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In the center of the Sakai plant in Japan is Okina
bridge. In the 15th century, Sakai was a very prosper-
ous free city, and Okina bridge spanned the moat at
one of the entrances into the walled town. For cen-
turies, this bridge carried pilgrims on their way to two
of Japan’s sacred places: the mountain monastery of
Koyasan and the great Shinto shrine, Kumano Taisha.
The bridge in the courtyard dates from 1855. In 1968,
Minolta offered to remove and preserve the bridge
when the city government announced they would fill in
the moat for a planned highway. The bridge now
spans a specially constructed goldfish pond. The writ-
ing on the stone bollard at the front of the bridge pro-
hibits vehicles from crossing.
Minolta history
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