Two of the most surprising things about Tokyo so far is the amount of green space and the general lack of people. With 38 million people in Greater Tokyo you sort of imagine the streets to be like they are in Beijing or Shanghai which is to say jam packed constantly. So far we haven’t really found that to be true — most streets have very few people walking them. But we did find a good chunk of them today in Harajuku! More on that later.
We started the day at Yoyogi Park, in which you’ll find the Meiji Shrine. It was built about 100 years ago to commemorate the reign of Emporer Meiji and is centered inside Yoyogi Park which is an amazing and large green space in central Tokyo. It was founded about 100 years ago as well and then was used as a venue for some of the events when Tokyo hosted the Olympics in 1964. After the games, Yoyogi Park was redeveloped into the greenspace it is today.
When you enter the park you are hit with this amazing smell of wood — like you’ve just walked into the forest — which comes from the huge cedar trees in the park.
A gate greets you.
And underneath the gate we found this little girl who, it turns out, was one of many in the park on Sunday. Many families were in the park wearing their traditional kimonos. It was very charming.
Next to these was a display of miniature flowers and scenes from around Japan. The detail was amazing!
And then we got to the shrine just in time for a couple of traditional weddings! We guess this is a thing — you get married at Meiji Shrine because the grounds are so gorgeous and the setting is traditional. So your wedding is also a traditional Shinto wedding with matching garb.
Here’s another couple.
In the plaza in front of the Shrine were stands where you could write down your prayers and hang them on a wall to be fulfilled. People were madly writing down their wishes.
On the way out we saw another holy water sipping fountain, although this one was not mobbed like the others.
It was a beautiful morning in the park, although the temperature is starting to creep upwards. Today it was 73 degrees for a high!
