はじめての日本！アメリカ人英語教師の名古屋滞在記 An American English teacher’s thoughts on Japan 01/12/2020

Level 3: Posts are between Level 1 (Beginner) and level 5 (Advanced).

Get your shrine on.

So this past weekend my coworkers asked if I wanted to go on a road trip to "Ise" a place famous for ginger. I thought it was strange that one place could be famous for ginger and that it would be worth a road trip. However, I've learned that every region is famous for some food and that it is special in the minds of Japanese...better not to question the difference between Ise ginger and Nagoya ginger, so I agreed to go check it out.

It wasn't until later, when I asked if we would be eating the ginger by itself or having with sushi or sashimi, that I knew the true reason for our trip. After a bit of confusion about why I would ask about ginger and sushi ("Are you hungry?" "Do you want to stop for food?" "It's better to wait and have beef or udon in Ise.") we realized my mistake. We were going to Ise to visit a famous "Jinja", or shrine, NOT an area famous for ginger. Not sure if I was disappointed or not, but I had to reorient my brain completely.

The Ise shrine is set in an old forest along the Isuzu river in Mie prefecture. The setting is peaceful and for this reason was chosen to be the place to worship Amaterasu, the shinto goddess of the sun.

Our particular Sangū, was likely meant to respect the governing forces of the Shinto religion and to pray for a blessed 2020. All it cost us was a ￥5 coin for the ceremonial prayer.

At the end, the Matsuzaka beef was admittedly an improvement upon the ginger.

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