It was a special day for our OHYC members on Sunday when a service was conducted at the Tenmangu Shrine in Osaka to pray for the safety of all competitors in the 2018 Sundance Marine Melbourne Osaka Cup. On a sparkling winters morning, Club Officials and race organisers assembled outside, before being ushered into the inner sanctum of the shrine for the ceremony.
Our camera was there and in the video clip below you’ll see we caught up with a now familiar face, Kei San from Bartolome, who is currently back home for a couple of weeks. We also received a greeting from a Senior Priest at Tenmangu Shrine. Following the ceremony, where our cameras weren’t allowed to film, the group celebrated the occasion in a closed area outside the Shrine.
This service is the first of two ceremonies especially arranged each time for the Melbourne Osaka Cup. The second service is a thanks-giving service for the safe arrival plus presentation ceremony and will be held on May 5th. Competitors and others attending are asked to pay special attention to a number of items that relate to this special day which are listed below.
As an attendee on May 5th you’ll be asked register at the Shrine from 10:30 am and there is a fee of ¥ 6,000. ( Competitors will not be required to pay ) The thanks-giving service will be conducted in the Inner Sanctum of the Shrine and due to the limited space, this will be an invitation only part of the proceedings.
The dress code for those attending is particularly important in view of the sacred place that the proceedings are being held. Men should wear long pants and socks and women should have their legs covered with either pants or stockings. Those attending will be be asked to remove their shoes and will be required to kneel for the presentation and ceremony.
Following this at around midday, the presentations will take place in a larger area but numbers here are also limited. A party will follow at 13:00 and there’s room for all here.
For those of you who will be in Osaka, directions on how to get to the Tenmangu Shrine will be available in a later edition of the Entrants Guide.
The services held at Tenmangu Shrine have become an important part of the Melbourne Osaka Cup calendar and we appreciate the fact that we’ve been invited once again to be involved in such an auspicious event.
Images taken at other times from within the Shrine