THREE TEMPLES AND A PALACE

During our four days in Tokyo, we visited three temples and the Imperial Palace. 

First up was the Sensoji Temple, Japan’s oldest Buddhist temple, and the neighboring Shinto temple, Asakusa Jinja Shrine. We spent almost two hours within the temple properties with our tour guide, Miyu, learning about their histories, marveling at the gates, structures, and statues, practicing some of the rituals and offering prayers.

Miyu invited us to receive our omikuji, or our fortunes. Reese was blessed with the best possible fortune, while Chris and I left our bad fortunes behind, tying it to one of the omikuji trees, with hope that we will find a better fortune elsewhere.

The next day, we were lucky enough to secure tickets for an Imperial Palace grounds tour in the morning. The juxtaposition of old and new within the massive green space was incredible. It felt very remote and quite special to be wandering about on such an important property. We can only imagine how beautiful it will be in a few months when the cherry blossoms color the trees! 

And finally, we visited the Meiji Shrine, a Shinto temple, in Yoyogi Park. There are massive gates at the entrances that welcome you into the serene park with gravel walkways that wind through a forest to the shrine, where we made an offering and said a little prayer, possibly for a better fortune than the one we received at Sensoji, but we’ll never tell.