Today Weather Explorer left Japan for her husband's new duty station in Tennessee.
She's been a willing and cheerful accomplice in most of my adventures and escapades for the past year and half, and my Rock of Gibralter -- make that Mount Fuji -- since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. We've had some fun times. To put it mildly.
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| Uraga Ferry |
The past three weeks have been packed with farewell activities. The day after our first Charity Quilting Bee, Hisayo and Chigusa took us on a hike in Uraga, the hilly Yokosuka neighborhood where they live. We visited a shrine on the east side of a small bay and then rode a ferry to the sister shrine on the other side.
Hisayo bought us pretty little prayer pouches at the east shrine. At the west shrine we selected polished stones and inserted them in our pouches.
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| Prayer tablet at Kano Higashi (East) |
Hisayo pointed out two symbols on a marble plinth at the entrance to the east shrine. The two symbols -- "Wishes Fulfilled" -- are also painted on the tablets visitors can purchase. We bought one of those tablets, wrote a prayer on the back, and hung it on a hook outside the shrine. If I have this right, our prayer will remain on that hill overlooking Tokyo Bay until the new year when all the prayers are burned in a special ceremony.
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