成田山のお守り A Charm from Narita-san

Most people fly into Narita airport and take a long train to Tokyo. As far as most travelers are concerned, Narita is Tokyo, but that's not true. Narita is in the neighboring Chiba prefecture.

In 2006 I had a flight with strange timing and ended up staying in a hotel in Narita. Like with every trip I've made to Japan, the first day I wake up very early. On that first morning, I left the hotel and explored the area. My roommate and I got breakfast in the lobby and just explored as the city was waking up. When we returned, my roommate wanted to go back to the room and I ran into the rest of our group who was getting ready to go on a walk. I joined them.

We didn't know where to go and we had no agenda, so we just started following students. Small streets, along alleyways, joining the tide. As a bunch of gangly teenage foreigners we stood out, but that was part of the fun, I suppose.

We came to a public high school and just stood outside. People were taking class photos at the gate. We took pictures of the people taking pictures at the gate, and then a man came up to us. He was very nice, and then the next thing we knew, he was offering to give us a tour of the school. It turned out he was the principal! Very proud of his school. We eagerly agreed and tagged along. It was a lovely campus. I wish I could remember the school's name...

Afterwards we continued walking and stumbled upon Narita-san. Narita-san is a Shingon Buddhist temple dedicated to a god of fire and fire rituals. The temple was founded in 940 in celebration of a group of soldiers putting down a Taira rebellion, (a battle in the Genpei War). During the war, a group carried an image of the fire deity and used sacred fire rituals. Supposedly a statue carried in battle became so heavy that the warriors were forced to leave it behind after the war, and a temple was built around it. Narita-san is that temple.

The history and that day's small adventure is much more interesting than the charm itself. It's a simple metal bell with the name on the gold coin and a horse on the bell. I chose the horse because it came from a zodaic set, and I'm a horse. It's good to have consistency when collecting.