Lifestyle

I am back. I made good on my promise and stopped by the large shrine in the center of our city again. As on previous occasions, I was particularly drawn to the water basins where the visitors who come here rinse their hands. This is more of a ritual that here in Japan is not only found at many shrines, but also at many temples and which is part of the prayer procedure that is performed at such places. For a few years now, the two water basins for hand rinsing at our shrine have been decorated with an ever-changing flower arrangement and I am always curious to see what it will look like each time. Although in autumn the colors are often more subdued, I was greeted by an extremely chic assortment of flowers, this time with a focus on the color pink. As much as I can tell, the flowers were mainly asters, and their pink glowed in a variety of shades and easily managed to put a smile on my face. These days I am always in need of a little color and luckily I now know where to find it. As usual, the small round water basin is guarded by a proud little dragon who makes it clear that you should better behave yourself well in this place. Anyway, I wasn't planning to cause any trouble, I just wanted to look around quietly and humbly and switch off and relax for a moment. And I always manage to do that quite well here. I would like to know how long the flowers stay fresh here and how often they are changed. Unfortunately, I don't come here that often to see the same arrangement twice. Perhaps I should visit here more regularly from now on to finally solve this mystery. But even if it takes a while until my next visit, I'll definitely be back. And then it will certainly shine as brightly in front of me as it did that day. Let's see which color will dominate then...