Every fall, from all over Japan, the eight million kami, or divine spirits of Shinto, gather to review the state of the nation at Izumo Taisha (Grand Shrine of Izumo), in western Honshu, where the storm god Susanoo arrived in mythological times. The gathering is set by the lunar calendar — 10 moons plus 10 days after the first moon cycle following the winter solstice.

My wife, Karen, and I plan a three-week journey to arrive in Izumo to witness the kami gathering. To confirm the late November date, I call the branch of Izumo Taisha in Honolulu, where we go with her family on New Year's Day for the annual blessing.

We also plan to visit another sacred site of Shinto: Mount Takachiho, in southern Kyushu, where the grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu descended from heaven to assume political control of Japan. The relationship between the storm god and his sister, the sun goddess, is at the center of Shinto nature worship.

Getting to the two sites by car will take us across four islands and four straits, via three bridges and a ferry. There's a lot to do, see and taste along the way.

SHIKOKU: BRIDGE CROSSINGS

After navigating the maze of layered and dividing roadways in Osaka and Kobe, we emerge into darkness from the Maiko Tunnel and onto the Akashi Strait Bridge, a 2-mile straightaway, dim-lit and dream-like, suspended from twin 924-foot towers, its vertical cables flitting by like celestial harp strings on both sides.

It's the longest suspension bridge in the world, connecting Honshu to Awaji Island, where we spend a night at a newly-built onsen (hot spring) hotel in the Seto Naikai (Inland Sea) National Park. The next morning we cross the Naruto Bridge to Shikoku, Japan's fourth-largest island.

Under the bridge in Naruto is a platform for viewing whirlpools that swirl in the narrow, rocky strait below as the tide flows in or out of the Inland Sea.

Shikoku is best known for its 900-mile, clockwise-around-the-island Buddhist pilgrimage, with 88 temple stops, to free the devout from 88 evil desires — a bridge to bliss. (Going counterclockwise, according to folklore, can raise the dead.)

Buddhism arrived in Japan after Shinto, in the 6th century. The two religions have coexisted peacefully for most of their history, performing different but complementary functions. Shinto offers protection, good fortune, health and productivity for the land, sea and people while Buddhism promises deliverance from suffering and death.

Temples and shrines are often located next to each other, and bodhisattvas were worshiped as kami until a separation of the two religions was decreed after the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

Ryozenji, the first temple of the pilgrimage, is in Naruto. At its shop, we buy an omamori (prayer amulet) for traffic safety and head west toward Kyushu, following the Yoshino River through the mountain gorges of Koboke and Oboke.

In recent literature and film, Shikoku is portrayed as the antithesis of urban Tokyo and Osaka, a place where wilderness and traditions linger. The heart of its wildness is its sparsely inhabited central mountains, where spirits dwell and houses and roads cling precariously to steep slopes.

In the seaport of Kochi on the southern coast of Shikoku, we stop overnight and taste its katsuo and utsubo tataki (lightly roasted bonito and moray eel), served with ponzu sauce, onions and garlic, topped off with jizake (local sake).

The next morning we continue west along Tosa Bay to Ashizuri-Uwakai National Park and Cape Ashizuri, Shikoku's remote southwestern point. Near the lighthouse is Kongofuku-ji, pilgrimage temple 38. Along the road, we pass pilgrims in white outfits and straw hats, mostly alone, sometimes in pairs. Large groups also make the pilgrimage by bus.

A cold front is sweeping through southern Japan with rain and gusty winds. Still, when we walk to the temple from the onsen hotel, a busload of pilgrims is chanting in the gloomy, wet courtyard, where a large stone sea turtle greets visitors. Rubbing its head is said to bring good luck.

The next day, after stopping at the wave-eroded rocks of Tatsukushi ("Dragon's Skewers"), we follow the Shimanto River north to get to Matsuyama and catch a ferry to Kyushu. Route 441, sometimes just a one-lane road, snakes along the last undammed major river in Japan, offering mountain scenery and sites for camping, fishing and kayaking.

We lunch in the fishing town of Uwajima, where the specialty is tai, or sea bream, served to us as sashimi over hot rice and raw egg.

Matsuyama is Shikoku's largest city. It promotes itself as the setting of the beloved 19th-century novel "Botchan," even though the author, Natsume Soseki, from Tokyo, portrays the town as Hicksville: "What a barbaric place!" the hero exclaims upon arrival and in the end leaves, vowing never to return.

Today, visitors come to see Dogo onsen, featured in the novel, and a mechanical clock tower from which, on the hour, diminutive Botchan characters appear. Other attractions include the city's gorgeous hilltop castle and Ishite-ji, pilgrimage temple 51.

