House Blessing

Today the house was blessed by the local priest. There will be a couple of pics of it shortly. However the priest was a little reluctant of having his picture taken and also this is not a 'tourist' event but rather a integral component of Japanese life. I'll let Di give all the details of the actual process as I was up working in Tokyo.

Some may wonder why are we getting the house blessed. Well the house is at least 150 years old and is built in the traditional style (excluding the out buildings) (pictures to link in soon), and its what we wanted to do.  The first weekend we were there we had a salt and Saki sprinkling session and it really made the place feel better.  We feel that we help clear the place and let the previous owner know that the house is in good hands.  We left some salt and Saki in his old bedroom to take with him.  He lived in the house up until a few months ago before passing away in a local hospital.  The next day the place felt much 'lighter' than it had before so I think we really did the right thing.

The first morning we were there the old owner turned up to find us sleeping in the main house and thought we were people who had come off the beach to sleep there.  He was totally stunned when I sat up off the futon and he saw a gaijin!  I didn't quite understand what he was saying as he was walking towards my sleeping place, but I could really see the confusion run across his face.  "People sleeping in my fathers house, how dare they, oh he is a gaijin, we sold the house to a gaijin, he must be part of the new ownership" switch to hello mode! 

My japanese is bad to say the best, but I after getting fully awake and Di taking over the converstation it all came right.  He was delighted to me us and was so nice.  He was actually planning to call the priests in himself.  He was totally delighted to hear that Diana was going to do it anyway!  A great first start.  All the neighbour (who seem to find any reason to call by) were also pleased to see that salt and Saki had be done.

This entry is catching up on alot of stuff over the last few weekends and hopefully Di will fill in some on the blanks that I've left.