After walking around the government district, we hiked to a nearby shrine the Hie-Jinja... this is a Shinto shrine that was originally built within the Imperial Palace grounds to protect the Emperor and the Shoguns... it was moved outside of the Imperial grounds so everyone could visit...
there are several Hie shrines located in Japan - they are dedicated to Mt Hiei and the monkey is its protector animal... the tall monkey statues are considered Montain Kings and the smaller statues are called Sarugami and are messengers of the Mountain Kings... these are the origin of the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" monkeys...
this shrine is also a protector shrine of children and supposed to bring a harmonious marriage...
we saw our first torii and first sake barrels here... very cool!
very, very pretty and a very neat experience...
No comments:
Post a Comment