Pictures

Sorry it took so long to put up these pictures, but I forgot to send them to myself.



This is a little monument that was in front of a shrine I walked into a little while ago. I think the name is onikami, which would be ogre-god, but readings in names are notoriously irregular.



Here's the torii, or gate, at the shrine.



Here's the actual shrine. Neat. There was nobody around.



It might be kind of hard to see, but this is a picture of a snake that was just chilling on a stump near the shrine. I wasn't going to try to get a better picture. The Japanese word for snake is hebi.



There's some kind of huge rock that was near the shrine. It had stuff engraved in it, but I have no idea what it said. It was really huge, though.



Here are some Buddha statues I walked by. There are all kinds of little statues and mini shrines all over Japan, which is really kind of neat that they just sit there unattended and have been around for probably centuries in some cases.

Sorry it is sideways. My mac won't let me do anything useful with pictures. It also likes to hid windows. I am starting to get annoyed at lots of little navigation things on the mac that windows does so much better. Also, seriously, Steve Jobs, add a right mouse button, you idiot.



When I got back to my apartment, I heard what sounded like festival music, so I went outside and found that there was a tiny matsuri just for kids which basically was just them walking about one block carrying a tiny portable shrine while a truck drove alongside playing music from a speaker. Hilarious.

An old lady talked to me, though, and some guy gave me some sake for no real reason. Also some of the kids were my students, so that was funny.



WASHOI!



Here's the actual portable shrine that just rode in the back of the truck while some guys walked along to make sure it didn't fall out. Awesome.