Actually, there is one bit of shrine etiquette I remembered - just outside is usually a font of water with wooden ladles, which you use to splash a bit of water on one hand, then the other, then on (but not in) the mouth, then on the bit of the ladle where you touched it. The point of this is to purify oneself before entering, and to leave the tools clean and ready for the next person. Only one of the shrines I went to today actually had such facilities, though.
Osu Kannon itself was big and impressive, with lots of the wooden bits painted red. Don't particularly know why this surprised me but there it is. I chose to go there today as I had heard that on the 18th and 28th of every month "a market" is held there, though when I arrived it struck me as more like a car-boot sale (perhaps "market" is a more international term for tourists). At first I wondered if this was an odd location for such an event, but then again, most English car-boot sales are held in fields not far from village churches, so not so strange after all. There were various sundry items on sale - semi-antiques, jewelry, kimono, cloth; I didn't indulge in anything this time.
Nearby was a shopping arcade, where I was delighted to see some shops stocking manga-related memorabilia, and others selling clothes of rather an off-beat fashion. Back in "The West," I had the idea that the three most popular manga series are probably Naruto, Bleach and One Piece, in that order. But, so far over here I have seen much more One Piece and Dragonball merchandise. Kinda strange how different stuff has a different level of appeal depending on location. Also, while there are unexpectedly numerous clothing shops, a lot of the apparel on sale strikes me as a little bland and lacking in variety, so I was glad to see the kind of fashion one runs across in, for example, Camden Market for a change. The journey home was long and arduous but not very eventful.
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| Osu Arcade |
