Today I headed towards the Minato district of Tokyo, where Tokyo Tower is located, in order to visit the Shiba Daijingu Shinto Shrine and it's 11-day Dara Dara Festival.

But I decided to visit a few other things in the area first to make my routing more ✨efficient✨

I started off slightly annoyed because Google Maps gave me directions to get to Zojoji and told me to exit out of one subway exit but then on my walk over, I passed another closer exit from the same subway station. Why did I walk up all of those stairs to use the pedestrian bridge???

Zojoji itself was nice and not busy at all. I think I visit this temple every time I go to Tokyo Tower and I think every time I also very similar photos of it

It's pretty cool seeing this super old temple and then behind it the iconic tower from the 1950s and then further back the Mori Tower (I think), which was completed just into the new millenium. It's like a family photo symbolizing passing generations - or something!

I also popped into the Zojoji sub-temple "Hoshuin" to get one of their cool goshuin. They offer desings that are more colorful than more traditional ones and it doesn't even take them that long to do it!

The goshuin I got was a limited one for this month called "Libra ~ Moon Viewing ~". I think it looks really nice!

After paying my respects there, I headed performed the arduous 1 minute walk to Tokyo Tower to check out what was going on. I had considered buying a collab ticket to go up to the top if there was an anime girl collab going on like when I went last time. There was a ticket collab going on but it was for Sakamoto Days, which is a distinctly anime boy collab in my mind so. I remember reading some of Sakamoto Days a while back but I don't really remember why I never got into it, so when the anime started airing I also didn't watch. Plus I've already been up the tower a bunch of times.

I also managed to not buy any merch. There are always new collabs going on at Tokyo Tower for some reason and today was no different. I was almost tricked into checking out the merch but luckily even though I liked the designs of the characters, it was for something I've never even heard of before

Definitely an anime girl collab though

Ok wait, actually looking it up now and this is from a Visual Novel that released this summer called "Magical Girl Witch Trials" and apparently it's super good but only released recently with only Japanese and Simplified Chinese language support. The reviews on steam currently have it at 95% favorable (overwhelmingly positive) and those rascals over on Reddit seem pretty hyped about it. The premise seems interesting too. I'm not really into visual novels (only really finished Fate) but maybe I'd play it if it ever comes out in English or I get nihongo jouzu for real.

Dang, maybe I should have bought some merch lol At least it's a proper game and not a gacha game?? We should support that kind of positive influence on the world??

After leaving Tokyo Tower, I made my way to my intended main destination, Shiba Daijingu. The Dara Dara Festival is an 11-day festival that occurs every year in September and the name comes from an onomatopoeia that implies sluggishness or dragging on. It's apparently also called the Lazy Festival. I didn't know exactly what to expect from such a long duration event but I think I had expected there to be food stalls or some kind of excitement but I couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary

I might have expected some food stalls or something here

In fact, it looked like a normal day at a shrine to me. It didn't seem particularly busy or anything. One website I had looked at mentioned that the main festivities were on September 16 and that's when the parade and stuff would be. Also the main website mentions Respect for the Aged Day directly as well so maybe there were more things going on then?

Not complaining though, the relaxed atmosphere in middle of the bustling city is a quite nice change of pace when you visit places like this. Since I was there and it wasn't particularly busy, I also made sure to get a goshuin here as well.

The priest that did the caligraphy has great hand-writing

While I was waiting for the goshuin to be finished, which can take a while depending on how much caligraphy there is, a foreign couple approached and asked if I spoke English. They asked me about my goshuincho since they saw that it was getting signed. They mentioned they had wanted to buy a goshuincho (the book itself) so that they could actually begin collecting goshuin as well but that the person at the counter here wouldn't sell them one. I don't know if there was just communication issues or if this shrine didn't sell them (I'm pretty sure they don't sell them because I didn't see any on display), but I mentioned that not every shrine or temple sells them. After that we talked about where I got mine. I actually thought the one I've been using was from Sensoji BUT after re-reading my blog I realized that this one is actually the one I got on the first day of my trip last year from Yushima Tenjin. (Interstingly, this shrine is super close to where I am staying right now).

I also mentioned they could head to Hoshuin since it not only has the cool designs like the one I showcased earlier but I know they sell goshuincho as well. After that I bid them good luck and watched as the strolled off into the distance. Some say these are still out there, searching for a goshuincho to this day. I hope they managed to find what they were looking for.