Day 2 - Iseshi

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(Blogged on the 11th of December but entry posted under the 9th of December - dates have been adjusted accordingly.)

We were recommended to go to the Ise Shrine by my Japanese tutor. It is apparently the oldest shrine built by the first emperor (I am recalling this from memory) and is always visited by every subsequent emperor. That literally took up the whole day before we headed to another temple - the Osu Kannon temple in Nagoya before calling it a day.

First we had breakfast in one of the restaurants in Nagoya station. I was pretty shocked to discover that smoking was allowed in the restaurant which was air-conditioned. Ash trays were provided on every table (they were very clean - must have been scrubbed with hot water) and i found it peculiar to have the ash tray beside my small container of milk for my coffee. The atmosphere was so smoky that i was tempted to smoke one stick myself. It would have made no damn difference.

After breakfast, we took a train out to Iseshi station. That took a little over an hour.

Ise Shrine
One thing to be sure of is that the shrine is made of two parts that are located 10 minutes drive away from each other. The one that is easily accessible (10 minute walk from Iseshi station) is known as the outer part. There is a tourist information centre located at the entrance of the outer part and we were given a small collar pin as a little present from the centre for tourists.

That was my first time visiting such old Japanese temples. I was surprised to note that temples are not extravagantly constructed as i used to think. No marble titles or gold furniture. Instead everything was made of wood and blended with nature. At the start was a small pool of water which is believed to be holy - people were using the bamboo scoops provided to drench their hands and rinse their mouths for good luck. I only drenched my hands with the water; the medical part of me was skeptical and afraid of what kind of virulent strains of Pseudomonas may be lurking in the pool. Other than that, there was not anything else that caught my attention. There were many paths leading to different parts of the shrine. I grew very bored quickly.

Next we attempted to catch the bus to the inner part of the shrine. As we were waiting for the bus, a taxi driver came up to us and offered us a ride to the temple at a price lower than the combined bus fares for both of us. I was initially hesitant because i do not know much about the Japanese society and its crime rate and i am generally not very trusting anyway, but since P said it was all right, i threw caution to the wind.

It was clear that the inner part of the shrine is much busier. I soon found out why. Right before the entrance of the shrine, there was a whole street lined with shops and eateries. I was immediately more interested in this street of shops than of the shrine, so P had no choice but to follow me into the street first. There were so many different snacks sold including Japanese buns, fried fresh fishes and even sea urchins! There are also quite a few shops selling Japanese items. I had a whale of a time using my Nikon to take photos of people on the street. It was pretty amazing.

The Inner Shrine was similar to the outer one except it was more crowded and at the most sacred part of the temple, there was a priest who was chanting and talking to devotees. P bought an amulet at the shop located in the middle part of the shrine.

Osu Kannon Temple
We visited this temple after rushing home from Ise Shrine but by the time we got there, it was really too dark to see anything. Fortunately, the temple was surrounded by streets of shops that provided another point of amusement for us. I tried a Tonkatsu rice ball (rice ball with pork) and it was pretty good.

Next we had dinner at a very low-profile restaurant. We had to order and pay via a vending machine (i mucked up once with minimal consequences thankfully) before the waiter came to collect our receipts. I had pork cutlets with rice and P had fish. It was very interesting and we were drawing obvious curious looks from the other patrons. I don't think foreigners visit that restaurant often.

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