Fukuzen-ji

The view of Sensuijima from the Taichôrô

• Established: c. 950
• Japanese: 海岸山千手院福禅寺 (Kaiganzan Senjuin Fukuzenji)

Fukuzen-ji is a Shingon Buddhist temple in Tomonoura, Hiroshima prefecture, famous for its Taichôrô guest room, which hosted Korean embassies to Edo on a number of occasions.

The temple was founded in the Heian period, around 950.

In the Genroku era, around 1690, a guesthouse was constructed adjacent to, and attached to, the temple's hondô (main hall). The guestroom is in simple irimoya construction, with 11.8 meter beams, and a tiled roof.

Yi Bang-eon, a member of the 1711 Korean mission to Edo, famously declared the view of the Inland Sea from the guesthouse to be the greatest in Japan. The head of the 1747 mission, Hong Gyehui, later named the guesthouse "Taichôrô," or "Tower Facing the Tides."

References

• Plaques on-site.[1]