McAvennie
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2003
- Messages
- 3,998
Okay,
This is a "Literally just happened to me... ", so much so I am still having shivers and trying to figure it out.
So, I have been working in Japan for the past month and landed home yesterday. My wife came over near the end of my stay and we travelled briefly to a few cities around the country.
In Kyoto we hired a guide to take us around and we visited the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine. This site is popular for people to visit to pray for success in business and one of the traditions there involves a white horse in a glass cabinet. The glass is broken in one corner and visitors try to throw their business card through the gap and onto the plinth the horse stands on. Our guide told us this story and when we looked in there were perhaps five cards on the plinth and hundreds strewn across the floor. Naturally, I decided to try my luck and with some calculated angling and a strong flick managed to land mine right on the plinth under the horse's carrot. Our guide was gobsmacked and visibly shook by seeing me do this, stating she had never seen anyone come near to doing this.
You can read a bit about horses in Shinto here, that references the shrine in Kyoto...
http://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/2016/06/horsing-around-at-shinto-shrines.html?m=1
So, I have told the story about my luck to a lot of colleagues since coming back. Advising them any future success of the company is thanks to me.
Cut to this evening. Arriving back at my apartment I go to open the building door when it flies open before I touch the handle, opened by a guy on the other side who happened to be Japanese, long straggly hair and staring, slightly wild eyes. Never seen him before in the building and it startled me somewhat, but nothing out of the ordinary in that.
A few hours later I am sat in the sofa and absent-mindedly put my hand on the back ledge only to feel that there was something solid sat there. Picked it up and it was a shard of glass. Now we have not broken anything glass and I cannot find any other shards or evidence of something being broken. We also move the sofa quite often so anything broken would not be able to sit there unnoticed for a long time.
It then struck me that the shard was the exact same shape as the missing piece from the glass cabinet in Kyoto. Looking at a picture confirmed more or less that it is the exact shape. It even has the same rain-smeared streaks on it as the glass at the shrine.
Chills went down my spine as I realised this and then remembered the unusual Japanese man at the entrance to my building.
Cannot think of anywhere a broken piece of glass would just appear from in my apartment. Coincidence I guess that it seems to fit the missing piece from Kyoto. Anyhow, I am feeling a little confused and a bit unsettled!
This is a "Literally just happened to me... ", so much so I am still having shivers and trying to figure it out.
So, I have been working in Japan for the past month and landed home yesterday. My wife came over near the end of my stay and we travelled briefly to a few cities around the country.
In Kyoto we hired a guide to take us around and we visited the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine. This site is popular for people to visit to pray for success in business and one of the traditions there involves a white horse in a glass cabinet. The glass is broken in one corner and visitors try to throw their business card through the gap and onto the plinth the horse stands on. Our guide told us this story and when we looked in there were perhaps five cards on the plinth and hundreds strewn across the floor. Naturally, I decided to try my luck and with some calculated angling and a strong flick managed to land mine right on the plinth under the horse's carrot. Our guide was gobsmacked and visibly shook by seeing me do this, stating she had never seen anyone come near to doing this.
You can read a bit about horses in Shinto here, that references the shrine in Kyoto...
http://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/2016/06/horsing-around-at-shinto-shrines.html?m=1
So, I have told the story about my luck to a lot of colleagues since coming back. Advising them any future success of the company is thanks to me.
Cut to this evening. Arriving back at my apartment I go to open the building door when it flies open before I touch the handle, opened by a guy on the other side who happened to be Japanese, long straggly hair and staring, slightly wild eyes. Never seen him before in the building and it startled me somewhat, but nothing out of the ordinary in that.
A few hours later I am sat in the sofa and absent-mindedly put my hand on the back ledge only to feel that there was something solid sat there. Picked it up and it was a shard of glass. Now we have not broken anything glass and I cannot find any other shards or evidence of something being broken. We also move the sofa quite often so anything broken would not be able to sit there unnoticed for a long time.
It then struck me that the shard was the exact same shape as the missing piece from the glass cabinet in Kyoto. Looking at a picture confirmed more or less that it is the exact shape. It even has the same rain-smeared streaks on it as the glass at the shrine.
Chills went down my spine as I realised this and then remembered the unusual Japanese man at the entrance to my building.
Cannot think of anywhere a broken piece of glass would just appear from in my apartment. Coincidence I guess that it seems to fit the missing piece from Kyoto. Anyhow, I am feeling a little confused and a bit unsettled!