Day 2 - Meiji Jingu Shrine

This day has been a dream-come-true and it’s only mid-afternoon. I’ll try to give you a flavor of the beauty of Tokyo in several short posts.

Having woken early because of the time change, we started our day shortly after 7 AM at a GIGANTIC breakfast buffet at the hotel. So many kinds of eggs, pastries, fruit, salads, porridge, seafood, seaweed, rice, I literally can’t even name everything. Certainly couldn’t even try it all… but felt like eating like royalty.

Got outside early to mixed sun and clouds and, guided by Hannah and her cell phone, walked through the Shinjuku and Yoyogi neighborhoods to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, a Shinto shrine built to honor the late Emporer Meiji and the Empress Shoken. We entered through a forest of 100,000 trees donated and planed by volunteers in their honor in 1920.

Once inside the main shrine area, we were so fortunate to see a bride and groom and their wedding party.

Then, a procession of Shinto priests — the most senior in black, the novices in turquoise and white, as they bowed in prayer and then walked in silence through the shrine.

We pray that people

Be just unassuming

Like the bamboo

Which grows without pretension

Or unsightly gnarls.

— Empress Shoken