Travel to Japan: Tokyo. Shinjuku and Shibuya. Our guide to Tokyo Travel continues, take a look at the wonderful little shrine and the touching story of Hachiko

• 23/06/2008 - 00:00
• Author: Yuki Sakuma
• Japan
• 1 Comments
• Read in IT

This time I'm going to tell you of Shinjuku and Shibuya. These sections of Tokyo are very lively and appreciated by the younger people. They're also easily reachable with the JR Yamanote. In Shinjuku we saw Hanazono, a Shinto temple of the XVII century. Due to our dedication to Inari, we just couldn't miss it. We found it thanks to the help of a kind lady working on street maintenance. While out and about we also moved through Kabuki Cho, a street crammed full of Pachinko rooms where the prices varied a lot from shop to shop.

    

Hanazono Temple was painted in the classical fox colours: red and white and a lot of rope was set around the altar. Right here Inari manifested physicaly in front of us as an old man came to us asking where we were from, after that he went away laughing  °°,  . You may ask what is this all for with Inari?  It's crazy. Once at the hotel we searched on the web to study the story and the cult of Inari. On Wikipedia we found that it happens to show itself as a laughing old man bringing rice... °_° We felt sure of being under Inari's protection after that, though.
This is the holy place where Inari manifested ^^

Very close by we found the tori and the sculpture of the holy fox.
Here you can admire the Goshinboku; a holy tree of the shinto temples, it's reconizable by the Shimenawa around it. The shimenawa (rope with garland) is used to define holy places.

Close to the Goshinboku there are the Inari statues and a ward of torii like at the Fushimi Inari Taisha.

We greeted the fox, though it wasn't quite like the original, but we figured even the branch agency works well. :D
In the photo you can see Yuki while greeting the fox. In the close up you can see the fox statue with the little kit.

This is a close up of the altar.

After a little trip by train we reached Shibuya. The station of Shibuya is so huge you could easily lose yourself in it.
Those tiny points ar people! °° In the daytime Shibuya is really crowded, it looks like an ant's nest.

Outside of the station you can find a very popular square where people like to meet. It's the square of Hachiko, the dog that has become a national hero.
Hachiko waited diligently for her master to return here until her death. She didn't know it, but her master was already dead. Because of her this a statue was built to commemorate her loyalty.

On that note, that's all for now. See you in the next episode!
Bye!!
.::Yuki_Sakuma::.

Read more about our Travel to Japan

how-much does a trip to japan cost? | Kyoto | Japanese dinner | Japan Temple: Fushimi Inari Taisha | Japan Temple: Kiyomizudera | Japan travel in Kyoto | visiting Akihabara | Shibuya and Shinjuku | Ginza AppleStore | Tokyo Tower | Asakusa Sensoji Temple | Japanese Garden: Rikugien | Mandarake Manga store