Oct 18, 2014 - 1 min read

Maki Shrine on Phoenix St. in Fukui

White flag and orange lantern under the blue sky

By Takako Sakamoto

Community writer

Brilliant orange lantern at Maki Shrine under the blue sky

Looking up at the torii gate of Maki Shrine and tall pine trees standing beside it

Tall white flag of Maki Shrine fluttering in the wind standing high in the blue sky

Water purification font of Maki Shrine...the statue on it looks like something I saw before somewhere...

Ah! It's a dragon head, but doesn't it somehow look like the fortune teller machine called 'Zoltar' in the old Hollywood movie 'Big' starring Tom Hanks?

Long shadow of tall trees on the temple grounds under the late afternoon sun

Orange paper lanterns inside the shrine premises

Statue of sacred horse standing high on the shrine grounds

Guardian dog statue barking to the blue sky

Main hall (in front), the prayer hall, and a tall pine tree reaching high up into the blue sky

This guardian dog has a horn in his head!

A stone monument of the Great Fukui Earthquake which hit Fukui city in 1948

Sky-high pine trees and the torii gate viewed from Phoenix Street of Fukui city

These trees are amazingly thin but tall, how could they be?

When I was driving back home from Taicho-ji Temple in Fukui city, which is a mere six kilometers away from my place, I spotted a tall white flag fluttering in the wind on Phoenix Street. Intrigued, I slowed down my car and found it was a shrine. Since the white flag and the paper orange lanterns there looked so beautiful, I made a U-turn and decided to explore it. The shrine is called, 'Maki Shrine', or it could also be called, 'Make Shrine', but I couldn't find any other information about it because it's not even on the Internet list of the Fukui Shrines Agency! However, there is a fairly famous shrine called, 'Maki (Make) Shrine' in Echizen city, so it must be related to it somehow. Anyway, it was a beautiful addition to my exploration of the day!