Mama, I promise, next time I'll bring coffee...

Our first official tourist stop in Japan was to a Buddhist temple. Before entering we all traipsed along the surrounding graveyard and oohed and awed over the intricate family burial plots. All Japanese are required to be cremated so naturally you can fit many people into a small space. My first inclination was to be respectful and save the photos for another day - but dammit, everyone else was doing it!

So this is pretty much what they all look like, in various shades of natural stone. Most had drinks placed on an alter, thoughtfully opened and ready for spiritual partaking.

The wooden "sticks" are placed at the gravesite for certain anniversaries of death, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, etc. I think the tour guide said they have prayers carved into them, but don't quote me on it.

Forgive the blurry indoor pictures but I could not bring myself to use a flash in the temple. I have no idea what anything in the above picture is, or what it's used for. I do know the carved ball thingy gets hit with the short stick thingy next to the bowl thingy on the table thingy. For some of you this won't be enough information, but be grateful, as I was told any other day this stuff is usually covered with cloth.

If one cannot afford a family burial plot outside, small alter spaces are available for rent inside the temple as you see above. They keep the ashes in delicate fabric boxes that kind of look like gift bags, taped closed along the top, for lack of a better description. They had them placed about on tables and such and I couldn't seem to find a reason as to why they were just hanging out there, so accessible. I tried quite hard to stay in there and learn more about it all, but those lovely fabric containers came in all different sizes. The smallest, with their gifts of candy and toys, were too much to take. I had reached my emotional limit and made my escape.