Matsubara Hachiman Jinja

I want to be a good writer, so I ask my tutors to correct my grammatical mistakes,

and also give me some examples for better writing. 

 

Hundreds of people visit Matsubara Hachiman Jinja, a Shinto shrine in Himeji, Hyogo prefecture,

on new year's day until 3rd of January every year, so I had waited for several days to visit. 

Finally I went there this afternoon.

 

There were few people, so I fully enjoyed my visit.

 

If many people get there at the same time and pray to God for their new year's wishes, He must get  too busy to hear them.

 

Maybe He will miss listening to some of your prayers!

 

But I thought He listened to my prayer because the shrine wasn't crowded.

 

The gate was with New year's decrative stuff.

 

 This poster shows Mt. Fuji and sunshine.

 It looks like the Japanese flag.

 

 

Nanten or Heavenly bamboo, which has tiny red fruit, is planted in a pot surrounded by bamboo.  

It is also decorated with big purple flowers called habotan or ornamental cabbage.

 

 

This shrine has one big horse statue.  I don't know why they erected a horse statue instead of other animals.

 

According to the Chinese calendar, 2014 is the year of the horse.

There are 12 kinds of animals in Chinese zodiac such as rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and boar (wild pig). They represent year 2008 to 2019 respectively.

When a person celebrates his or her birth year of his Chinese zodiac, Japanese people use the terms: "Toshi Otoko" or "Man of the Year" and "Toshi On-na" or "Woman of the Year."

I was born in the year of horse which means I am one of the "Toshi On-na" or "Women of the Year."  It's my fourth time to celebrate my zodiac year so it also means that I’m turning 48.

As I was standing in front of the statue, I thought why not be active and work like a horse sometimes? I am getting older and weaker, though.

 The red gates are beautifully arranged in a certain order.

I haven't been to this shrine for a couple of months, so I had a good time.
It takes only 10 minutes by bike from this shrine to my home but instead of going home, I went to  Sukiya, a Gyudon (rice topped with sliced beef and onion) chain restaurant, and ordered lunch.

 

It was nice and easy, and I had another good day.