Silent prayer

I pray for the repose of the soul of all passengers and crew of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17.

An expression of my sympathy

An expression of my sympathy, originally uploaded by photoholic image.

I express my sincere sympathy to all victims of Oklahoma tornado.
The most sad is that many children were killed. I pray for the repose all of their soul.

A small temple where women pray for an easy delivery.

A small temple where women pray for an easy delivery., originally uploaded by photoholic image.

This small temple is dedicated to Goddess of Mercy and it is called "Kan-non-do San-no-miya　(観音堂産の宮）" commonly known as "Kyosha-do(香車堂）" among local people.
You can see so many pentagonal shaped wooden pieces on which two characters are written like "香車" saying "Kyosha" that is one of pieces of Japanese Chess called Shogi. The chess piece of Kyosha can move straight forward only so that people thought it can be associated with an easy delivery.
An old tradition in this region has it that pregnant women have an easy delivery of a baby if they borrow any one of pieces of Kyosha from here and bring it back to their home.
After the birth of a baby, women come back to this temple to return the piece of Kyosha with new one as a thank to the deity. Therefore, number of piece of Kyosha are increased gradually.