Even though it was a weekday morning, there were still a few worshippers at the Shinagawa Shrine

Torii gate and the hall of worship at Shinagawa Shrine — Shrine pavilion and torii of Shinagawa Shrine

After passing through the torii gate along the Daiichi Keihin and climbing up the steep stairs, I saw the hall of worship at the end of the approach. This is the hall of worship of Shinagawa Shrine. The Shinto shrine sits on top of a small hill. Nowadays, you can't smell the tide, and you can't hear the noise of the sea. But this used to be a place very close to the coastline. You must have had a good view of Tokyo Bay from the shrine grounds. The deity enshrined here is Amanohirinome-no-Mikoto, the god of navigation, invoked from Sunosaki Shrine, located at the southern end of the Uraga Channel, a difficult place for marine traffic.

It seems inappropriate for a god of navigation to be enshrined in a place with no view of the sea. After all, there is no sea nearby. There are no boat docks and no one who makes a living from fishing. The deity that Minamoto no Yoritomo had implored for the safety of maritime traffic must have not been know what to do here.

As Amanohirinome-no-Mikoto is idle, Susanoo-no-Mikoto and Toyoukebi-no-Mikoto, who are enshrined together, must be working more to keep the balance. Work sharing is much more advanced in the world of Shinto deities than in the human world and may even be more advanced than Japan in terms of work-life balance.

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