Big shrines bring big luck

While in Matsue, I decided to pop over to Izumo Taisha to see their Shinto shrine, the second largest in all of Japan. The shrine had the usual large gate out front.

It also had a pretty cool sculpture of a guy (not sure if he's a monk), challenging an oncoming wave that has a large sphere perched perilously on top of it.

The highlight of this particular shrine are the enormous braids that welcome visitors into the main hall area. These braids are said to give good luck to anyone that can lodge a coin within them. I found myself lucky on the third try! (And if you think that's cheating, well, most people were trying at least five times before giving up...) I wait to see how my luck plays out.

At these shrines, there are also opportunities to pay a nominal fee to purchase specific prayers and protections from the deities. These weren't translated here, but elsewhere the two most popular appeared to be "happy marriage" and "safe driving". In addition, there were some neat prayer trees where visitors had tied prayers.

Unfortunately, my timing wasn't superb. Turns out the main, large shrine hall is undergoing a complete renovation and so was completely covered in warehouse scaffolding. I guess that's what my book meant when it said repairs are underway from 2008 to 2013!

Also, at the scale model museum, I saw a scale of a really neat looking staircase leading up to a shrine on stilts. In a painting of this, it was on some watery coast as well. Couldn't locate it in the real world, so I (and you) will have to content ourselves with this photo.