Local Temple Ceremony and Nagahama Momiji
One of Amy's coworkers lives in a temple, which in itself, is really cool! She invited Amy to a special ceremony held at the temple and somehow Amy worked some magic and got me an invite too. It started at 10am and while we got there on time, it took us some time to find the way in since we were worried about arriving through the wrong entrance and ending up in the shrine part of the temple by accident! There was already some chanting going on whilst we deliberated and luckily, an old lady arrived whilst we were discussing where to get in. She came to our rescue and helped us enter with what we hoped would be a covert, low-key fashion but ended up being a big event! As soon as one person had seen the foreigners, a ripple of discussion was sent through the congregation who all craned their necks to have a look. There was a big kerfuffle to get us some chairs and with much muttering, we were settled in. Within a few seconds, books arrived in our hands which were a kind of prayer b...
