pilgrimage to shingo

I'm not really a religious person, but when people ask me what I want to see before I leave Japan, I always answer with the same thing: Jesus. Not in the metaphorical sense, or in the spiritual sense of finding Jesus inside of myself or anything. I'm talking about Jesus' final resting place, which as everyone knows, is here in Japan.

Yes, Jesus' final resting place is in Shingo Village, in Japan, far away from major tourist places, meaning if you are going to go by public transport, it involves catching a bus from the "nearest" train station, and changing buses a couple times before you get there. The buses don't run frequently either, so if you don't time it right either, you're kinda screwed, like my case. I ended up giving up on the public transport option and just renting a car for a few hours, which did turn out to be more expensive than I thought. Then again, no one said this pilgrimage to Jesus' grave would be easy.

What's that you say? He was crucified? Oh no, I'm sure you're just confused. Jesus wasn't crucified- his brother was. You know, Isukiri. Isukiri, Jesus' oft-neglected brother, altruistically sacrificed himself in place of Jesus while Jesus fled to Japan. After which, Jesus married a Japanese woman and became a garlic farmer (And awesome one at that apparently, but I'm sure that was a given he was the Son of God), where he lived until the ripe old age of 106.


While there though, I also found this: Garlic flavoured ice cream. Probably in part to Jesus' mad garlic farming skillz, Aomori prefecture is now famous for its garlic. I kinda had to try it for the same reasons I went to the obscure village in the first place; such a weird combination of two different things, I had to try it just to see what it was like.