Day 2- Shrine visit

After the wonderful sea urchin bowl, I rode on the car and drove back to Sapporo, but I dropped by Sumiyoshi shrine in Otaru city. Sumiyoshi's main shrine is based in Osaka but it exisits throughout Japan as its branch. Sumiyoshi shrine in Otaru is one of the branches.

Deities enshrined in the whole Sumiyoshi shrines in Japan are regarded as gurdians of ocean, namely the place where Sumiyoshi shrines are located is a coastal area and/or a port site (In some Sumiyoshi areas, there are no ocean/coasts nearby the shrines currently but it means that there used to be oceans nearby. It is because geography might have changed as time went by).  Otaru is a port city where fisheries are its main industry.

I arrived at the shrine at 16:00 pm. Usually, shrines are closed around 4-5 o'clock every day and the Sumiyoshi shrine was about to close when I visited (well, the gate to all of the shrines in Japan will be opened even at night so you can visit shrines anytime in a day, but the services such as prayer, tallisman sales etc... will be closed at night). I couldn't receive the goshu-in, the red seal of tallisman but I prayed in front of the main alter.

The building was huge. The red-and-white alter was beautiful and the office of shrine officers is in their "national treasure" bulding. For your reference, the national treasurse are tangible objects which have unique values representing Japanese cultures and also are valuable to human's cultures worldwide. Those treasures are acessed and subsidized by the government. The office of shrine is in the "natonal treasure" building.

I met a mother with her son. Before going to the main alter in shrines, we need to wash our hands and mouth by water (purification). The mother and boy were washing their hands. The boy said "Mom, I can do this by myself!" and showed his mother how "efficient" he was to wash his hands. In return, the mother said "Good boy! You are the smartest guy I've met!" but the boy asked "What about Dad? Isn't he smart?". The mother answered "Yes, he surely is. You are a son of the smartest man, so you are the smartest, too." The boy seemed satisfied.

I was happy to see them having such "daily" conversations, but what amazed me was that it happened in the shrines. It looked that they visit the shrine every day. I believe that good contacts to a religion (not a cult) nurture a good humanity as long as I see my friends in the world. To them, the religion, no matter what religion they believe, provides them with a moral rule to have a social life. In this way, I think the boy grows up to be a good man.