Quick Update

I feel like I owe so many posts and pictures, but I'm tired, so bear with my strange spelling and grammar. I'm noticing so many things about the Japanese that I didn't notice in Aichi Ken. Maybe it's because Tokyo is more crowded so there is more of a sense of needing to do things in a certain way to make things smoother for everyone. In the train, people on the left side always face left, and on the right side always face right. I'm the only person that doesn't, and I have officially started standing the opposite direction for whatever side I am on.

So, moving on. I went to Meiji Jingu. It was certainly a jinja (I've forgotten the correct English word. Temple? Shrine?). While I was walking there, I saw a woman bow to a crow. Apparently the Japanese believe crows to be very smart and worthy of respect. Anyway, I didn't stay long at Meiji Jingu because there was nothing really going on, and I feel strange at such shrines, since am not Shinto. And they were doing construction??!



Today I also went to Asakusa to see the hoozuki festival. It was a lot of incense burning and selling of winter cherries. They theoretically protect you from being hit by lighting. Japan has a lot of thunderstorms in July and August, so in early July they sell hoozuki for protection at Kaminari Mon and the Sensoji Shrine. Kaminari means thunder and lighting.