Meiji shrine 2015/01/16

Yesterday I went to Meiji shrine together with my friends. It is located in the middle of two busiest towns in Tokyo, namely Shinjuku and Shibuya. Entering into the shrine through the big gateway, we forwarded wide, long approach and found the inner garden as large as 83,000square meters which used to be a lord garden of Edo period.

Although this garden is located in the just center of Tokyo, it reminds us of wild woods of old days. They intentionally leave the garden as natural as possible and there are lots of lofty trees and the pond which contains all kinds of greens and birds.

This garden has been famous for the beautiful iris fields which have 150 different kinds and total 1500 roots of irises. However, the well of lord Kiyomasa in the garden has recently become popular among young girls as the strong power spot which enables them to find nice boyfriends.

Thanks toyesterday’s heavy rain, we could enjoy beautiful greens in the garden thoroughly and quietly.

Then we visited the main shrine which enshrines Meiji Emperor and his Empress.

Despite of the heavy rain, there were lots of people there to worship the shrine.

Every year Meiji shrine welcomes more than 3 million New Year worshippers in the first 3 days of the year and also more than 8 million worshippers through the year. Meiji shrine is one of the busiest shrines among nearly 100,000 shrines in Japan.