Autumn Shrine Festival

There were three festivals in our town this past weekend.  Unfortunately the weather was not very festive – it rained most of the time.  There was a window of time on Saturday when the rain stopped. We arranged to meet up with two of our friends, who are both English teachers, to attend the festivals. At the time of this festival weekend a year ago, I had just met the wife of this couple and the two of us attended the festivals together. (You can see last year’s post about this festival here.)  Her husband had not yet come to Japan and Ted was in the US for a couple of weeks. Coincidentally, her husband and Ted were on the very same flight to Japan later in September.

Back to the present

We toured the Shrine grounds.

 

Close to the Shrine, there was an interesting bonsai exhibit. I think we saw some of these same little trees last year and it doesn’t look like they’ve grown a millimeter.

 

While we were looking at the fortunes, a monk came out and gave us each a book on the Shinto religion – in English!

I didn't realize it at the time, but he is in the left edge of the photo.

 

The festival had all the typical food and game vendors which cover two long streets. The Shrine is in the area where the two streets meet.

 

After leaving this festival, we made our way to the Mochi Festival.  I’ll post about it another day.