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Near Waseda University, Anahachimangu (穴八幡宮) can be found. The place was being refurbished when we arrived in August, but they finished in time for New Years. Loads of lucky charms could be, and were, purchased during January. You should also bring back your talisman from the prior year and pay the shrine (again, this time) to destroy it for you. How is that for clever marketing?
Sometimes I see a nice scene, but my camera doesn’t. It can only see the thing close up or far away, but not both at the same time. So I take two pictures, each with a different focus.
Such was the case when I walked through Horinji (法輪寺), near Waseda University, a few weeks ago.
The same thing happened a few days later while visiting Suijinja (水神社). I couldn’t decide whether to focus on the fallen leaves on the roof…
…or the maple leaves still on the tree. So I took two photos to cover all the bases.
When I last showed you the grounds of the Four Seasons Hotel (Chinzan-So), it was summer. Now, the fall foliage is making a statement.
Another photo that came out rather well from our canoeing tour on Lake Aoki…
While on the mountain biking portion of the tour, we took a brief rest at Suwa Jinja (諏訪神社) in Hakuba. We have a Suwa Shrine near our apartment in Tokyo too. The colors were changing at the Hakuba shrine, and the atmosphere was quite peaceful.
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.
If nothing else, this festival got our faces known in the neighborhood. Most Japanese are hesitant to say anything to a foreigner, in part because they don’t know if the person can speak Japanese. However, once that initial wall comes down they are the friendliest people on the planet. We made lots of friends during the day’s events.
The people in the above picture are serious festival lovers. They weren’t local. Rather, they travel around and participate in whatever weekend festival is currently taking place. We chatted for a long time and swapped numbers. I assumed that would be the last we’d hear from them, but they have already called to invite us to other matsuri.
They carried the mikoshi nearly all day and were in on the final demonstration which looked like a mosh pit. This picture was after they had freshened up about a half hour after the mikoshi had been placed. If you think they look spent and sweaty here, you should have seen them 30 minutes before!
My shoulder was seriously bruised for days and my quads were killing me the next day, yet I only carried it for about ten minutes. I can’t imagine what hours under it would have been like, let alone wanting to go at it again every weekend.
Here is a close up photo of the mikoshi (with wagasa) during one of the brief rests.
After all was said and done we went to return the Happi Coats we had borrowed on the prior day. Our neighbors insisted we join them for food and drink on the street corner. They stuffed us really good with gyoza, pizza (with toppings of squid and shrimp), and yakitori. Every time I took a sip of my drink it was immediately refilled by one of the many people sitting nearby.
Sorry about the quality on the above picture. It was taken after most people had left and the rest of us were parting. It doesn’t quite capture the mood and scene from 20 minutes before, but my son and I were pinned in and couldn’t take a photo any earlier. I enjoyed the dialogue with my neighbors. Now they know who the local foreigners are, that we’ll be here for a year, and that we can actually converse with them.
The above video is of the approach and entrance of the mikoshi back to its home after spending the prior seven hours going around town on the shoulders of its carriers. There was a men’s chorus, who you will hear and see at the beginning of the video, leading the mikoshi back through the torii gate. Hang in there until 1:40 in the video where things will pick up. The mikoshi will now rest away, out of view, for the next three years before its next journey.