Okadera

In Japanese tradition, 33 for women and 42 for men (by the traditional count) are the worst of the unlucky years, and Okadera calls itself the first temple in Japan for warding off that kind of bad luck. Matsuo-dera in Yamato-Koriyama makes a similar claim to be the oldest. The temple asks people in an unlucky year to come early in the year if they can, and from January to March the rituals run in the main hall throughout the day. Its formal name is Ryugai-ji, the dragon-lid temple. The story goes that the founder Gien, a monk who died in 728, trapped a dragon that was ruining Asuka's farmland in a pond and capped it with a stone. The pond is still in the grounds, and people say touching the stone brings rain.

The main image is a seated Nyoirin Kannon 4.85 metres tall, modelled in clay in the Nara period. The temple says it is the largest clay Buddhist statue in Japan, and it is an Important Cultural Property. It sits pale and calm in a main hall that took more than 30 years to finish, with the ridgepole raised in 1805. One catch: from January to March the inner sanctuary is closed to general visitors because of the warding-off rituals, so come between April and December to see the statue up close.

The temple is halfway up Mount Oka on the east side of Asuka, and it is uphill all the way: about 10 minutes from the Okadera-mae bus stop through a narrow residential street. Entry is 500 yen. Do not get off at Kintetsu Okadera Station because of the name; the temple warns it has no buses or taxis and is close to an hour away on foot.

Spring is the season. About 3,000 rhododendrons bloom from mid-April into early May, and over Golden Week the temple floats dahlias on the pond just inside the Niomon gate and in the hand-washing basin. It started doing this in spring 2015 and is often credited as one of the first of the flower basins now seen at temples all over Japan. The Niomon itself dates from 1612.

Okadera is a short bus ride from the tombs and palace sites of Asuka.