One morning, after a brief rain storm, the sky got partially blue so I went out to take some pictures. I stopped and sat at the nearby Tenso Jinja. No one was around so things were quite peaceful. I heard a bike come pedaling up. A little, old Japanese man was the rider of a bright red bike. He pulled up, parked his bike, walked in front of the shrine, bowed, rang the bell, clapped his hands, bowed again, and then jumped on his bike to head out again.

He saw me at this point and came on over. We chatted for a while about the weather, Tokyo being denied its bid to host the 2016 summer Olympics (which was announced earlier on the same morning), and Hawaii (where one of his children live). Then he hopped on his bike and away went the streak of red that had left a smile on my face.

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Posted on October 25th, 2009 under Japan • Tags: nishi-waseda, people, shinto. • RSS 2.0 feed • You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed