Toriis and Temples and Shrines, oh my!

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A bit of catchup: I went to see Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine on Monday, March 21. It was a national holiday, and the day after the big 7.0 earthquake (which did surprisingly little damage for how much stuff was shaking). Where cities like Kyoto are packed with famous shrines and temples, Fukuoka's only notable one is Tenmangu. It's semi-famous as being the best shrine to pray at for academic success. That's right: parents from the whole region drag their high schoolers to Dazaifu in hopes of passing the all-important college entrance exams. Call me pathetic, but it took me 8 months to get to Fukuoka's only great cultural site. It's also known for having beautiful plum trees, which were all in bloom when we went. It was rather pretty.

I went with Keita, a Japanese guy I met, and three of his friends, who all turned out to be really cool. Slowly but surely my social circle is widening... Soon I'll hit double-digits. Here are a few pictures.


This is called a torii. They're placed at the entrances to all shrines.


The main building at Tenmangu shrine. Note the plum tree in the foreground.


A statue--I'm not sure what the significance is--and more plum trees.


Keita reading my fortune to me. Turns out I will be easily susceptible to diseases and will never be reunited with loved ones. Not like American fortune cookies, I tell ya.


But when you get a bad fortunes, you tie it to one of these thingies and the god of the shrine "takes care of it."


Clockwise: Oana, Chen, Mu, Keita, and me. We were quite the international group. Mu and Chen are Chinese, Oana's Romanian, and Keita's Japanese. We had many deep and meaningful conversations about cultural differences, including what noises various animals make. FYI dog noises: English--bow wow, Romanian--how how, Japanese--wan wan, Chinese--wan wan (but the pronunciation is a little different).