I have yet to get past part one in my Suwa Jinja Matsuri series. Someday I’ll return to those pics. Fast forward six months to a neat-sky Sunday in February. I was out for a walk with my camera and decided to visit this Shinto shrine again to see if there were any plum blossoms on the grounds. There weren’t, but the sky made for some good photos anyway.

Normally you approach a shrine from the front, passing under the torii. I came from a park in the back (which is the order of today’s pictures). The kids’ park has been overrun with homeless men. There wasn’t a kid in the place, but there were about a half dozen homeless men hanging out or sleeping in their makeshift, blue-tarp, tent homes.

Ironically, there were boy scouts putting away their own tents on the shrine grounds when I arrived. A chain-link fence was the only thing between the homeless campers and the boy scout campers who were about to head home. I thought it was a strange scene. I wonder if the boy scouts or the homeless dudes felt the same way.

At last I exited, through the normal entrance.

Posted on March 3rd, 2010 under Japan. Tags: clouds, japan pictures, shinto, skywatch, torii. Comments: None

Near Waseda University, Anahachimangu (穴八幡宮) can be found. The place was being refurbished when we arrived in August, but they finished in time for New Years. Loads of lucky charms could be, and were, purchased during January. You should also bring back your talisman from the prior year and pay the shrine (again, this time) to destroy it for you. How is that for clever marketing?

Posted on February 8th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: buddhist, lanterns, night photography, shinto, torii. Comments: None

When I last showed you the grounds of the Four Seasons Hotel (Chinzan-So), it was summer. Now, the fall foliage is making a statement.

Posted on December 3rd, 2009 under Japan. Tags: chinzanso, kitsune, pagoda, shinto, Tokyo, torii, 紅葉. Comments: 2

While riding a bus for the first time one day in an unknown area I passed the 護国寺 bus stop. The place looked huge and my bus stop wasn’t very far beyond the 護国寺 stop. So after I finished my business I walked back to this Buddhist temple. A funeral was underway. The person must have been very important as there was an unbelievable number of people in attendance. A line of more than a hundred people were waiting to get in while the inside already looked full of hundreds of people to me. Rather than have one or two places for people to check in, there looked to be more than a dozen.

Of course I didn’t take any pictures of the funeral or the people lining up, but the size of the event meant that many of the typical photos of this place wouldn’t work either as the grounds were covered in automobiles. The cemetery went on forever so I took quite a few pictures while strolling through it as the sun went down. It was one of those magical moments that can only happen when you are by yourself (which isn’t often in public in Tokyo). Other than myself there were only crows–lots of big black ones.

Not having done my homework beforehand, I had no idea how famous this place is, that it is Japan’s Imperial Mausoleum, that Emperor Meiji’s remains are here (I figured they were at Meiji Jingu), and that Gokokuji is the head temple for the Japanese tea ceremony.

I didn’t realize until I did research after taking these photos, but the third and last picture in this entry (with the crow on the torii) is of Okuma Shigenobu’s grave. Okuma Shigenobu was the founder of Waseda University and was a former, two-time Prime Minister of Japan. I actually gave a speech in the Okuma Auditorium, named in his honor, last week. Others who have given speeches in that exact same spot include Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Bill Clinton, and Nelson Mandela. Maybe someday they will be as famous as I.

Gokokuji is about a 30 minute walk from the Ikebukuro Station, or you can catch a bus in the Nishi Waseda area that will take you right there. There is also a Gokokuji Station on the Tokyo Metro.

Posted on September 28th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: buddhist, cemetery, japan pictures, torii, waseda university. Comments: 1