While many people will not identify with any particular religion, it's still very common for people to hike these mountain trails and visit sacred places to pray or just to take a break. These prominent religious buildings reflect Japan’s belief in multiple gods that inhabit all living and inanimate things. Weather gods, fire gods, mountain gods, rice gods, sea gods, fortune gods, luck gods... they all play a part in daily life in Japan.
With 108 active volcanoes and being right on the Ring of Fire, earthquakes occur every day. Most earthquakes are unnoticeable and cause little-to-no damage. Substantial earthquakes that cause buildings to shake to a point where items are falling off shelves and tables are less common. However, earthquakes that destroy buildings and result in tsunamis happen several times in a 100-year period. For example, you may have heard of the 9.1-magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011 that resulted in a tsunami that reached around 23 feet tall in some places and traveled around 435 miles per hour.
I have been very lucky since I came here and there hasn’t been a major earthquake in my area. However, I did get woken up to my room shaking and my kitchen rattling on June 24th and I felt a sudden and quick tremor just last week on the 8th. Both times, the earthquake was around a magnitude of four. Anything under a magnitude five earthquake doesn’t cause much alarm as these kinds of earthquakes are relatively normal in Japanese life.
