The three secret shrines of Japan

Three secret shrines of Japan – A silent alarm, a cold and a stroll

It is nearly a year since Rob and I entered a plane to Japan. Also, my mother asked me to send her some pictures of Rob and me. I used this as an excuse to scroll through all of my pictures and wallow in memories.

In Japan we visited the city of Tokyo, Yokohama and Kyoto, with a little excursion to the region of Mount Fuji.

For Tokyo Rob mentioned a hidden shrine in Akihabara, that he wanted to look for. Basically, this was the first location we went for at our very first morning in Japan. It took us a little while to go from Asakusa to Akihabara and then the search for the shrine itself. At some point we had made out the block where the shrine was hidden in. It was next to the main road of Akihabara, with all its anime/games/technology shops. In between the houses of the block there was a very narrow alley. We had to bend ourselfes to fit in and not hit ouselves at some pipes or edges. You can enter this alley from both sides of the block. On one of the sides are a bunch of vending machines and as we arrived there was a guy smoking. We didn’t want to disturb him so wen went around the block and found the other entrance. The first few steps inside Rob pushed me back. I had seen, what he was disturbing him. Above our heads there was a blinking light. We set back and went to our first guess of entrance. The guy was gone and we could enter the alley. Actually, this one was the better solution, because the hidden shrine was just five meters into the alley. Despite the fact that busy Akihabara was right next to us the area of the shrine was very calm. It had a little tree and in the shrine there were some offerings. I imagine the shrine being build several decades ago in a traditional neighborhood and later surrounded by the skyscrapers.

Another shrine Rob was determined to find was an old shrine in Yokohama. Locals would knew about the shrine, but tourists wouldn’t visit it. Most of them would go for the Meji-shrine or the Fushimi Inari-Taisha in Kyoto. The shrine in Yokohama was called Fushimi Hakuseki Inari, hence it was dedicated to Inari as well. From Yokohama we took a train to a little town south of the Tokyo region. It became very rural, even more as we were going on to find this certain shrine. Along our way we saw many more shrines and since I had a cold and wasn’t in good shape I was jumpy like a little kid. “Is it that shrine? That one? How far is it?” In the end Rob got us warm tea from one of the vending machines you can find literally everywhere. Even after we had walked past the last little shop we would find vending machines with hot and cold drinks. We both fell in love with the hot green tea and the hot milk tea. Yum!

After a good walk we finally would see the white flag leading us to the shrine. We had to go up a pretty steep path to arrive a little plateau where locals had little gardens. As you would expect of a proper shrine there was a corridor of tori gates, most of them were in a bade shape with rotten wood and fading red colour. The shrine itself was in a way better shape and had a bunch of offerings. One of the facts I am still amazed about is the constant offering of some people to those shrines and keeping them alive, maybe all by themselves or with two or three others.

One thing was very … interesting? The shrine had a little hut with toilettes. Rob thought it was good to use that one. He didn’t even enter after opening the door. :,D

The last hidden shrine I am gonna tell you about is located in Kyoto and is part of the famous Fushimi Inari-Taisha. Rob got to knew about it by searching the internet. He showed me a picture, maybe over hundred years old and re-colored. The perspective was strange, but we knew what we had to look for. The Fushimi Inari-Taisha is a huge complex and it is worth looking at the displayed maps and looking around for paths with less or no tourists at all. This is how we found not just one hidden shrine, but a bunch more. The shrine we were actually looking for was a cemetery, where people still set up small tori gates and left offers. While everyone else was out there, taking pictures for their instagram we had a good time strolling through the “backyard” of the shrine and looking out for more little wonders.

And that what it is all about, right? Looking out for little wonders all over the planet to enrich your travel experience.

– Toni

Three secret shrines of Japan- A Treasure Hunters Story

I was in the middle of Europe when I found an old black and white picture of a Japanese shrine. The picture showed what first seemed to me like a normal Shinto shrine; it had Tori gates, fox guards, offerings and everything else you would expect to see in a Picture of a Japanese Shinto shrine. But still something seemed off to me. I spend hours looking at that old picture to find out what was off about it, what intrigued me about it. When I finally realized what it was, I was so surprised because its secret was hidden in plain sight. When I figured out the secret of the picture I immediately made my plans to go to Japan to find that shrine for myself because I couldn’t believe what I found out.

Toni and I headed off to Japan in the End of 2019. To make sure we had any success on our trip we decided to not just look for one lost shrine but for three in total. The others two shrines we wanted to see, are located in the Akihabara district in Tokyo and the other one in Yokohama. Those other shrines were completely opposites of each other; one was in the lifestyle district of the buzzing capital of Japan, Tokyo and the other one was deep in the coastal Forest near the villages of Yokohama.

