Steve Lee Hayes had carved letters onto a pillar of a gate of a shrine in Shibuya and was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of property damage, Tokyo Metropolitan Police said.

The antics of tourists in places of religious worship never cease to amaze. In Japan, there's much talk about an American tourist who carved letters into the wooden gate of one of the most frequently visited temples in Tokyo.

A 65-year-old American tourist was arrested for allegedly etching letters onto a traditional wooden gate at a Tokyo shrine, police said Thursday, the latest example of bad behavior by visitors flooding back to Japan post-pandemic.