Day 18 Recap: Malls, Shrines, and Storied Trees

 For my blog day I first went to class like normal, and sat through the various lectures and whatever else was planned for the day. After class I was invited to go to the Tenoji mall with Lauran, Bianca, and Sam. It was a fairly big mall with a couple of different types of stores there. There were clothing stores, merchandise stores, restaurants, electronics stores, and furniture stores. We walked around a bit and eventually got something to eat. I ended up getting a sort of cheese bread and an ice cream cone. After that we headed back to the hotel, and I noticed that there was a festival down the street at a shrine. So, I went back up to my room and put down my bags and proceeded to go and check out the festival. The shrine was completely packed with people wearing various colors and various different materials of yukatas. The streets contained various booths that had some contain various types of food, such as fried chicken, chilled cucumbers, and caramel and chocolate coated strawberries. The other type of booths were the ones that contained games with prizes, most of them seemed to be a type of fishing game where you would try to fish out a reward. Rewards would include inflatable swords, rubber ducks, and other such things. The children present at the shrine seemed to be very into these game booths and there were long lines of them trying to win prizes. Another thing that was interesting was that most of the various statues there were dressed up in little outfits that were fairly cute. There was also lanterns everywhere that were the main source of light here. There was a distinct sound of drums that could be heard from streets away. The whole event was very loud in general, both due to the music being played and the shouting and cheering and excitement of the people inside the event. Something I found interesting was that the main feature of the shrine, a tree that survived the bombings of WW2, was not decorated at all unlike the rest of the shrine around it. I wonder if they were worried about harming the tree due to what it had already been through in its long and storied lifetime. Another theory that I have is that the reason it wasn’t decorated has to do with it being connected to the urban legend surrounding it. The urban legend is that if you put your hand on the tree that you’ll get a strong sense of power. Maybe decorations touching it would have been viewed as disrespectful or bad luck. After my trip to the festival, I headed back to the hotel and began to write this blog while listening to various shows on the Netflix that is provided to the TV in the hotel room. Then once I was comfortable with the progress I have made towards the assignment I started to get ready to go to sleep.