These days visiting local temples to me is like going to Disney World. I get all giddy and can't sleep the night before. I guess that's pretty lame when you think about it. Shows my age.
So here are some pictures from our last visit. Interesting temple things.
My husband freaked out when I took this picture. It's called a munenbotoke. I'd never seen one before. Basically, they are graves that have no one to look after them for one reason or another. Restless spirits, all that stuff.
Here are J and M sticking incense into some sand, lighting it and directing the smoke all over their bodies.
And here's a giant shoe. I've never seen a giant shoe at Disney before. I'm guessing this belonged to one of the monster-sized mountain goblins from the post below. There was only one shoe, so I'm also guessing he'll be wanting this back sometime soon. Wish I could be there to see that.
This little guy is a jizo. He's what I'm carving on Saturdays. Except MY ojizo has a ginormous head. HUGE! Everyone in my class made comments about how big my jizo's head was. I said I liked his big head, so there. Then they moved away and talked about his head amongst themselves.
I found a picture of the jizo I'm carving. Mind you, he's not done yet. Teacher says I have to take some of his head off.
Speaking of big heads, this statue had the biggest head on a statue I'd ever seen in my life. Bigger than my jizo even. Impressive.
Oh, and I loved this one because whoever sewed this cap also embroidered a little bee on it. What a sweet thing to do.
And finally, this was quite freaky. You know how people fold 1,000 cranes and string them up to wish for good health? Well, in the middle of this one ancient temple someone threaded a thousand cicada skins.
Macabre. I'm not saying Walt is turning over in his grave but...
