Miyajima Photos

This is a statue at Daisho-in, a temple up the hill on Miyajima.


More pictures of Daisho-in.
Outside restaurants and shops, you often see statues of big-bellied animals wearing big hats and holding sake bottles. They're supposed to be lucky but mostly look demented. I asked Takako what sort of animals they were supposed to be, and she said raccoon dogs. I'd never heard of raccoon dogs and assumed this was a mistranslation, but these are the real thing.