When we arrive at the temple, the courtyard is crowded and hazy with incense smoke pouring out of a large censer. A ceremony is taking place, culminating in the torching of a large boat made of paper, straw and branches, the flames and smoke lifting prayers skyward and connecting the living to the spirits of the dead.

East of the city is Mount Ishizuchi, at 6,502 feet, the tallest peak in western Japan and one of Japan's Seven Holy Mountains, where kami alight to restore vitality to the land. A winding road leads to a ropeway that goes halfway up the mountain, noted for its red and orange autumn foliage. Mist drifts up the mountain ridges above a rushing stream.

A 20-minute walk from the ropeway station would take us to Ishizuchi-Jojusha Shrine, and a longer, steeper climb ends at a small shrine near the summit, but it's cold and late, with darkness falling early, so we skip the walk and catch the second-to-the-last car down.

KYUSHU: HOT MOUNTAINS, HOT SPRINGS AND MUD

A three-hour ferry crosses from Matsuyama to Oita, Kyushu. The divine energy of this third-largest island is expressed in its active volcanoes and numerous hot springs.

West of Oita, the Yamanami Highway goes south through Kuju-Aso National Park, past the smoldering Mount Kuju and across rolling hills and vales covered with pampas grass and groves of evergreens and leafless deciduous trees.

The main feature of the park is Aso, the world's largest active caldera, 12 to 15 miles across, with rice fields and towns inside. At its center is a cluster of four volcanic cones, including Nakadake, which last erupted in 1993. We plan to catch a ropeway to the crater rim and view the lake inside, but the toxic gas levels are so high, the ropeway is shut down. At the visitor's center, the sulfurous air irritates our eyes, noses and throats.

Just south of Aso is Takachiho town, where the most famous event of Shinto mythology is said to have taken place: After a contest in which Amaterasu refused to admit defeat, her storm god brother destroyed her rice fields and desecrated her weaving house; the goddess went into a cave and refused to come out. The other kami got her to reappear by throwing a boisterous party featuring a comic, lewd dance. For his outrageous behavior, the storm god was banished from heaven.

These events took place in the high heavenly plain, not on earth, but a little mythology never hurt the tourist trade. The dance to bring the sun goddess out is re-enacted nightly at Takachiho shrine. The cave where she hid is situated a short walk from Ama-no-Iwato Shrine on Iwato Stream. Inside the cave is a small shrine, and around the cave entrance, worshippers have erected numerous stacks of small rocks.

Takachiho town is also noted for its picturesque gorge, where we rent a boat and row a short ways between cliffs and waterfalls.

At 140 miles south of Takachiho town is Mount Takachiho, in Kirishima National Park. Ninigi, the sun goddess' grandson, alighted here to pacify and rule the islands. Ninigi's great-grandson, Jimmu, was Japan's first emperor, from whom the current emperor traces his ancestry.

On the way to Kirishima is Saitobaru, an archaeological site dating from 300 to 500 A.D. Its 311 ancient burial mounds (kofun) represent the highest concentration in Japan. The Yamato culture (the foundation of Japanese culture, with roots in the Korean Peninsula and China) developed on Kyushu before Jimmu trekked north to Honshu and, led by a magical three-legged crow, arrived in the area where the imperial capitals of Nara and Kyoto and the holy shrine for Amaterasu at Ise were eventually established.

The shrine that houses the spirit of Jimmu is in Miyazaki, a port city just south of Saitobaru, on the east coast of Kyushu.

South of Miyazaki, in a cave above the sea, is Udo shrine, dedicated to Jimmu's father, who was born in the cave to a sea goddess with a dragon form; rocks on the ceiling are said to be her breasts, left behind to feed the infant after she returned to the sea.

The morning of our visit, another cold front is passing over southern Japan. We wait in the car for the rain and wind to let up, but they don't, so we walk to the shrine with rain jackets and umbrellas. As we descend the pathway toward the cave, waves are surging against the sea-sculpted rocks.

To our surprise, the shrine in the cave is decorated with offerings of rice, sake and fruit, and a group of mostly men in suits are sitting on chairs on one side of the cave. Soon priests appear in full regalia to offer thanks to the kami for a bountiful harvest and healthy food, with chanting, music and children performing stately dances, sheltered by the cave as the storm god, who also rules the sea, rages outside. Like us, the kami will soon be heading north for Izumo.

On the way back to Miyazaki, we spot a lobster sign and stop to taste the city's specialty, Ise lobster, along with escargot-like sea snails, in a tatami-matted room overlooking the sea. Across the street is another shrine, where dancing and drumming are going on under rain tarps.

