Poplitea

 This morning hubby had A Goal in mind, so he was up bright and early despite our late night. Yesterday he’d apparently checked out two “gaming places”, Newton Oyama and Joypolis, and he had to go back to Joypolis before leaving Japan. So, hubby caught the train in to Tôkyô and I had a nice sleep-in before venturing out into Narita city. I strolled down their Omotesando, buying a few last gifts, and then ended up at the Narita-san temple.

It really had amazingly beautiful grounds and buildnings, and when I got to the main hall there was some sort of ceremony/sermon starting at 11:00, so I stopped for that. It wasn’t anything strange in the beginning, priests in different coloured robes came in, some drums started, and then one of the priests started chanting. But oh man, what a chanting! He had a really powerful voice, and just kept going and going and going! And then after maybe 15-20 minutes, some people started to leave, but those left began passing their purses and handbags forward to be collected by another few priests. They brought them forward to the middle, where they’d lit a fire (?!) and started passing big clutches of bags through the smoke, blessing them I suppose?? And then everybody got their bags back, and with some final chanting the ceremony was over and the priests piled out.

I went back out to photograph and enjoy the temple grounds, bought some charms, and then back out to omotesando. I’d taken a photo of a map up by the station and at a certain crossing I knew I could, in a round about way, make my way to Aeon Mall, so I started out. Had to ask a traffic police for directions in a crossing and then ended up passing through the residential districts for a lot longer than anticipated, but, after a slightly illegal (?), street crossing I was finally there. I had lunch, bought, even more, gifts, some sweets and bread, some books and tea. (I got a 1000¥ discount coupon simply on account of being foreign XD). In the end I took the bus back to the station around 16:00 and then had a nap.

When hubby came back a couple hours later we bathed in the hotel onsen, and then went out for a last dinner in Japan, some kind of grill-place that was delicious but slow, so for afters we went to McDonalds XD (first and only time while in Japan, at least for me), but!! BUT LISTEN!!! THEY HAD ANKO-PAI!!! As in pie with anko-filling!!!!!! Nnnnggnnngggggghhhh, whyyyyyyy is that not a thing in the western world!?!?!?!?!!? So gooood <3 ;-; And why didn’t we go to McD earlier, this has clearly been a most awful travesty!! D: *blubber*

(Also, apparently hubby’d brought towels from the hotel, and took a midday dip in Tôkyô Bay XD)