Skip to main content

Ana Hachiman Gu

'Shinto‘ is a folk belief since ancient times in Japan. 
'Shin' refers 'God, spirits or divine' and 'to' is 'way'.
It had presented in this country before Buddhism entered.
 
The idea of Shinto is to worship natures, the mountains, the sea, the river, the trees and plants to stone as well as ancestor or people who passed away.

They usually have a gate as the picture. 
It separates the sacred area from this world.

'Ana Hachiman Gu' is one of shrines that is enshrined in the city of Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo.

Now days, people go to Shrine not to worship but seek a divine favor.
This shrine is famous for economic fortune.
They sell an amulet to put on the wall that gives a good luck in business.
However there are some rules to use the amulet, they are sold between 22 Dec until 3 Feb and there are only three days to put on the wall, 22 Dec(winter solstice), 31 Jan(new year) and 3 Feb (traditional end of winter).
Also orientation where put is determined in each year.

 I visited there this morning, the idea of going there came up suddenly.
There was long line to get the amulet. I forgot to take the picture of it.
 

Ana Hachiman Gu
 
Amulet

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hiking @ Mt. Fuji

Pictures of Mt. Fuji where one of spiritual places in Japan. You can drive to halfway up the mountain. It's about two hours hiking course from there. Many people like to try climbing up Mt. Fuji. It's a popular way that people spend a night at a co ttage and start around 2am to see sun rise at the top, however I have never tried it. R einforcement work is under way as mountain slope is sliding down. I didn't make any effort, instead I just felt autumn there. It was a clear day after rainy days that took off orange osmanthus petals. Fujisan with rainbow Rain cleanses us and brings next season.
5 comments
Read more

Blackout Threatened

It's very cold day. The consumption of electricity has been increasing due to heating. There's rolling blackouts due to electricity shortages caused from Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. TEPCO, Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc., divided Kanto region into five groups and have been carrying out stop electric power for a few hours in order. Plan was not informed in advance, which gave people confusion. During blackout, traffic light is out of service, there was a fatal traffic accident due to that. My friend took a photo of drinking scene under candlelight At the office, there was an emergency company broadcast at 4:30 pm today. They said 'There might be unpredictable huge blackouts tonight due to lack of supply of electricity according to METI. There will be chance of confusion of transportation therefore go home immediately'. Trains in Tokyo running every few minutes so accurately, and if there's any unusual things such as blackout, it will be a serious con...
2 comments
Read more

Lost in Translation

There are frequent questions for foreigners who visit in Japan such as 'Can you use chopsticks?' or 'Do you eat Natto ?'. And relatively one of the latest might be 'Have you ever watched Lost in Translation?'. And interesting thing is that people who are familiar with Japan well or live in this country for a long time didn't really like that movie. (Including me) I was asked by my friend why, I replied that Sofia Coppola emphasized strange things of Japanese a little bit too much. The Japanese hooker didn't have to be that old woman with such degrading English. The director must have intended it to compare to the heroine who was young and a white beautiful girl. By the way, I and my other friend went to the bar at Park Hyatto in Shinjyku to experience Lost In Translation in last January. The hotel was splendid. All these three picture were being taken by her camera.
6 comments
Read more