Gates, Shrines, Temples, a Castle & a Palace

This is third installment of our trip to Japan. In Europe, you have to see castles, cathedrals and chateaux. In Japan, you have to see gates, shrines and temples. The meaning of a gate is obvious, but we weren't sure of the difference between a shrine and a temple. Our guide explained that temples are about death and shrines are about life.

This is the Asakusa Gate. It is in the (surprise!) Asakusa District of Tokyo. We arrived in Japan a few days before the tour started. We wanted to get over jet lag, but we actually didn't have any! We flew out of San Francisco in the afternoon and arrived in Tokyo the afternoon of the next day. Time zones are weird, but it worked very nicely.

This is the Asakusa Kannon Temple. It is one of the most popular temples in Japan. We wandered through it before the tour started and it was, of course, the first stop on the tour.

This giant smoking pot is a very popular stop for the Buddhists who come here. They actually stand next to it and wave the smoke over themselves as part of their purification before approaching the temple.

This is the interior of the Temple. You have to pay if you want to approach the center of the temple more closely. Also, you are not allowed to take pictures in the inner parts of the temple.

While at the Asakusa Temple, we were approached by a group of Japanese middle school students on a school trip. This was the end of May and a LOT of Japanese school students were out on school trips. The private school students wear uniforms and the public school students may or may not have matching T-shirts. These students were assigned to find and interview some English speaking tourists. We probably didn't look too scary, so they asked us if they could interview us. Jim noticed their English teacher watching while they interviewed us. They did very nicely! We took a picture of them and they took a lot of pictures of us.

On day 3 of our tour, we went to the town of Kamakura. The town is not very large, but is crawling with Japanese and Western tourists. This giant statue of the Buddha is at Kotokuin Temple and is made of poured bronze.  We had time here for a coffee break and found a very nice espresso café. They were playing country gospel music in English.

After coffee we took a long hike over the hills and through the woods (bamboo and Japanese Cedar). It was a bit more strenuous than we would have liked, but it was worth it. We stopped at the Kamakura gu Shrine. Notice the gate. It is the entrance to the shrine through a tunnel. You have to reach the springs where Buddhists come to wash the sins away from their money so it will attract more money. Yes, we saw people washing coins and bills and then laying them out in the sun to dry! When you enter or leave a shrine, you are supposed to bow.

We spent two nights in a traditional Japanese Inn near Lake Ashi in Hakone.

This is one of the famous Torii Gates that is standing in the lake. These gates mark the transition from the worldly to the sacred part of a Shinto Shrine. There was quite a line of tourists getting their pictures taken with this gate.

This is the same gate from further down the lake. The whole district is famous for its lakes and many Japanese come here in the summer to escape the heat. We had a very nice lunch by the lake at the Bakery & Table restaurant.

We went along the lake on the Japanese Cedar Trail. We will talk more about the trail in the Gardens & Trails installment (coming soon!). This is the Samurai Checkpoint Gate. The Shogun set this up to make sure his Samurai did not try to take back the hostages held by the Shogun. He did this to ensure their loyalty.

We spent only one night in Kyoto. This is the Kennin ji Temple. This is Kyoto's oldest Zen Temple.  This was the second time we were interviewed by students. We had bought some postcards in Seattle to give to people in Japan, but we did not have them with us. We gave them business cards instead. They were thrilled and we will probably be famous on a bulletin board in their school next year!

The temples had a lot rules! If you look closely, you can see that the "no drones" rule was added recently.

This is the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto. It is better known as the "Fox Shrine" because of all the foxes! 

The shrine is said to have thousands of Torii Gates. We didn't count them nor did we walk through all of them. One way to show your wealth, power and devotion was to pay for a large Torii Gate. Poorer people had smaller Torii Gates. Some of the gates were more suitable for a crow than a human!

This is a depiction of how all the gates go up the hillside and around and back.

We promised a castle. Here it is. This is the Himeji Castle in the town of Himeji. It has been recently restored so it is once again white. The grounds were very beautifully kept. About half of the grounds have been built over in modern times so the castle only has two of the original three moats.

We entered in the basement and walked all the way up. You use the "Stairs for up" to get to the sixth floor. It really was a lot of "up". The castle is empty of furnishings.

This is the view of the city of Himeji from the top floor.

Part of the defense system is a series of deliberately confusing ups and downs and lefts and rights so the enemy cannot find his way to the castle. Other features are similar to castles in Europe (moats, murder holes, loopholes, gates, etc.)

We promised you a palace. Here it is. This is the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. You cannot get in, although you can walk around part of the grounds.

Our next installment will be about our Walks and Gardens.