We started the year (well, the first afternoon of the year) at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. The shrine is dedicated to the spirits of those who died fighting for the Emperor, and among the 2,466,532 enshrined are 1,068 convicted World War II criminals. It has become a mecca for the political right, and each visit by a high-ranking government official sparks outrage in China and both Koreas. Nonetheless, recent prime minister Koizumi used to go every year.

The shrine also houses a museum of the history of Japan, whose representation of war-time events is also widely criticised as being revisionist. But you do get to see a kamikaze airplane and even manned torpedoes.

With approximately 150 hotels and ryokans, Isawa Onsen is the biggest hot spring resort in Yamanashi, the prefecture to Tokyo's west. It is also home to seven temples to the Seven Gods of Fortune, which we (Cissy, Jing, Ted, Kanshi, and myself) visited today. We walked the whole way (much to the amazement of Japanese travelers, who did this pilgrimage by car), thus walked the whole day (it took about six hours), but it was well worth the effort, as I could add seven stamps to my collection, all of them with the coveted January 1st date. The first stamp is especially great: The priest at the Ebisu Temple was in such a good mood that he augmented his calligraphy with a smiley. I was also given mandarin oranges, beans, candy, tea, and a ball pen.

After that was onsen, of course, and the hotel we went to even had a free New Year show (a performance by four Chinese acrobats).

On my pilgrimage to Eighty-Eight Temples in Tokyo, I encountered the pocket monster Pikachu today. Jyoukanji Temple in Kaminakazato has a stone statue of this cute little fellow flaking the path that leads to its main hall. I asked the temple caretaker for some background story, but she could not tell me when Pikachu arrived, and just pointed out that he is very popular with the young visitors. I bet he is.

And yes, I agree it was a mistake to leave the house without a camera. I will try to find time to get back to Jyoukanji and update this entry with some pictures next weekend.

Update: There you go.

Naritasan Shinshoji is one of the most popular Buddhist temple in the Kanto area. Let me say that again: Naritasan Shinshoji is one of the most popular Buddhist temple in the Kanto area. It is not a Shinto shrine, as I wrote yesterday. Unfortunately, under a spell of total disorientation, I had the goshuin entered in my Shinto album, which I suppose invalidates the whole collection. Now I have to start over again and get a new album at the Meiji shrine.

The Citiclub hike also passed the shrine on Mt. Tsukuba, but there was no time scheduled to actually visit it, which is a real pity since this is a very scenic mountain-shrine, and apparently important, too (they have an English brochure, which explains that the mountain has captured religious awe for as long as there have been people living in the Kanto Plains, and that the two divinities enshrined here, Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Izanami-no-Mikoto, are the sacred progenitors of the Japanese race and even gave birth to the very islands of Japan). While it is definitely not the spirit of pilgrimage to just drop by and pick up the temple seal, that was all I could do this time. To make things worse, I forgot to bring along my album and had to ask for the stamp to be issued on a loose leaf.

Another concentration of Buddhist temples is near the big Asakusa Kannon, so that just by walking from one subway station (Inaricho) to the next (Tawaramachi), I was able to add nine stamps to my collection. The atmosphere in the temples varied a lot. Some of the temples were in their original buildings, others on the second floor of a modern concrete complex. We met a very jovial priest who was still dressed up quite formally from the funeral ceremony he conducted just a moment ago (not really a funeral actually, but the memorial service one year after that). We met a young apprentice whose brush strokes for my album were interrupted twice, once by the telephone and once by a delivery boy. We met very friendly ladies that gave us tea, sweets, scented bags, and a handkerchief. We also met the more business-minded variant, who handed out prepared pages that had been signed and stamped in advance (in that case, you are still supposed to give them an empty page in return).

I have now been to nineteen of the eighty-eight places in Tokyo.

I met some serious collectors of temple stamps in Engyouji temple on Mount Shosha near Himeji. They did not have an album to contain the seals but instead had them put on both a cloth scroll and an ornamental robe, drawing my immediate admiration. Being conscious of the fact that I have not yet advanced to their level, however, I started another album. Engyouji is number 27 of 33 holy places in Western Japan (the westernmost of them actually). I also decided that three concurrent Buddhist albums are my limit and I will not start one more before I finish one first.

Within walking distance from our apartment, just across Nippori station, lies Yanaka, which was a religious centre of Tokyo during the Edo period. It seems every family at that time established their own temple, and as a result the neighbourhood now abounds in them. Yanaka has between seventy and eighty Buddhist temples today, seven of those on my pilgrimage to the Eighty-eight Places Within Tokyo (of which I have seen nine so far). I started going to the Eighty-eight Places Within Tokyo in addition to the Thirty-three Places in Kanto, because those are quite difficult to reach, but I will not begin visiting the Thirty-three Places of Edo or the Other Twenty-one Places Within Tokyo before I am done with either of them.

Yanaka also has a big cemetery. Cemeteries in Japan function as public parks, too, and as it is sakura season and perfect weather now, it was packed with people sitting on blue plastic sheets, having barbecue under the cherry blossoms.

Mitake-jinja in Shibuya is very close to our office. I went there during lunch break. The main feature are the two guardian lion-dogs (koma-inu) which take the form of Japanese wolves, which is said to be unusual. The stone originals, which have been badly damaged during war, are enshrined here, and two faithful bronze replicas have taken their positions.

There are big shrines and there are small shrines. Ebisu-jinja is definitely a small one. The caretaker is also running (from the same building on the shrine grounds) a car rental agency, which is why I got a business card in addition to the red ink seal.

The name of Heihachiro Togo is world-famous and ranks alongside that of Lord Nelson as one of the world's greatest Admirals. At least that is what they say at Togo-jinja in Harajuku, which was built in 1940 (destroyed in 1945, rebuilt in 1964) to enshrine the soul of the admiral (1847-1934). As often happens at weekend visits to shrines, there was a traditional Japanese wedding ceremony going on when I went there.

This shrine is typical of Tokyo in that it is hidden away in a modern city quarter (in this case actually right next to the infamous Kabuki-cho red light district in Shinjuku) and quite unexpectedly appears between office buildings.

Hanazono was the second shrine we visited today. In the first one, our request for the red ink stamp was turned down because the head priest was not in. And as I could witness at Hanazono it does take a calligraphy master to issue the stamp: First, an inscription is done with black ink and a big brush. After that, the seal is stamped in red.

Stamps are important in Japan. Instead of signatures, people and institutions use name stamps (hanko or inkan) to sign contracts and other legal documents. All railway stations and all sites of touristic interest have a stamp which can be collected in albums to document the visit. Many shops issue stamp cards which result in discounts for frequent buyers. And yesterday I engaged in the ultimate stamp rally.

Both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples issue stamps (goshuin) to visitors, as a proof of having worshipped there. They have been doing this for hundreds of years. The stamps are collected in special albums, and there are also official pilgrimages in which the stamps of the participating shrines are put on scrolls.

The Meiji shrine in Harajuku was constructed to commemorate Emperor Meiji (Japan's 122th emperor, born 1852, reigned from 1868 - 1912) and Empress Shoken. While their souls have in fact been enshrined there on November 1st, 1920, their mortal shells are buried in Kyoto. The temple area also contains an evergreen forest with 365 different species of trees, donated by people all over Japan.