Shitennoji

Today's Japanese Word of the Day:
寺
Tera
(Noun: Temple)

Alright, I think I can squeeze in one last post for today before I totally burn out. We took a trip out to Shitennoji last night.

Before you get confused, Shitennoji and Shitennoji University are two different places. Shitennoji University was probably named after Shitennoji. Shitennoji is a big temple (presumably Buddhist) that is gorgeous, and very traditional Japanese in architecture. The name "shitennoji" means "temple of the four heavenly princes," in case you're interested.

Before we got there, I saw the second Japanese flag that I've seen so far in Japan. Honestly, I've seen more of them in the States. We have our flag waving anywhere we can put it, but apparently in Japan, less is more.

This was the first moment we saw it. I got excited and took a picture.

This one's better, and actually inside the grounds. It didn't cost anything to get in here, but it would take a couple dollars to get into the inner grounds. We were all prepared to pay it, but our guide ran up and whispered, "It's not worth it, guys. Let's just move on."

 

Gorgeous, huh? I guess the temple is pretty good, too.

They told us that before we could go into the temple, we had to wash our hands here at this pump thing. We didn't actually go into the temple, obviously.

A closer view of the pumpy-washy-hands-thing.

Not sure what these are. They look cool, though.

Laugh at my nerdiness, but it felt kind of surreal to be in one of these places. Like I was walking in an anime or something.

Yes, tilt your head sideways.

....I've got nothing. It just, well, looks cool. How many times have I said that now? Maybe I should just shut up.

I'm not sure what these green banners were for, but they were everywhere.

Statue. It looked cooler in person, but it was all backlit. What can I do?

A bunch of people bought fortunes here. One girl bought a charm to hang from her rearview mirror that she says gives her luck that she won't die in a car crash. We sat here for a while, waiting for everyone to finish, and joked that the entrance fee for getting into the inner grounds was to buy a fortune. That way they could know everyone's luck before letting them in.

If your fortune is bad, you can tie it onto one of these rope things to remove the bad luck.

This is me, Stacey, and Jackson. Jackson likes to make weird faces for the camera.

I'm not sure what this thing is, either. That black circle thing was covered in characters and spun.

A couple more pictures of the outer grounds.

Ah, yes. The pond.

It was full of turtles. (Note the shadow of one of the giant fish we saw once in a while.)

And when I say full of turtles...

I mean full of turtles.

What happened here is that one of the guys started dropping rice down to them. Obviously they, like the koi at Shitennoji University, are used to being fed, because suddenly there was a swarm of turtles competing for the food. We were all enthralled. They were about the coolest thing ever. Those pigeons were hoping for handouts, too.

Especially when we started feeding these little birds. One of the guys discovered that if you put a bit of rice on your finger and held it down to them, they would fly up and pluck it off. They're quite clearly used to being fed, as well.

One of those little birds got a pretty sizeable bit of rice and flew off to another ledge with it. A couple of big pigeons immediately started waddling towards it. Fortunately the bird was small and smart enough to stay ahead of them while it was eating.

Sunbathing turtles in the pond where they weren't being fed. It was very cool.

I missed it, but Sean here was totally "accidentally" posing for the camera.

Sean, by the way, is our wanderer. Every time we turn around while we're out and about, he's gone missing. This trip has picked up "Where's Sean?" as a catchphrase. We're threatening buying a toddler leash for him, because he's seriously irritating everyone.

This was an altar or something. If you squint at the moss-covered rock in the middle, you can see a Buddha. The multicolored rope went up to a gong.

Signs next to the altar thing.

Plastic-covered paper lanterns (or so I suppose) that was hanging around the eaves of the altar.

This rock basin of water was pretty cool.

So was the temple cat.

:3

I miss Moonie. This kitty was rather wary of the people trying to get close to her, just like Moonie. Still, seeing her almost made up for getting scarred for life by the gristle skewer at the Noble Chicken.

From left to right: Jackson, Dustin (in the sunglasses), Stacey, and Courtney (with the phone). Our feet were already starting to hurt by this point, and we were only halfway through the day. By the time we walked back to the dorms, our feet had pretty much turned to dust.

Again, not sure what this was, but it was really cool.

Arch. It really made me happy. I'd only ever seen arches like that in video games before. Also note all the school children getting out of school.

I took this picture to try and make up for the backlit picture of the other statue, but it ended up being rather blurry. Figures.

 

The pictures at this point and after all outside of the grounds, on our way to the mall that I won't write about in this post (already kind of long). I'm not sure what this place is, either--our guide was talking to someone about it being for preparing dead bodies for burial or something, I think--but again, looks cool. Those statues are awesome.

 

 

These are all pictures of the town around Shitennoji. And that's all I have to say.

 

 

 

 

Alright, so I do have one more thing to say. That is not a swastika. That is a symbol of peace and harmony (or something like that), and is part of this religion.

 

 

That's it! I finally got to see some authentic Japanese architecture from way back when. It was super cool, and downright gorgeous, as you've seen. It was a very hot day, though, which I think bears mention.

 

Okay! Sayonara! I'll blog more tomorrow, probably!

 

~Amanda