All posts tagged: meiji shrine

New Year in Japan

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There are many New Year traditions in Japan. The most significant is perhaps a visit to the local shinto shrine. Preparations at the shrine start days if not weeks before the event. At Meiji Shrine in central Tokyo, bottles of soy sauce and salt were on display ready to be blessed. Various priests were preparing the grounds of the temple. The rope around the tree trunk is called a shimenawa and indicates that the tree is sacred. Visitors to the temple were getting a head start on writing their hopes and dreams on the wooden ema prayer boards. This is a smart thing to do if you want to avoid the tens of thousands who will visit on New Year’s Day. Houses are decorated with shogatsukazari (New Year’s wreaths) these can be bought at department stores or even on the street. Here’s one on a traditional house in Arashiyama, Kyoto. For many the highlight of the New Year is the chance to get a bargain in a fukubukuro lucky bag. A 5,000 Yen bag is likely …

Visiting Meiji Shrine – A photographic guide

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Here’s a quick visual guide to visiting a Japanese shrine, shot at Meiji Shrine with model Marino. Enter the shrine through the large wooden torii gate. There may be torii gates at each of the entrances at it marks the division between the outside world and a sacred space (Some shrines have a tunnel of torii gates such as Fushimi Inari Taisha  in Kyoto). At the purification trough (chōzuya or temizuya) visitors traditionally wash their hands and mouth before entering the inner part of the shrine. At the main hall (shaden) visitors say their prayers. Traditionally you throw a coin into the offering box, ring the bell, bow twice, clap twice, bow, pray, clap twice and bow. You can buy an omikuji (fortune paper) to learn your future. Some shrines even have these in English. It will tell you if you’re going to be lucky or unlucky in the coming months. Usually there are trees or ropes to which you can tie your omikuji, but at Meiji Shrine I think you’re just meant to take it home with you. Write …