shinto shrine predictions

Kasuga Taisha Shinto Shrine is also known for the lovely wisteria in its botanical gardens, some of which is hundreds of years old. The wisteria flower is important to this shrine because "Fujiwara" can be read as "field of wisteria." But along with the beauty, which we have grown to expect from the Japanese, at this shrine you can pay ¥200 for an onikuji, a slip of paper on which your fortune is written in English. If the fortune is unfavorable, you can negate it by tying the piece of paper to the twig of a tree. As you can see from the tree this guy must be a real pessimist as it seems most people try to shake his predictions as the trees are covered with them. Maybe this is where people train for jobs writing fortune cookies.