Hachiman Jingu and Ryuhoji

 Here is another wish. This one is for the Sendai professional baseball team, the Rakuten Eagles, to come in first this year. The plea was not very effective. The team came in fourth out of the six teams in their division.

 This is the sign over the door to a men's room. It is the outline of a man wearing a kimono covered by hakuma, a pants like arrangement that covers the kimono and is now worn only on formal occasions.

 This is the women's room. It is a woman wearing a kimono.

We had now been all the way around the grounds and had seen at least the outside of all the buildings. We decided it was time to leave and took a side exit, just to see where it went.

 As we walked down a narrow backstreet, we sat the roof of a pagoda. A quick look at a map told us that this was Ryuhoji, the dragon treasure temple. Since we had plenty of time, we decided to find the entrance and explore some more.

 A short walk brought us to the main gate. There were no guardian kings but maybe because it is next door to Hachiman Jingu, a shrine dedicated to the God of War, they felt that no more protection was needed.

The first building inside the grounds was this very nice two story pagoda. It looked fairly new, or at least in excellent and recent repair.

Hachiman Jingu

 Here is another view of the decorations up under the roof where the rafters come out.

 Here is the golden decorations at the front under the ridgepole. The birds seem to be cranes.

 This is a covered walk way with shoe boxes at the entrance to a hall of some kind.

 This is called a mikoshi and the long handles sticking out the front are used during matsuri, festivals, to carry the mikoshi around the neighborhood. This one is probably carried by eight to twelve men. The frequent pattern is to carry the mikoshi for a short ways and then stop and drink sake or beer and the go another short ways and then drink some more. This pattern is continued throughout the whole trip. The first time I carried a mikoshi during a festival, I got terribly drunk. All over the neighborhood at about 50 meter intervals, people had tables set up with food and drink. At each one some one would give me a tea cup full of sake and push me to drink it.

 This little structure set up around a tree carries people's wishes for the gods.

The light colored one in front is a which from someone to win a badminton tournament.

Hachinman Jingu

 These are kegs full of sake, also known as nihonshu or rice wine. Actually I checked and some of them are empty but others are still full. They will probably be used on New Years Eve, when most shrines serve hot sake to the people who come.

 This was put up last March, at the beginning of the soccer season, by the Sendai team, Vegalta. All of the players have signed it and I remember seeing in the newspaper that the entire team and coaching staff had come here to Hachman Jingu for a formal blessing. It seems to have worked this year (for a change). With two weeks left in the season they are in second place and within striking distance of first.

 The stone structure in side the red fence is a sundial.

 This is a dragon that protects one of the pillars at the front of the main shrine building.

 This shows the decorations under the eaves of the main shrine.

Sorry this picture is not very good, but this little girl was all dressed up and was presenting herself to the god. She was way inside the building so there was very little light. She was so cute that I could not pass up the picture, even now