- - - 1/17/2005 - - -

Jinja

Filed under: — Andy @ 3:57 am

I know I have to post stories about my Hong Kong trip, which I will do, but first I must post about my Sunday.

I got up at 9:30 and headed out to a Shinto shrine with my friend Ryoichi. He had to go pray for some dead guy, and I wanted to go with him.

As you can tell from the picture, it was raining. I was actually very disappointed as the weather report said it would snow! Anyway, after taking a while to get to the shrine we threw in some money and prayed for about 5 seconds and then left. I was very surprised at how quickly my friend was finished praying. He was telling me that he never met the guy who died, but had to go and pray for his family and for a promise, which I think is still pretty cool. The shrine also had a flock of albino pigeons. Afterward, we went to a little museum that was right next to shrine. We saw a cool plane, some other stuff, and some awesome samurai swords.
(Can anyone identify this famous plane?)

We then went to Soshigaya, so I could also fulfill a promise. After getting lost multiple times and getting completely wet, we finally found the house I was looking for. The house belonged to my father’s friend’s mother’s friend’s wife… or something along those lines. It’s somewhat complicated. Unfortunately, nobody was home :( which means I will have to try to find the place again.
My friend and I then ate some very good tempura in Shinjuku. When finished I stuck around Shinjuku and played Tekken 5 and the UFO catcher games until I had to meet up with some other friends in the evening. Those UFO games are so frustrating but the payout is worth it. Pooh only took me 2 tries to get while whatever that other thing is took me about 4 tries. I met up with my other friends and we went out. My friend Dan made a cool animal out of the tableware. Hopefully you can figure out what it is.


I know this is a bad picture… no need to comment on it.