Everyone in Japan seems to know Konpira-san, the sea god who lives, improbably, halfway up a mountain in Kagawa. Sailors have prayed here for centuries; the climb to the main shrine is 785 stone steps, and pilgrims count every one. In October, the steps become a processional way. The Reitaisai is the shrine's most solemn festival of the year, three days that culminate on the middle night, when the deity comes down. Priests and parishioners in Heian-era robes descend by lantern light, the palanquin swaying, the only sounds gravel, silk, and the occasional flute. The town below, an old-fashioned temple town of inns and udon shops, waits in near silence. This is not a festival of floats and frenzy. It is closer to watching a very important guest leave a house slowly, with the whole neighborhood standing at their gates. Locals call the two movements o-sagari and o-agari: the going down, the going up. By the third morning the god is back on the mountain and the 785 steps belong to travelers again, though for a night they belonged to another century. Stand close enough, they say, and you can hear the rustle of a thousand years.