It was refreshing to walk along the approach to the hall of worship. This is a night light.
There was also a pond. Azaleas were in bloom.
Okuni Jinja is dedicated to Okuninushi no Mikoto. He is one of the major gods in Japanese myth and worshipped as a god of building nations, agriculture, commerce, and medicine.
The shrine had many visitors. We had to stand in line in to make a prayer.
On our way back, we found an interesting place where religion-related goods were sold. These are papier-mache dogs, which were originally made as charms for healthy growth of children, daruma dolls (modeled after the founder of Zen Buddhism), sacred sake candies, and so on.
Behind them, there were miniature torii or gateway to the sacred place, offering box, and guardian dogs. Seen from the backside, the papier-mache dogs looked like cats.
Salt is often used to purify things and places. For example, sumo wrestlers throw salt in the ring before a match because sumo was originally a shinto event to entertain gods.
One of the most remarkable things in Okuni Jinja was a stump of a sacred tree that was more than 1000 years old and fell in 1972 because of a typhoon. According to the website of the shrine, there is another sacred tree. It is about 800 years old and said to bring romance. Apart from these trees, the forest itself is very old and called an ancient forest.
In front of Okuni Jinja, there is an area called “Kotomachi Yokocho” with cafes, tea and sweet shops. It was crowded with people. Mori-machi seemed to have many kinds of products using their tea. Soon after we got out of the gate of shrine, we returned to Hamamatsu. We could see a lot of things in a day!
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