Tokyo: Meiji Shrine.

Lanterns.

We passed into the cleared swatch of land adjacent to Harajuku as twilight faltered towards complete darkness. Stars are rare where I live in Korea and the smog of Tokyo seems also to make their viewing stars an impossibility.

There was light still as we crossed the footbridge to the Harajuku metro station and entered the clearing and followed the crowd into a narrow path of cleared trees. To our right were a couple hundred white, paper lanterns with black Japanese characters emblazoned on the front.

We walked for a ways and the trees cut off what was left of the twilight and plunged the path into muted darkness. It seemed hard to believe that we were still in Tokyo. The sound of traffic and the rattle of the metro was absent; cut off like the light by the trees. There was a silence about the place that separated it from the realities of modern day Japan.

The place was the Meiji Shrine.

If the trees seemed unnaturally plentiful (in that the place seemed almost totally natural, despite being in the heart of Tokyo) it is because they were arranged that way. Though we knew none of this until we left the shrine (we were, after all, just following a bunch of people for no discernable reason).

For the sake of getting what little history of the Meiji Shrine that I know out there: the shrine was built to honor Emperor Meiji and his empress sometime between 1915 and the mid to late 1920’s. This structure was then promptly decimated in a whole bunch of air raids. The shrine, as it is now, was finished in the late 1950’s.

Lamp.

What is most interesting about the shrine (to me, at least, most people would be impressed by the Buddhist presence and the temples and the sense of walking around a giant anachronism) were the trees. The forest was thick and overwhelming and dominate because it was made to be that way. People from all over Japan donated trees (evergreens) in such reverence to the emperor that the trees effectively serve as a barrier between the noise and pollution of modern Tokyo and the lantern lit paths of the Meiji Shrine.

Still, there was some pollution in the form of two tourists who didn’t actually know where the hell they were.

Kelly and I walked for a while from one building to another until it came that save a few electric lights and the general awareness of other tourists, our surroundings harked back to more traditional times. The darkness was overwhelming at times. As the last of the sun’s light fell, giant wooden structures with tiled roofs that were colorful and ornate in the day became masses of complete black. The only light to be had was an occasional lamp that gave of a dim yellow glow.

It was an effective mood setter.

Hand cleansing.

We passed what looked to be a huge fence-like structure with thousands and thousands of small wooden planks on which people from all over the world inscribed their hopes and dreams. We watched monks walk about their business in the darkness beyond where the general pedestrian was allowed to go.

Before we left we came across a place to cleanse our hands and mouths a small ceremony of respect to the sanctity of the shrine. Of course, we didn’t know this until after we poured water all over our hands and drank the stuff in the dark and looked like general morons. Apparently you cleanse your mouth my rinsing it with the water and spitting it back. If this is the truth we basically made out with the entire population of Tokyo.

On our way out I bought some ornate paper and cheap reproduction prints of some overused Japanese paintings. It seemed like a bargain at the time but given that I have the wrong conversion in my head I probably spent over $50 on some crappy paper.

In more recent news, this is Dr. Jones. Other than snot pouring out of his nose like Niagara Falls on occasion he is pretty much amazing.