Asakusa Sanja Matsuri Dog

Starting on Friday and ending in the grand finale on Sunday, today, is the huge Sanja Matsuri, probably the biggest festival in Tokyo. Among all the hundreds of thousands (actually about 2 million people over the three days) I spotted these two, looking great in a quiet corner of Sensoji Temple. Even dogs dress in their finest on these important days!

Nigatsudo – Nara

On the slopes of Mount Wakakusa in Nara you’ll find the Nigatsudo (二月堂), one of the auxiliary tamples of the great Taodaiji (where you’ll find the great buddha of Nara). It was built in 752 but the original building burned down in 1667, so the present building is only about 350 years old. The main building of the temple holds two large buddha statues but as these “hibutsu”, or secret buddha, they are never shown to the public. On the 12th of March every year the temple holds a large service that I have yet to see in person.

Kawasaki Daishi – Drive in Temple

Probably the biggest and most famous temple in Kawasaki city right on the south western border with Tokyo is the Kawasaki Daishi. It is a huge temple complex divided into several different parts, one of which is dedicated to traffic safety and cars! The temple building itself is a modernistic almost south east asian looking building in the middle of a huge parking lot where cars are staged in group depending on their order of taking part in the ceremony. Once an hour monks hold a ceremony praying for the safety and good fortune of the cars and their passengers and most people who have their cars blessed do so once a year. The ceremony itself costs 5000 yen but it is customary to give an additional donation to the temple when you return. Cars thus blessed gets a small bumper sticker that looks quite neat. You can see it on the temple’s home page. I was very lucky with the weather this day!

Ikegami Honmonji Temple

The Ikegami Honmomji temple in Tokyo’s Ota Ward is one of the biggest in Tokyo. It was founded in 1282 but the buildings have been rebuilt several times since that, especially after the big bombing raid in March 1945 where most of the temple burnt down. It is the home of the Nichiren sect of Japanese Buddhism and has several large festival in Nichiren’s honor every year. I took these photos after the spring festival last month, which centered on the 17th century pagoda on the temple grounds. An interesting detail of the temple is the memorial stone to the sloop of war, the USS Oneida, which sank outside Yokosuka to the south of Tokyo in 1870. 115 sailors including the captain Commander Edward P. Williams. 61 sailors were rescued by local fishermen. Four of the officers were buried at the foreigner’s cemetery in Yokohama. A local wrecking company bought the wreck from the US government in 1872 and recovered many of the other dead. The bodies were given to the Honmonji temple monks for burial and in 1889 they received a proper ceremony and a memorial, paid for by the wrecking company owners. I have heard that the descendants of the wreckage company owners are still the legal owners of the wreck and the cargo it carried which was never recovered. The wreck is rumored to hold quite a treasure of gold and silver bars that the US government had received in payment for selling arms and gunpowder to the Japanese government.