Last Day in Osaka - Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine

On my last day in Osaka (2 days ago) I woke up kind of late (10 or 11?) and got ready. I still wanted to see Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine, so I went to the subway station, then to the big Tennoji station, where I bought some sandwiches from a bakery then took a special tram thing to the shrine. But you're not supposed to eat on the trains and I couldn't really find a bench to sit down at, so I just carried the sandwiches around even though I was hungry lol. Sumiyoshi Taisha is an important Shinto shrine that was founded in 211. The shrine is even referred to in Japan's earliest texts, "Nihon Shoki" (the Chronicles of Japan), "Kojiki" (Ancient Chronicles) and "The Tale of Genji." It's a very beautiful shrinewith completely authentic Japanese-style architecture, not influenced by mainland Asia. This style is called Sumiyoshi-zukuri, and it "is characterized by straight roofs (as opposed to the curved roofs commonly built in later centuries) which are decorated by two sets of forked finials (chigi) and five horizontal billets (katsuogi)" (Japan Guide).   

 The main three kami enshrined there are protectors of travelers, fishermen and sailors at sea. Before you enter the shrine, you have to wash your hands and mouth to cleanse them before approaching the gods.

Use the ladles to wash your hands and mouth.

There is also a beautiful bridge called the Soribashi that you have to cross to get to the main part of the shrine. When you cross the bridge, your sins are cleansed so you can approach the gods. It's said to be so steep "because it was likened to a rainbow since it connected the terrestrial world of humans and the celestial world of gods" (Osaka-Info). 

There are four main halls where one could give money and then shake a bell to wake the kami. Then you bow twice, clap twice, and bow again to honor the kami. This was the first time I saw people praying very intently at a Japanese shrine. Often people toss coins and clap, but don't stay and pray for very long. But here, people stayed for several minutes praying. I also saw people going to each hall separately to donate coins and pray. I'm not really sure why this was, except that the shrine wasn't very busy so people could take their time. 

You shake the rope thing to ring the bell and wake the kami

After I walked all around the shrine and prayed a little, I went to buy a charm from the priestesses. The priestesses' clothes and headdresses are always so beautiful but it didn't seem appropriate to ask for a picture so I didn't take any. But I bought a charm for help with studies! I hope it will help me do well on my placement test! After that, I went to take pictures of the bridge. I saw a cat lying in wait for a bunch of pigeons. I snuck up to take a picture of the cat. Right after, he tried to pounce on the pigeons but they got surprised and flew away. haha. He seemed annoyed with me.

Waiting...

I got some nice pictures of the bridge as I left.

Then I took the tram thing back to the guesthouse. Noco and Gandhi were there cleaning up the guesthouse! They invited me to go to dinner and of course I said yes. We walked through some sketchy area to a nabe place. This is how it looked before I cooked it. Soo good. But the meat was too fatty :/ They took such good care of me again. They asked me to pay for the room but they  were insistent that I only pay for the 2 days that I didn't work at the bar. I wanted to pay them the full amount but I was also stressed about money. It's kind of a long story but basically there was a limit on my ATM withdrawals which I didn't know about and I needed to pay a lot of money to move into my apartment... Sigh. I can only take out $500 worth of cash from an ATM per day because of a limit by Chase. But I needed to pay $1800 (140,000 yen!) in cash for my apartment rent, insurance, and setup fees yesterday. I only brought a little cash to Japan and I had spent most of it by then. I was able to take out some money from a post office - but only 30,000 yen. So later that night I had to call Chase and ask them to raise the limit. After wasting time and all my prepaid minutes on hold, they raised the limit to $1000. So I went to 7-11 and took out 50,000 more yen. I was hoping to get the rest in the morning. ( I said goodbye and thanks to Noco and Gandhi. I went back to the guesthouse and did laundry, then tried to clean up and pack everything back up. Went to bed too late - about 1:30 am. Next day --- To Kyoto!! DUM DUM DUM.