A shrine to be cleaned...

  There is a town near Toyota city. The town of Okazaki. 

Everybody who takes train to get to Toyota Technical Center in the morning knows this name. And in this city there are shrines. And some of them are being cleaned on Sunday...

  Saturday evening, when Hiraoka-san was still at our place having dinner, he mentioned this tradition to us. The neighborhood around the shrine is divided into groups and each group has to clean the area around shrine at a given Sunday, once a year. So that Sunday was their turn. That was one of the reasons he needed to wake up early (hence there is still beer in our fridge).

  We, on the other hand, are very curious about every non-tourist aspect of Japanese life, so we could not miss this opportunity to learn something new.

  And there we were the next morning, getting in the car at 8.00 to find surprisingly busy roads as we drove south. That area is full of cherry blossom! No wonder he did not go anywhere special to see this with his family...

  So they gave us gloves and asked to pick the grass from the lawn. And in 20 min everybody was done. We thought this would take a least couple of hours. 

  Apparently what's important here is not the final result (although, there was much less grass in the end), but your commitment. The good thing is that you don't have to do this - that's why everybody was there.

  Later we had a cup of tea at Hiraoka-san's place and he showed me some items from his camera's collection. Film cameras that is. Truly impressive. That is really a collection, because a man does not need all these just to take pictures.

  One day I hope to have another look.

More pictures of Sakura here.

More pictures of the shrine here.