Stones

After the sumo last weekend, Tomoko and I explored a nearby shrine… in the dark!

After being startled by the resident cat who suddenly decided she wanted to be somewhere else, we found a particular stone that Tomoko had been looking for.

It has become a custom for visitors to scrape off some of the stone and keep is as a charm for good health. We obliged, but being dark it all felt strangely furtive! Also the photo isn’t very good…

A few days later, this was echoed across the road from Spiral.

The area is getting a bit of a face-lift and, making the most of the Japanese language’s huge number of homophones, they’ve come up with Au to play off the place name, the verb to meet and the colour blue.

In addition to the new logo (of course!) they had covered a huge area with marble chippings and strung up a load of flags across the side nearest the street. It was catching everyone’s attention and whilst not many people knew what it was about, they were all keen to grab a handful of the stones which we were told had healing properties and were invited to take away with us!