The next day, we drive up to the Ebino Plateau and Kirishima (Misty Islands) National Park. In a sea of clouds, we hike up to Ohnami pond, in an extinct crater, and wait for the clouds to lift. After half an hour, a circular pond appears under the mist, mirroring the bare trees inside the crater rim, with ripples of light winds moving across the surface, like the breaths of spirits.

Mount Takachiho, capped by wispy clouds, is at the southern end of a chain of six cloud-shrouded volcanic peaks. On its summit is a monument to the sword Ninigi brought from heaven. Below the mountain sits Kirishima shrine, where Ninigi's spirit is housed, its bright vermilion paint matching the autumn foliage.

When we return two days later for a clearer view of Takachiho, the mountain is completely hidden by clouds and rain as a third cold front sweeps over southern Japan. We wait for an hour, and after a loud roll of thunder, the rain abates, and the front of the lower crater rim appears above the torii (gateway for the kami).

From Kirishima, you can see Kagoshima city in the distance, on the plain below, and on the opposite side of Kinko Bay, Sakurajima, an active volcano that last erupted in 1994.

What Scotland is to whisky, Kagoshima is to shochu, a liquor brewed from sweet potato. Kurobuta (black pig), Kagoshima beef, and seafood (crab, whole-fish tempura, flounder) are specialties. We sample the excellent cuisine and shochu at restaurants in Tenmonkan (a shopping street) and Kishaba (the university district). The restaurant in Kishaba offers fresh wasabi root and a grater so we can produce our own condiment.

DOORS TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD

From Kagoshima, we turn north for Honshu and Izumo, via Kumamoto, Shimabara, Nagasaki and Fukuoka. A half-hour ferry from Kumamoto takes us to Unzen-Amakusa National Park, where Mount Unzen (last eruption in 1991) towers above the onsen resort town of Shimabara.

Here in 1637 and '38, a rebellion of peasants, many of them Christians, was quelled, some of the rebels boiled alive in volcanic mud. Christianity, introduced in Kagoshima by St. Francis Xavier in 1569 and banned in 1614, was apparently too alien to be accepted into the Shinto-Buddhism complex, but its historical presence here reminds us that Kyushu once served as Japan's door to the outside world — to ideas, innovations and technology from Korea and China and, later, the West.

Although Christianity wasn't embraced, Western technology was. Kagoshima boasted the first factory, telegraph and gas lighting in Japan.

Nagasaki includes an old Dutch district called Dejima, as well as a Chinatown. Megane-bashi, "Eyeglasses bridge," was built by a Chinese Buddhist monk in 1634. (The bridge's two stone arches, reflected in a canal, resemble a pair of round eyeglasses.)

At the northern end of Kyushu, in Fukuoka, we stay at a seaside onsen hotel on Shikanoshima island, where a 2,000-year-old gold embossed emblem given by the emperor of China to the "King of Japan, tributary of China" was unearthed in the nineteenth century. The seal is on display at the stylish city museum, along with artifacts left behind by the movement and interaction of peoples from Japan, Asia and beyond, from prehistoric times to the present.

WESTERN HONSHU

Thirteen days into our journey, we cross the almost-half-mile-long bridge over the Kanmon Strait and arrive back on Honshu. At Shimonoseki, below the bridge, the line for the town's specialty, fugu (poisonous puffer fish) sashimi, is too long, so we settle for a tasty meal of deep-fried fugu.

According to one aficionado, tourism has degraded Shimonoseki into a market for the lowest-quality fugu imported from China or farmed and served mainly to tourists. If you want the best fugu sashimi, he writes, you must go to Tokyo (and pay more), they say.

East of Shimonoseki, we stop in Yamaguchi and Hiroshima, from where Karen's and my grandparents immigrated to Hawai'i in the early 20th century. Back then, these prefectures were mainly rural farmlands and poor, so emigrant laborers were recruited from them.

Karen's mother's cousin's daughter and her husband take us on a whirlwind afternoon tour of Yamaguchi, including Ruriko-ji Pagoda, built in 1404, and a garden designed by the 15th-century sumi-e painter Sesshu. The next morning they drive with us as far as Iwakuni to the 656-foot-long Kintai Bridge — five graceful arches spanning the Nishiki River. The bridge was built from wood, without nails, in 1673, and most recently rebuilt, with steel reinforcements, in 1953 after it was destroyed by a typhoon.

On the way to Hiroshima, we stop at the island of Miyajima, with its iconic offshore torii and Itsukushima shrine, founded in 593 A.D. and dedicated to a kami who protects against sea disasters and wars. The ropeway to Shishiiwa peak is closed due to windy conditions, so we hike up the steep slope for a panoramic view of Hiroshima, Shikoku and the Inland Sea.

