Day2-Shimamui Kaigan 2

While my heart was stolen by the beautiful blue ocean, I noticed that there was a passage to a hill. The passage leads to a forest around the coast and there were some on hiking. I thought it was safe since some people were walking, so I decided to follow the road.

The road to the hill

The notice board

it was a fine day and walking actually made me sweaty although it was just at the end of April. I regretted that I didn't bring a towel and a bottle of water; sweat got into my eye socket and I couldn't keep eyes wide opened but I didn't have a towel to wipe off my sweat. The sweat made me lose water in my body but I didn't have water to drink. Though the scenes from the road was actually beatuful, I was about to lose concentration to enjoy those natural beauties.

There was an introductory notice indicating a strange rock on the ocean. The notice board said that walkers can see a rock which looks a standing woman if they go further on the road. I was excited at the finding. I wanted to see how the rock looked like and more importantly, how strange it was. Therefore, I decided to go further.

Up and down, right and left. I kept walking and finally I reached an observatory deck attached on the road artificially (to secure safety of travelers, I suppose). I kept my eyes locked on to find the strange rock.

There it was. A princes rock. An Ainus princess met a man who escaped from the main land of Japan (at that time, the main land was a different nation from her Ainus nation; the current Hokkaido. The man's name is Yoshitsune and he had to escape from his country because he lost the battle versus his big brother who was a governor (Shogun) of his country.

The princes rock

Yoshitsune reached the Ainus area but he was wounded. The Ainus princess saw him suffering from the pain by chance and decided to take him to her villege. While she looked after the wounded guy, there was a spark in hearts between the couple. In other words, she fell in love with Yoshitsune and Yoshitsune also loved her.

However, her happiness didn't last for a long time; the end came up suddenly. Since Yoshitsune was chased by subbodinates of his own brother in the main land, he needed to keep him far away, otherwise he would be found and executed. Although they loved each other, Yoshitsune had to leave and the princes couldn't go because she was the princess of the tribe. 

The love was very deep and genuine, and it was too pure to endure the pain of break-up. She decided to dive into the ocean to die and the rock appeared. 

I don't know whether this is based on a true story, but actually the princess rock looks like a woman looking over the horizon. It also looks that she's wearing an Uchikake, a Kimono(Japanese traditional outfit) with a long hem. Though it's just a rock, surely everybody who sees it thinks this is a woman.

She's looking far beyond the horizon. Perhaps, she's waiting for her love to come back...

Where is she looking...