Visiting a Shrine and Temple
After learning about Shintoism and Buddhism in class Tuesday morning students had lunch and then the group walked from the Olympic Village through neighboring Yoyogi Park to visit the Meiji Shrine, the largest Shinto shrine in Tokyo.
At the Meiji Shrine students participated in a purification rite before entering the grounds.
(Photo courtesy of Rachael Warriner)
On Wednesday we made a day trip across the city to the Asakusa area to visit a Buddhist temple, Sansoji.
Students buying temple good luck omamori.
The trip was also an opportunity to learn how to use the public transportation system as we rode two trains and a subway to get there. Our last activity of the day was to visit the basement of a department store in Shinjuku where students were asked to notice Japanese aesthetics as expressed in the food presentation.
These are some delicious lunch boxes for sale.
After observing the department store students had an "assignment" to travel independently in pairs back to the Olympic Village on the train. Everyone was successful returning home!