In Hiroshima, we visit the Atomic Bomb Museum and Peace Park. Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) have recovered remarkably well since 1945, when America and Britain pioneered the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians to terrorize an enemy into surrender.

Aioi Bridge, the target of the first atomic bomb, has been restored; next to it, the gutted ruins of the Industrial Promotion Hall, the so-called A-Bomb Dome, have been left as a reminder of the tragedy of imperialistic wars.

KAMI-ARI: THE GATHERING OF THE GODS

At 100 miles north of Hiroshima is Matsue, famous for its sunsets over Lake Shinji and its 400-year old Plover Castle. Twenty miles west is Izumo, whose Taisha is the oldest shrine built in the traditional grand style and Shinto's second-most-important after Amaterasu's shrine at Ise.

Banished from heaven, the storm god Susanoo descended to Silla, a kingdom in southern Korea, then traveled east across the sea of Japan (the direction of storm clouds) to Izumo. Here he slew an eight-headed dragon that was devouring the daughters of an old couple; then he married the daughter he saved.

His grandson Okuninushi, a god of healing, agriculture and marriage, made peace with the sun goddess, allowing her grandson Ninigi to assume secular power over the nation, in exchange for control of religious affairs. Pleased, Amaterasu built the shrine at Izumo for Okuninushi.

As we drive to Izumo to witness the gathering of the kami, the sun is setting over Lake Shinji, Amaterasu's splendid rays giving way to the storm-cloud forms and wintry darkness of Susanoo.

At Inasa Beach, a few hundred of the faithful gather, soon to be vastly outnumbered by the visiting kami, who like the storm god, arrive from the sea. Beneath the tenth-day moon, four fires are lit behind four cones of sand. A drum and flute play. The priests march through the crowd to the fires, clap their hands four times, and chant.

A gust of cold wind blows down from Yakumo Hill to welcome the invisible guests. The crowd holds up prayer sticks with folded paper to attract the mana of the kami and take it home with them.

The priests clap four more times to finish, then accompany the kami in procession back to the shrine, the crowd following. For the next week, ceremonies are held at the shrine while the kami meet.

MOUNTAINS, COAST

The route we take back to the airport goes east from Matsue, through Daisen-Oki National Park. Snow-capped in a pale yellow mist, Mount Daisen, another of Japan's Seven Holy Mountains, rises high over the coastal plain.

East of Mount Daisen are the sand dunes at Tottori, where the film version of Kobo Abe's novel "Woman in the Dunes" was shot; and San-in Kaigan National Park, with its isolated beaches and fishing villages; sea cliffs and small islands, their dark gray rocks awash with waves; and shadowy valleys, orange, russet, and rust with autumn.

The weather changes quickly in the brisk winds, patches of sunlight giving way to periods of rain. Suddenly, in the late afternoon, a hail storm breaks out, ice particles pelting the car and road.

We spend a night at an onsen in Takeno, a fishing town known for its white sand beach, abalone and crab. November is crab season, and the onsen serves crab raw, deep-fried tempura-style, roasted and boiled, finishing with a risotto-like dish made from the crab broth.

With one night to go, we head south to Himeji. Hilltops are frosted pale white after last night's storm.

In Toyooka we visit a park dedicated to reestablishing the kono-tori (Oriental white stork) in Japan. In 1971, the country's konotori population was wiped out due to pesticides in its food supply of frogs and fish, the loss of wetland and river habitats, and the felling of large pines, where it nests. Storks that Russia gave to Japan in 1985 have been successfully bred. The plan is to recreate and restore the stork's former habitat and release birds into the wild.

South of Toyooka, at Asago, is the Takeda Castle Ruins. On a mountain overlooking a river valley, the castle was built in 1585 and abandoned in 1600 after the defeat and suicide of its lord. There are few visitors and no amenities except for a parking lot and a bathroom at the top of a winding access road. Only the stone foundations remain — like the A-Bomb Dome, a reminder of a tragic period of history.

In Himeji, famous for its 300-year-old White Egret Castle, we are back in the crowded, urbanized coastal region of the eastern Inland Sea. It's a good place to shop for omiyage, or gifts, for home.

On the highway back to the airport the next morning, we stop at the Akashi Strait Bridge. In this nation of kami, this modern engineering wonder, which withstood the 1995 Kobe earthquake, is a descendant of the sacred mountain and the oldest shrine, as well as the Megane Bridge, the Kintai Bridge, and all that was marvelous, magnificent, beautiful, and delicious along the way.

Dennis Kawaharada teaches at Kapi'olani Community College.

Sacred sites in Western Japan