Rurikoji Pagoda

The city of Yamaguchi is about two hours west of Iwakuni by JR local train, it's kind of a quiet town known for a 5-stroy pagoda.  Unfortunately, on the day I visited was rain and no one shared the standard-issue Yamaguchi umbrella.  Everyone all over the city had these red-blue umbrella.

The Pagoda is about 2km from Yamaguchi station, and although there is a community bus to the Pagoda I did not bother taking it because it's time table does not line up well with the local train from Shin Yamaguchi.  It takes about 30 minutes to walk to the pagoda.

All over the cities are little models of pagoda's that match the famous one.

This statue was holding a mirror.  A bunch of people walked up to it and looked into the mirror, so I tried too.

 Looking up the path leading to the pagoda.

There is also a pond next to the pagoda, it is a really relaxing quiet place, even on a day of rain.

Outside the pagoda area was a really loud non-relaxing place, Yamaguchi-city.  This protest was passing through the center of town, everyone yelling something.  The police guy was kind enough to set the traffic light to stop.

Below is confusing Japanese, there are two train station signs in this photo, the main sign in the center and the another sign on the poll.  The main sign has three lines, in English they read: (top) chigumaya, (middle) guchiyama and (bottom) yamaguchi.  The sign on the poll, in English, says on the (left) yamaguchi and on the (right) yamaguchi.  That's 4 different spelling saying 3 different things that all mean the same thing.