Echigo Ichinomiya Yahiko Shrine

Opening hours: 8:30-16:30 Admission fee: Free Parking: There is a large free parking lot around the shrine. 20 large bus spaces and 50 regular cars next to the shrine Village-run No. 1 Parking Lot: 345 regular cars and more Yahiko Shrine, located at the foot of Mt. Yahiko, which stands tall in the center of the vast Echigo Plain, has been called "Oyahikosama" since ancient times and has been loved by many people as a spiritual home and a place of spiritual support. The grounds are covered in lush green forests, and the towering old cedars and ancient zelkova trees are divine to look at, and two poems about Yahiko Shrine are written in the oldest collection of poems in Japan, the Manyoshu. "Iyahiko, the god of loneliness, even on a day of floating blue clouds, a light rain falls." "Iyahiko, at the foot of the god, even today, a deer lies down, wearing its fur and antlers." The enshrined deity is Amenokagoyama-no-mikoto, who was ordered by Emperor Jimmu to teach the locals the basics of farming, such as the technique of making salt from seawater, fishing, and rice cultivation. The shrine building was burned down in the Great Fire of the Meiji Period and rebuilt in 1916. In 2001, as part of the Heisei Great Renovation Project, the main building was re-roofed and rebuilt for the first time in 85 years.