Cherry Blossoms Falling Down

So Yasukuni Shrine made the news again because a Chinese diplomat cancelled a meeting with Prime Minister Koizumi to protest his continued visits to the shrine.

As the shrine is topical Mari & I thought we'd go and have a gander. With the help of that little wheel thing in your mousey you too can too.

Chocks away!



On exiting the Kudanshita subway you'll be near the Budokan. You may remember it from such exciting blogger posts as My Points in Dot Life. Well this isn't the Budokan, but its the building next to it. It's way old looking and dignified looking, isn't it. Now if only I'd walked across the street to it I could tell you what it is. But I didn't, so I can't.

I'm a veritable encyclopedia of information such as this.

As it was a fine spring day the walk to the shrine was accompanied by the dulcet tones of stirring patriotic exhortations blasting from the black vans of the right-wingers. Sorry I don't have a picture of them. Imagine several black vans with loudhailers atop and large Japanese flags unfurled from them. They're a common enough sight around the shrine's area this time of year.



Three minutes walk from Kudanshita subway gets one to the first gate. It was pretty sunny today, and there seems to be some weird whiteness in the centre of the picture. I hope I haven't stolen that woman's soul. Or maybe I can see dead people? Or she might be an angel?



Most stoic dog statues and paddle pop stick with writing must be passed before going under the gate. This doggie has a mate over on the other side. This other doggie was camera shy and declined to be in the photo.



Here are some mighty big wooden doors through which the shrine can be spied.



And here 'tis. Really not as big as one would expect for such a famous shrine. But it's more famous (or infamous if you happen to be a Chinese diplomat) for its significance than anything else.



And here is the War Museum at Yasukuni Shrine. Today was my second visit to it, and it's a really interesting museum. There's quite a lot of English used in the displays, and I recommend it to any English speaking (or reading) visitor to Tokyo. Within it you'll find the old adage disproved that "History is written by the winner".