Udo Shrine

photo by そらみみ · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by そらみみ · CC BY-SA 4.0

In the sea cave you throw a clay ball onto the rock, for luck.

The main shrine has no built roof: it occupies a sea cave carved by the waves into the Nichinan cliffs, and you reach it by going down a flight of steps from the forecourt above. In front of it, in the sea, the kameishi (亀石, ‘turtle rock’) rises from the water: the game of the undama (運玉), balls of fired clay, consists of throwing one (men with the left hand, women with the right) and trying to get it into the square hollow on the back of the rock, about 12 metres below. The balls are made by hand by the pupils of the Udo school and by a facility for people with disabilities in Kazata.

The shrine is dedicated to Hikonagisatake Ugayafukiaezu, the father of the legendary first emperor Jinmu according to the Shinto account, and stands on the Nichinan coast south of Aoshima. The cave that houses the main building is the work of marine erosion on the cliff, and the visitor route goes down from the entrance forecourt to sea level along a flight of steps through the coastal vegetation. The undama custom began as a game to stop children from picking up the coins that pilgrims threw towards the kameishi: in the '50s the shrine began making the clay balls in their place, and the practice has become the best-known way of asking for luck here.

ℹ️ Opens at 6:00, closes at 18:00 (official source, no seasonal difference stated). Free entry to the grounds. ⚠️ The price of the undama balls is not given on the official page read: secondary sources, not opened for verification, quote a figure, which is not reported here so as not to treat it as a measurement. There is no railway station nearby: you get there by scheduled bus or by car (about 50 minutes from Miyazaki city).

🚉 Udo-jingu Shrine · 10 min walk

Sources: udojingu.or.jp · udojingu.or.jp

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