Wandering Fel

Meiji Shrine is the Shinto shrine that is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken. It does not contain the emperor's grave though. The shrine ground is covered by an evergreen forest that consists of 120,000 trees which were donated by people from all parts of Japan when the shrine was established. A marvellous feat indeed. 

You can make a stop at the cleansing station where you can dip into a communal water tank and purify your hands and mouth before offering up a prayer at the shrine. 

A Japanese family is spotted doing the cleansing ritual. 

you can write wishes on little pieces of paper and tie them onto the prayer wall, or toss some yen into the offering box, bow your head twice, clap twice and bow once more. Like what they say, do as what the locals do when you travel, right?

Meiji Shrine is also a popular place to hold a wedding and wedding photoshoot. If you come on a Sunday morning, chances are you can see a traditional Japanese wedding procession taking place here. 

There is no admission fee to enter Meiji Shrine. The shrine opens from sunrise to sunset everyday. 

Meiji Jingu and Yoyogi Park are actually situated adjacent to each other. These two make up a large forested area within the densely built-up city of Tokyo. The spacious shrine grounds has a lot of walking paths which are nice to take a stroll leisurely.

The garden lamp here is so Japanese and it kinda looks like a small shrine in a way. However, since there are not many garden lamps spotted, I wonder if the walking paths are kinda spooky after the sun sets. 

Somewhere along the walking path leading to Meiji Jingu, we saw a row of sake barrels. This sight really intrigued us and the first question popped into our mind is "are these barrels really filled with sake?"

Turns out whenever you see a row of sake barrels displayed near a Shinto shrine in Japan, the barrels are empty. They are referred to as "kazaridaru" which means "decoration barrels". Sake has always been seen as a mean to bring gods and people closer together. Drink and be merry together sounds like a good cheer, I suppose? Hahaha. 

There is another row of barrels spotted a few metres from the above decoration sake barrels. These barrels do give me an impression that they are real wine kept inside. 

Why is that so? Because there are details displayed on each crate about the sake's age and everything. The problem is, I have no means to check whether the sake is really kept for real inside the crates or not. It's not probably the wisest choice to drink sake belonging to gods too. =P