Nagoya is south-west of Tokyo on the other side of Mt Fuji. It’s the fourth largest city in Japan and had lots of tours on offer. I picked the “Discovering Ancient Nagoya” which had a shrine, a temple and a castle. Let’s do this.
The Atsuta Shrine is a big deal if you follow Japanese mythology at all, as it holds one of the three sacred treasures of Imperial family. Kind of like how the UK has the Crown Jewels. The sword “Grasscutter” is (supposedly) kept in Atsuta Shrine – but you can’t see it. Nobody can see it. Even in 2019, when Japan gained a new emperor and was presented with the sword no one saw it.
Why call a sword Grasscutter? Legend is a great hero was gifted the sword before an adventure. Treasonous “allies” tricked him to go hunting in a dry field and set fire to the field in order to claim his death was an accident. The hero started cutting the grasses in the field to reduce the fuel for the fire, but discovered that with every swing the wind picked up and blew the fire back towards the bad guys.
We were asked to not take pictures in the shrine proper, but there was a great blooming cherry tree right outside.
Like many shrines and temples, there are the donated sake barrels presented.
Next to the sake is a 1000+ year old camphor tree. They lay out 12 chicken eggs, due to the legend that 12 snakes live in the tree. Seeing one of the snakes is good luck.
Our guide taught us some stuff about passing thru torii gates that I did not know.
- Do not walk thru the middle, that’s for the emperor
- Do a quick bow towards the shrine before passing thru
- When passing thru the torii as you leave, turn around a do a quick bow towards the shrine again
The shrine has a museum of famous swords, many considered national “important cultural property”. So, of course, no photography. However, there is a section where you can lift actual swords to get an idea how much they weigh and how hard it would be to use them. Yes, there are very secured – you can’t just run off with them. I did not realize the Japanese made such large two-handed swords. This must have weighed over 30 pounds (15 kg).
After shrining out we traveled to the Osu Kannon temple. Not really to visit the temple, but to walk in the surrounding Osu covered street shopping area. That’s not to say the temple isn’t something to see.
Here is one of the best examples I’ve found of the different color cherry blossoms. You know it’s unique when even the Japanese visitors stop to take pictures of this. The angle is strange due to the crowd and surrounding structures.
Here’s a quick view into Japan. Like many countries, there are young music singing groups – think “Backstreet Boys” or “Spice Girls”. Here there are teams sponsored by the prefectures (“counties”) that compete with teams from other prefectures. Almost like an all-star baseball team competing in state then national tournaments. Here the local group representing Nagoya prefecture are called “OSU”, the “Osu Super-Idol Unit”. I am not making this up. They actually have multiple teams, and individuals compete with each other to make it to the top team. As team members age out they are replaced, but the idol group stays – again, like a sports team. Here, their image is being used to promote the street shopping area.
This is getting really long. I’ll do the castle visit in a separate post.
- Big Japan Regret – not finding more off-beat Kit Kat flavors. I found strawberry (mixed with red bean paste “adzuki”), but not the wasabi or green tea versions. Welp, a reason to return.
- You find a sizable minority of Japanese wearing face masks. I knew they did that if they had a cold (even before Covid). Our guide said many also do it during pollen season to help with allergies.
