Benzaitan's island, before turning into a hill.

As a consequence, all of the shrines on the island are dedicated to Benzaitan/love/dragons/all of the above. It's not a large island, and there's a fairly straightforward circular route that takes you past all of the island's main attractions.

Foremost in these attractions are the three shrines -- Hetsumiya, Nakatsumiya, and Okutsumiya -- that together make up the Enoshima Shrine.

Hetsunomiya Shrine's main building. 

Given the founding legend of the island, all of the shrines are, in one way or another, romance-themed. For instance, there are places to purchase ema (wooden votive tablets) at just about every single Shinto shrine in Japan, but the ones here are decidedly...pink...

Many couples wrote their names inside the heart and/or drew cute anime-style pictures of themselves.

The lanterns that were scattered around the shrines all have little heart details.

Nakatsunomiya Shrine's main building. 

Wadatsunomiya, a small shrine attached to Okutsunomiya Shrine, worshiping the dragon. 

The inside of his "lair" is actually quite charming.

We also stopped in to the somewhat unfortunately named Samuel Cocking Garden. Cocking was a British merchant who bought up a lot of the land on Enoshima when it was put up for sale during the Meiji Restoration of 1868 (when the government, in an attempt to separate Buddhism and Shintoism, put a lot of land formerly owned by religious institutions up for grabs) and founded a large greenhouse. The original greenhouse collapsed in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, but the foundations still remain within the botanical garden's grounds.

The garden also houses the Enoshima Sea Candle lighthouse/viewing platform which we did not go up.

Kunming Pavilion

At the end of the final shrine, there's a small path into the woods that leads to the "Dragon Love Bell." Like the Pont des Arts bridge formerly allowed, you can purchase locks and fasten them to padlock fences surrounding the bell. 

"American Gothic" vibes?

We then made our way down to the Iwaya Caves. They're ancient sea caves and the original site of Enoshima Shrine. I was just happy to get out of the blazing heat.

In one of the caves you might come face to face with Gozuryu himself.

All in all it was a lovely day, a great way to escape the crowds of Tokyo for a bit, and get a little sun.