Oiwa Shrine

**Arrive before nine.** The car park is not large and on weekend mornings it fills quickly. Early also means the cedar grove still holds mist, which is when the approach looks like the reason people come. **Precinct and mountain are two different visits.** The shrine buildings, the gate and the three-trunked cedar take fifteen to twenty minutes on level ground. Climbing to the summit rock is a proper hour-plus walk on a mountain trail and needs shoes to match. **Look for the Buddhist survivals.** Statues and Buddhist elements standing alongside the Shinto halls are what makes this site unusual — the separation edict of 1868 stripped almost all of that elsewhere. It is easy to walk past without noticing what you are looking at. **Combine with the Hitachi coast.** Hitachi Station's glass concourse over the Pacific and the coastal road north toward Kitaibaraki make the natural other half of a day here.