Ōfuna Kannon

Visited the Ōfuna Kannon which I've always wanted to visit ever since I first spotted it while on a train to Hakone.

Notice outside the temple

Spotted this cute little sign on Pokemon Go at the little booth outside the temple where we purchased out entrance tickets. Apparently, one can find dratini there but please do not disturb or be a nuisance to others.

To get up here, you need to hike a bit and at some part, it's pretty steep!

Once inside, the scenery is totally different

A little background info~

SC and I

Finally at the top where you can pray, get an omikuji or omamori

I highly recommend you to walk around because you can actually enter the Kannon statue from behind to pray and leave some messages. 

After that, we took a bus to visit the Taya Caverns. While it is off the beaten track, I highly recommend this place as it is really interesting. I've never seen anything like it, a cave carved into the hillside.

You need to pay an entrance fee at the temple and you will get a candle what you can use. 

The above is the entrance to the cave but before that, get a candle holder and place your candle on it. While the cave is lighted, the candle will provide you with a clearer view of the carvings. 

You can feel the sudden drop in temperatures in the cave. I gotta admit that it was kinda scary because it was so small and if you walk too fast, you risk having your candle blown off.

No pictures are allowed inside the cave. Inside, you will see carvings all over the wall and ceilings. There are tiny chambers that you can enter. There's even a noiseless river in it. There is also an area where you can use the healing water to heal any parts of your body.

It took us slightly less than 30 mins to explore the cave. The experience was definitely worth the trip there. 

After all that exploring, we went back to Ofuna station and shopped around. I bought so many halloween stuffs at Seria that even the staff asked me if I was planning a halloween party!

When we got tired, we grabbed taiyaki at Yokohama Kurikoan, Lumine Wing, which sells taiyaki in interesting flavours that I've never seen before.

Website: http://kurikoan.com/tenpo.html

I tried their pumkin taiyaki and it was delicious! It was really filling as the taiyaki was super thick and so was the filling! It would be better if the sides of the taiyaki were crunchy but otherwise, the taste was good!