Japanese Fortunes and Luck: Ema and Omikuji

Aside from washing your hands and praying, there are a few fortune-related activities one can partake in at a traditional Shinto Shrine or Buddhist Temple: Hanging an Ema and braving the Omikuji. For your consideration, here is a brief primer on each as they relate to my personal experiences visiting many, many different Shinto shrines […]

Kinkakuji: The Golden Pavilion

In Kyoto, there are many beautiful places to visit. Almost too many for the history and religion buffs to do in a single go, to be honest. One of the most splendid sites to partake in on a clear, sunny day has to be Kinkakuji, a pavilion of gold on a still lake.

Kiyomizudera: Waters and Blessings

Let’s be real: Kyoto can really be overwhelming with the number of shrines and historic places nestled within its boundaries. There are just so many to see that in order to draw in pilgrims, visitors, and those lucrative tourist moneys, each shrine or temple needs to have something to draw people in. It isn’t necessarily […]

Plum Blossoms at Koishikawa Korakuen

Taking a moment to stop and appreciate the flowers (or the shifting seasons in general) seems to be pretty ingrained in Japanese culture. You can find all sorts of gardens and temples known for being hotspots to visit at specific times of the year. When I last visited Japan in 2010, I was fortunate to […]

Zenkoji Temple

Zenkoji is the most famous temple in Nagano City. It has beautiful grounds and a lot going for it, but for this post, I want to try something different. I want to focus on the O-Asaji morning ceremony and my experience with it. This will be a long read (clocking in at just over 1500 […]

New Year’s in Japan: Joya no Kane, Hatsumode, and Shishi-mai

I’ve heard a lot and have spoken to a lot of people about the New Year’s traditions. There were so many small pieces that lead up to the evening itself that I decided to focus on two of the biggest and give them a go: Joya no Kane (New Year’s Bell) and Hatsumode (First Temple […]

Rurikoji Temple

At the start of autumn, I found myself down in Yamaguchi city, on the southern part of the main island of Japan. I was exhausted and unable to motivate myself to do an insane travel schedule to see the nearby limestone caves, so instead, I decided to go to one of the top three temples […]

Kita-in Temple

Just uptown a little ways from the train station in Kawagoe is a collection of temples and shrines. At one point, it even hosted a castle from the imperial capital. I went one day to check out the grounds and learn a little more about this location, as well as gaze upon the sites most […]

Enoshima Island

Just off of the coast of Kamakura, south of Tokyo, lays Enoshima Island, a small island that hosts many interesting man-made and natural beauties. One rainy weekend during summer, I was able to make a stop on the island for my wife’s birthday and get a little taste of what the island has to offer.

Kencho-ji Temple

During my first month in Japan, a colleague of mine offered to take us to Kamakura, the Kyoto of the East. Kamakura is littered with all sorts of historical and cultural goodies, the most famous of which is the giant Buddha. While visiting, I did not see the big man himself, but did manage to […]