Meiji Shrine Tokyo

The official summer of 2015 starts today.  Travelling is probably on many people mind now. I feel like going somewhere too but for now I would just like to take you for a small tour of Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. Meiji Shrine is the one of the two shrines that I visited Tokyo a while back.

Meiji Shrine is located in Shibuya area which is quite busy place in Tokyo. The Harajuku subway train station is just in front of one of the entrance to the shrine. That is so convenient to get there from the subway.

This is the main entrance of the shrine. I guess many probably have seen this Japanese style gate of temple before or even this gate in particular. This style of gate is called “Torii”. The Meiji Shrine’s gate is very large and made of wood.

The entire area is in the big dense evergreen forest. The actual temple part is small relative to the entire area. There is a long walk from the entrance gate to get to the main temple.  The path is surrounded with tall green dense trees. I found the long walk along these trees gives you tranquility.

The above is the scenery of the well preserved forest surrounding the temple. The forest was quite dense and moist on that day but I think that accentuated the serenity of the place even further.

I really do like the drainage design along the walkway.  The wide but shallow duct made of rectangular shape stones and the green mosses grow on the high wall is a great design. The man made structure blends in with the surrounding green so well.

The above is one of the lamp post. The style just matches with style of the temple there.

These are sake barrels. They are for decoration.  I found this link to give information about the barrels and the shrine – http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/10/16/reference/sake-barrels-at-shrines/#.VYaPbvlVhBc It is quite interesting.

There is another inner Torii before entering the temple main ground. It was a welcome sight as the main ground opens up as you walk deeper. I think it gives subtle happiness feeling that you have accomplish some goal.

You will find a place to wash your hands before entering temple. This is a Japanese tradition that you can see the setup for washing before entering a temple. The place provides running water and small ladles to scope up water for washing your hands. I had one picture in the Hase-Dera temple post awhile back.

This is the wooden door before entering the temple. It made of big thick solid pieces of wood (this one made of 3 big wood panels). The carving looks like a flower. It uses many gentle curves and circles enclosing straight lines in the middle – very eye pleasing.

This is the main ground of the temple. There is no picture taken allowed beyond this point.  My memory is so vague now to remember what I saw there beyond this point. I am sorry about this.  I can only just recall peaceful feeling. I guess that is more important than the visual memory of the details.

On the temple ground there is a place setup for hanging wooden wishing plaques (“Ema”).  I wished I could read Japanese language. I would like to read some of these.

I exited the main ground through the other door. The door panels here are the same structural style but with different wood carving pattern. The design keeps gentle curves design theme however.  The carving appears to represent leaves. Still, they are gentle, simple and eye pleasing.

This is the last picture of this post. I  like this view a lot. It just gave me the sense of real peacefulness. The building just stood there and there was no people near or close by at all.

Hope you all have great plan for this Summer.