When a meandering road trip along the coast in southern Chiba took me to Nokogiri-yama ("saw mountain"), I didn't think I'd come across Japan's largest Buddha, or the oldest umeboshi (salt-cured plums) and cheapest fresh fish I'd ever laid eyes on.
Having left my car in the free-parking lot halfway up the mountain on the southern side, I climbed the rest of the way on foot. I was informed at the ticket booth that embedded in the mountain was a temple called "Nihon-ji."
"You must not miss the Buddha," said the smiling kind old man in the wooden hut. "Or the Hyakushaku-Kannon, or the rakan [statues of Buddhist saints], or the views, or the beautiful trees."