– Hozenji – 法善寺 –
Osaka（大阪） – February 3, 2018
Dude had to go to Kansai for a wedding, so I decided to tag along to do some of my own sightseeing. It’s not very often I get to freely explore the city. Naturally, I searched for a few shrines and temples to visit in the Nanba area, and Hozenji is a small temple right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Nanba.
If you notice the date, I visited on February 3, 2018. It might not look special, but it was Setsubun, a special holiday where you throw beans at oni and, in Osaka, eat really long sushi rolls. I’d forgotten about the holiday until I showed up at this temple to find a special event going on. A lot of official looking people talking on stage, but there were also some people running things wearing interesting clothes.
It was so crowded I left to wander around for a while before returning and hour or so later to find it a lot calmer. This visit is when I got this goshuin. The calligrapher said it was 200 yen instead of the 300 yen stamp, but then I realized why.
It’s a little odd looking, right? That’s because only the date is hand written; the rest is all stamped. At first I was a little disappointed it wasn’t hand written like usual, but this is something I’ve never seen before. I poke around Japanese goshuin blogs and I’ve never seen one like this. Also they charged a little less. Now I feel super lucky that I have this. I still want to go back someday and see if I can get a normal one, but this is now one of my treasures.
