Earsicles

It is cold as heck here! When I first arrived it was extremely warm, then it was rainy, then a typhoon hit, and now its freezing cold. I know that the Japanese take pride in their distinct seasons, but I would glady go back to the less contrasted California weather in a second. Of course the one day that I decided to leave the headphones at home... it was particularly cold and my ears are now earsicles.

This previous weekend I went to Kamakura, which is a shrine city near here in Yokohama. All I have to say... is wow. Everything here is really amazing... as you would imagine. The things that really caught my eye though, were the capitalist nature of religion here, its big business.

You know how in the United States members of religions like Mormonism or Scientology pay a great deal of their money to their religion in tithing? Its sort of like an income tax, where they pay yearly. Its similar, but different here in Japan. Instead of paying over time in lump sums, you pay here to pray. You walk up to the god, you toss your money into a box, and then you pray.

This goes for both Shinto, and Buddhism, both of which have extremely similar shrines.

Also, the Buddhism here is not the Buddhism that I learned about in history class, nor that I was expecting. The Buddhist shrines are very VERY decadent. They have things to purchase, and then offer up to gods. Yeah that's right, Buddhist gods. There is a god of Sake, there is a god of rice, there is a god of love, a god of happiness, etc.

At the biggest shrines, they were selling masks of popular charchters for kids to buy and run around in, including Thomas the train engine, pikachu, and some sort of bug thing action hero.

I will be going this weekend to Odaiba in Tokyo to an absolutely Ginormous Toyota showroom that has its own test driving track, a place for children to build and drive their own pedal / electric hybrids, and you can ride in robotic cars.

The adventure continues.

-Colleen