After an exhausting 15 hour flight we finally landed in Tokyo. We used the late night train to get to our hotel. The Train was our main transport during our stay in Japan because we bought ourselves a Japan rail Ticket, a ticket where you pay a certain amount of Money and then you can take any train of the J-line for a certain time span. 

Thanks to jet lag we headed out early in the morning to Akihabara station. Akihabara is the trend district of Tokyo where you can find anything related to pop culture, music, Anime, Manga, gaming and so on. In the night the lights of the district must be amazing but we never got to see it. But we weren’t there because of the lights. We were there because of a little Shinto shrine that is hidden between giant skyscrapers. On our way from the train station to the location we were awestruck by the Japanese culture, architecture and history we saw on our search for the shrine. When we were near the location where the shrine was supposed to be, the search began. 

On my research I found out that the shrine was in a backstreet near a steak restaurant cramped up between two skyscrapers. The steak restaurant was easy to find but the exact backstreet was a whole other deal. The place basically exists of backstreets and side alleys. 

It took us a bit to find the right street but then a blinking red light started as I was stepping into the narrow alley where I thought the shrine was located. I triggered a silent alarm. The little box with the blinking red light was attached to the back site of a store or some building like that. So I decided that it would be wise to slowly back up from that entrance to the alley and moved on, rather hasty, to the entrance on the opposite side of the alley. There we found a rather mad looking fellow having a smoke. We slowly approached the entrance to the alley way and with it, him as well. But he didn’t care much about us so we moved passed him into the alley pressed between the skyscrapers. Only a few steps down the way we found it: the hidden shrine of Akihabara. And it was actually hard to spot in that alley because it seems so unassuming. But that’s what that shrine is all about, a moment of calm, a moment of spirituality, a moment for yourself in that buzzing district of one of the greatest cities in the world. 

We took our moment of calm, a few pictures and a handful of drawings of the shrine.

The shrine itself was sent in a small walled up place. The place was around 6 x 6 meters wide, the shrine probably around 2 x 3 meters and a little shed next to the shrine for maintenance stuff was probably 1×2 meters wide. The four steps leading to the shrine as well as the guardian Fox statues were in prestige condition. The Kami, spirits the shinto shrines are dedicated to, are happy here. And so were we when we headed out to the next shrine in Yokohama. 

A few days after our discovery of the first shrine we took the Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train to Yokohama. There we changed to a regular train because we needed to go to a more rural part of the country. Our last stop was at the Taura train station In Yokosuka. We walked out of the little train station and headed through the village to the shrine in the forest. The name of the shrine is Fushimi Hakuseki Inari Shrine and within my research about it I found out that this shrine also has the looks of a hidden shrine in the Forest. The Tori gates that are leading to the shrine are supposed to be rather abandoned looking. 

The village we were walking through to get to the forest the shrine was hidden in was really scenic. It looks exactly like you would picture a small Japanese village. We were a bit surprised that even that far away from a city the vending machines were still everywhere. We didn’t complain about the vending machines, because a hot tea is such the right thing to start a hike to look for a hidden shrine in a forest in rural Japan. 

At the end of the village we found a small bridge that was marked with the traditional white flags that show that a shrine is nearby. We crossed that bridge and found on the other side of the small river a narrow path clinging along the mountainside. The path was rather steep, had a gazillion steps and at that exact moment we wanted to take our first step it started to pour rain. But you know no guts no glory, so we went on our merry way. We stumbled, slipped and fell a lot on that muddy steep steps and toilet breaks where a whole other story of difficulty. After a while the trees around us got less and we made our way to a hillside made of rice terraces. On the very top of the hill we saw a few Tori gates that lead into a small forest. 

As we got closer to the Tori gates it was clear that the gates where I fact in not so good condition. The wood was rotten and the bright red colour of the few dozen maybe even a hundred gates had already faded away. We took a lot of pictures of the old gates because the beauty of the abandoned kinda suited them. After we took our photos we went through the gates and down the path where at the end the shrine was waiting for us. 

The Fushimi Hakuseki Inari Shrine was in better state than the Tori gates leading to it. The bell you ring to get the attention of the Kami was still a bit shiny and had a nice ring. On the altar of the shrine were a few offerings that seemed rather fresh and the plates on the ground must have been broomed recently. With its 8 by 12 meters the shrine was much bigger than the on in Akihabara and with the trees and not some giant skyscrapers next to it the shrine felt more free. But here is the thing, even though those two shrines were completely different they both gave me the feeling of calmness. 

After I took my moment of calm, did my documentation, pictures and paid my respect we went to head back to the train station because we were still one shrine short of our three hidden shrine Adventure. 

After an excruciating wet and slippery hike back to the train station and a few hour long train ride we arrived in Kyoto where the last of the hidden shrines is located. 

