Bless the babies!

My last day in Japan, I went to Kyoto on an SAS tour.  Kyoto is about an hour away from Kobe, on a highway with little to see.  Highways in Japan are even uglier than highways in the US.  They are very narrow and have walls so you can't see anything but the highway.  Kind of like a neverending bridge.

The days are going by so fast that everything is kind of a blur.  Our Kyoto trip covered the Imperial Palace, the Golden Pavilion, some lovely gardens and the shrine of good water.

We had a very short lunch break, which I spent looking for interesting stores to spend my last few yen.  Like a kid on an elementary school field trip, I was determined to spend every cent I had.  I was down to about ¥700, which is something under $7, so I headed to a convenience store to buy some yogurt and maybe some fruit.  (Through diligent effort, I left Japan with ¥4 in my pocket, my last purchase a can of Coke Zero from a vending machine.)

On the way, I passed a shrine and decided to go in.  Everyone was up the hill, so I had the place to myself.  It was unlike any of the other shrines I visited, and none of the signs had English, so I can't tell whether it was a religious difference or a regional one.  One of the shrines caught my eye with its masses of baby bibs.  Most of the bibs had writing and text on them, which I assumed was the baby's birth date and a blessing or good wishes for the baby's life. 

I found it touching, especially the little doll who watched over the bibs—and presumably the babies.

Our guide said, "Shinto is for the happy things, like weddings, and babies, and children becoming adults.  Buddhism is for the sad things, like funerals.  You are born Shinto, but you die a Buddhist."  

Hooray for the babies!