Phallic Temple

I was told that I was going to visit a penis temple by my friend Rob. I kind of ignored his discription just picturing one tower or post near the temple that might resemble a penis. We arrived at the destination and I took one look at the temple and started to laugh. The purpose of the temple is for couples to go to and pray for fertility (or other ailments of the penis, maybe cancer, bed wetting etc). You walk up a set of stairs to get to the temple and you are surrounded by penises sticking out of the ground. Some of the penises are large over a meter high and very accurate with balls and veins. When you walk up to the temple you see the offerings people have given in order for their prayers to be answered. These offerings are essentially dildos with messages written on the side. I never expected to see anything like this in Japan.

After that we went to a quaint little onsen village called Tawarayama. It is great discovering little villages in the mountains that are famous for penis temples and monkeys.