Before we started our search for the last shrine we took a few days to explore Kyoto a bit. To me the difference between Kyoto and Tokyo is rather simple: Tokyo is a modern city with traditional influences and Kyoto is a traditional city with modern influences. The traditional Japanese houses and streets combined with the ancient Temples is really a sight to see. 

On the evening before we went to our search for the shrine we sat down in a restaurant to talk about how we gonna find a shrine with just a picture and a not very clear location. I had Okonomiyaki a cabbage pancake with vegetables and meat and my girlfriend had yaki soba, fried noodles. Both are traditional Japanese meals and tasted amazing. When we finished our dinner we talked about how we gonna find the shrine. On my research I found out that the hidden shrine from the old black and white picture is supposed to be near the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine in Kyoto. So it was pretty clear that we had to start looking for a hidden shrine at the world’s most famous shrine. 

The Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine in Kyoto is famous for its 10 000 Gates (32 000 when you count all of the gates in the Area). If you would look for “shrine” on the internet, you will most definitely find a picture of the hallway like red Tori gates of the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. Because of it’s fame and beauty it is of course a tourist attraction. It felt rather interesting to start our search for a hidden shrine at a busy tourist destination. Gladly Tourist Destinations always come with big maps at the main entrance. Our secret shrine was obviously not on the map but there was an old path draw on the giant wooden map. This old Path seem to lead nowhere. Well I don’t know about you but when I connected the hidden shrine with the old path that apparently leads nowhere I had a general idea of where to look first. 

Conveniently the old path was located kinda close to the main entrance where we were at the Time. We headed for the start of the path an passed by a few food stalls, tourists shops and loads of tourists who all wanted a picture of the famous Hallway like path made of thousands of Tori gates. When the swarms of tourists thinned out and we came to the maintenance buildings of the shrine we finally found the start of the path that supposedly leads nowhere. 

The narrow, winding and bumpy looking path that laid in front of us didn’t look like the very neat cleaned paths that lead through the Tori gates. To me the best description of the path would be: forgotten. Rough ways never stopped us so we went on our merry way. We ducked under branches and fallen over trees, climbed over tree trunks fought of mosquitoes until we took a break to eat our Bento boxes, Boxes filled with different kind of Japanese food mostly with rice. You can get Bento boxes from every convini, the small convenient stores in Japan that are open 24 / 7. After our break we went further down the path, which got more narrow and winding by every step till we saw a opening in the trees. 

We walked through that opening and there it was the last hidden shrine. It was a wide area of 50 meters where at least a hundred shrines were standing. If you now wondering how a hundred shrines fit into a place that is just 50 metres wide, let me explain by going back to the mystery of the picture. 

The Reason the picture seemed of the me all the time was because the relations between the heights of shrines and the trees wasn’t right. The trees seemed huge in comparison with the shrines and Tori gates of the place. It took me a while, and I mean an embarrassing long time, to figure out that the trees aren’t huge but the shrine is just really small. 

At the hidden shrine I could see the exact position the picture was taken from and that the trees in the background were as normal sized as I had figured out. The altar was a bit more worn down than it was on the picture but it had somewhat fresh offerings. People must still come to this place of miniature shrines to make offerings to the Kami. A little, also pretty abandoned looking, maintenance shed was in the far right corner of the place. So even in this place that is far off the beaten path people take care of the miniature shrines. 

The little shinto shrines looked like their bigger brothers. They had Tori gates which were about 30 x 30 centimetres big, had fix guards and offerings, just like you would see at the big ones. One difference besides the heights was that some of the shrines had ceramic guard foxes instead of stone ones. The ceramic fox guards were colourful and beautifully made. 

We walked around the area to take everything in, to find all the little interesting and hidden details the place has to offer. Not gonna lie, walking among those little shrines in this overgrown forest made me kinda feel like a giant. 

After a bit of walking around we started our documentation. We did take some pictures, mapped the coordinates and did some drawings with small descriptions on the side. 

As we were about to leave I realized that this was it: the end of our Japanese hidden shinto shrine Adventure. But I wasn’t sad that it was over because of two Reasons. 

The first would be that we saw so incredibly much on our trip through Japan. We saw the pop cultural centre of Japan, traditional houses, experienced the culture and history, ate the amazing local cuisine and did find the three hidden shrines we were looking for. On each location we saw a different side of the country and experienced a different way of life. 

The second reason was that at that point we still had to experience the rest of the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine in Kyoto and we still had a few days left in Japan. I had the idea back then to visit Mount Fuji because I heard about some caves there I wanted to check out. 

And for me it’s always like that, there will always be the next Adventure that awaits me at the end of a trip. Almost like coming home.

-Rob