Wow, today was busy. We started the day with a visit to the Meiji Jingo, or Meiji Shrine. The shrine was built to honor Emperor Meiji, who died in the early 1900s. The shrine is the biggest, by land area I think, in Tokyo.
This is me outside the entrance to the central part of the shrine.
A place to purify yourself before worshiping at the shrine, along with a Shinto priest. To purify yourself, you take the ladle in your right hand and dip it into the water. Poor water on your left hand, then shift the ladle to your left hand and poor water onto your right. Then shift the ladle back into your right hand, poor water into your left and wash your mouth with it. There is a place to spit below. Then tilt the ladle to the point where the water runs back down the handle to purify the ladle. Simple, right?
And here is inside the main shrine area. In the picture is the place to worship.
And this is about as close as they let you get to take a picture of the main temple area. Basically those praying do so at the top of the steps, where there is a place to make your offering. On the other side of that, blocked off so only priests and shrine attendants can get to, is the main worship spot is for the priests.
The shrine was an impressive place. As you might expect, it was fairly quite all around, even with the people. Here are some other pictures.
It is believed that if you write a prayer on a placard, make an offering, and hang the placard around this sacred tree, it could bring you what you seek.
We were trying to figure out what this group was doing....
Apparently preparing for these guys.
This is a standard gateway you'll see to mark the entrance to a Shinto shrine, although not always this big. I'm standing will out in front of it, and you can still see how high it is.
About to sleep now, so the rest of the day's recap will have to wait. However, on the list is another shrine, a tea ceremony, a kimono fitting, and calligraphy. And for you animal lovers out there, the funniest moment of the day can be summarized by this photo.
Cat bedlam! A neko cafe, or cat cafe!
I'll try to finish recapping today after I get some sleep.
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