Urban Foxfire

After Unrin-in and Kenkun Jinja, I made use of my all-day bus pass and spent the evening wandering around Shijo and Teramachi. Did a little bit of window-shopping, and actually stopped at a couple of the half-hidden temples along Teramachi street.
(Point of interest--Teramachi literally means "temple town.")

 

A girl advertising for someplace on one of the side streets of Teramachi-dori

 

Somehow, I never noticed these No Evil monkeys before.

 Nishiki Tenmanguu shrine is among the few which stay open into the evening, past sundown. (Usually these sorts of temples have some kind of night-time illumination if they're open that late.) This is also a shrine dedicated to Tenjin, the scholar Sugawaru no Michizane, the same as Kitano Tenmanguu--only Kitano Tenmanguu shrine is the head of all the Tenjin shrines in Japan.

 

You can see the cow motif again...

 

and another fortune-teller machine

 

Nishiki Tenmanguu at sunset is one of the most enchanting places I've ever set foot in...

 

The only slightly unfortunate thing I found is that Nishiki Tenmanguu doesn't have anyone qualified to do the shodo for nokyo-cho.

Instead, they sell prints of the stamps that you can glue onto a page...

I ended up buying one anyway...

Anyoji, or Sakarengeji, is particularly popular among women, but because the lotus pedestal was about to break under the main statue, it was turned upside down. Another version of the tale says that the pedestal was turned upside down to save women; in days of old, followers of Buddhism believed the lotus-flower pedestals in women's minds were upside down, which made them too sinful to find Paradise after dying.

 

Once my stomach got grumbly, I wandered back out to Shijo to pick up some

shaka-shaka chicken as a snack on the way to Book-Off.

 

One of the contemporary "kimono" looks: polyester, with bright non-traditional designs,

and multiple loose, elaborate obi worn with the bow in the front.

 

This scene reminds me a little of Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night