Hozenji Yokocho

This guide to Hozenji Yokocho in Osaka opens on the night of March 13, 1945, when firebombing destroyed the temple's halls and records, leaving only a stone guardian statue, its two attendants and an old well standing. It follows the temple's move to Namba in 1637, and the visitor tradition, begun by a woman who once arrived without a vessel for her offering, that turned the statue from bare stone into thick green moss. Look for the narrow lanes of small bars around it after dark.