Continuing with more from my Visit to Kibune two weeks ago with Thomas Hertel, after we had dango at the restaurant with the old wooden gear, we were walking along the road and were beckoned by the tranquil sight of a tranquil site...

The photo above almost makes it look like some kind of miniature site, but the gate at left is plenty tall enough to walk under, and the bridge itself is about ten feet long.

Thomas posed for a picture, strictly as a size comparison...

If Thomas were to turn to the camera's left, he'd be looking up a set of steep steps running up to the Kibune Shrine....

I liked the many layers in that shot, so tried a tighter zoom...

I'm not sure it's anything more than clutter, but there it is.

Anthony sometimes likes to use my camera, and I like to encourage an interest in something creative, so we posed for a couple of shots. It's pretty funny to see him use my big camera, but he does pretty well...

And with that you can see why it's best for me to be behind the camera rather than in front of it.

The view from halfway up the steps, looking back, was also nice...

At the top was an ornate shrine building that we really didn't pay much attention to because it was getting late and dark. You can see a bit of it here, though...

On the opposite side from the stairs seen above was another much longer set going back down, seen from below in one of the earlier posts in this series. I'm sure that this is supposed to be the main entrance, but we didn't happen to use it.

Here's the view from the top...

It's surprising to me that in all my visits to this area – see any of the “nearby photos” links for more posts from Kibune – this was the first time I'd ventured up to the shrine. I'm sure that this grand staircase is all lit up during the big Kibune Lightup fall-foliage event that I mentioned in the post about the Fall--Foliage Tunnel the other day. My cold is starting to get better, so perhaps I'll be able to run up three some evening to check it out.