TacoCat’s Travels #162 (Japan 8.0 - Kawasaki): Small Torii Gates for Smaller People! ⛩

May 2022 · 7 min read · Bunkyo

Hey Hive!

So if you missed the last post, I started recounting my trip to Kawasaki when I went to visit Sean in Japan at the end of May 2019! He was doing an internship with Fujitsu in Tokyo then for about a month or so but we missed each other so much he booked me a flight to go and visit him!

And last week, we reunited at Haneda airport and we just spent the day strolling around the neighbourhood where Sean was staying in Kawasaki. He was lucky to have one of our favourite ramen shops nearby so we went there immediately for a delicious lunch!

Anyway, over the next few days I stayed at home working and doing art while Sean went to work so we could only spend time together at nights but he promised that we would do something fun over the weekend and that's exactly what we did!

1 June 2019. Saturday.

So we found a pretty historic shrine not too far from Kawasaki which had some pretty cool features worth checking out! Since we were in Japan I felt like it was necessary we visit a shrine at least once. And after some Google searching and walking, we arrived at the main gate of Nezu Shrine!

Nezu shrine is one of Japan's oldest shrines, and probably one of its most attractive! Nezu Shrine is set in lush greenery with ponds of carp and elegant, beautifully colored, wooden structures that reflect Japanese culture in all its age and beauty. But the thing that drew me most to this shrine were the paths made of small torii gates!

On the way there from the main gate we saw a lot cute doggos on the way like this chonky boi:

And this couple more black shibas:

There was also this gate guarding the gate with a gang of a pigeons.

Eventually we arrived at the long string of torii gates! And we could definitely see the lush greenery here for sure.

The small torii gates looked so cute! They were literally the width of one person and Sean actually had to bend down a little to get through them. It was just nice for me though.

This was such a different experience compared to when we visited Fushimi Inari Shrine with its thousands of huge gates!

But it was still really cool nonetheless and made for some nice shots too since these were more closely packed together compared to Fushimi Inari since those are bigger.

There were also some fox statues at Nezu shrine and they were wearing these little red bibs too which were so cute!

This was the offering box at the shrine where you could make an offering and pray for good fortune.

I'm not sure how many torii gates were here but it was quite a sight to see them all lined up like this.

It was truly a marvel! And something you'd really only see in Japan that's for sure!

Because the gates were small and compact, we could actually walk to the end of the line at this shrine! At Fushimi Inari the line of gates goes from the shrine to the top of the mountain which takes around 2-3 hours in total going up and back down.

But here it only took a minute or so from start to end! Here's a quick video from about halfway:

This was the end of the shrine pathway:

They definitely weren't kidding about the luscious greenery here; there were so many bushes that I think would bloom flowers in Spring.

I read that these are actually azalea bushes and Nezu Shrine is the home of the Bunkyo Azalea Festival, which happens every April and is named after Tokyo's Bunkyo ward where Nezu Shrine is located! Over an acre and a half of vivid azaleas bloom in shades of mainly pink and white, and in different shapes and sizes, in what is one of Tokyo's most spectacular spring scenes! (Source: japan-experience)

The shrine buildings here were also very impressive and they look well maintained too!

We went to purify ourselves with the shrine water before going in as per proper shrine etiquette.

Since it was pretty humid that day it was refreshing.

There was a line of people making offerings here.

Even the shrine office looked really nice.

Here's a map of the whole shrine:

Thankfully the shrine had another exit at the back so we didn't have to walk back to the entrance. So we walked through the back gate to explore what else was nearby.

We saw this cute little doggo!

And found a shopping street!

It was pretty crowded and humid but we went in anyway.

There were a lot of interesting little shops here like this lamp decorating store:

And of course many souvenir shops with novelty shirts:

It was different compared to the shotengais you'd find in the city since there were more unique stores here compared to franchise outlets.

There was even a store where you could make your own seal!

They had a lot of cute designs at this store called Shinimono-gurui! But I wouldn't know what to do with a stamp since we don't use them here.

There was also this building that looked like it was covered in stickers!

But eventually we finished walking the street!

The sun was setting soon and we were getting hungry so we decided to go for an early dinner.

We found our way to Shinjuku to eat at another one of our favourite restaurants - Bura Bura!

I wrote about this place a few years ago which you can check out here, but it specialises in Abura Soba, aka oil noodles. It doesn't have any broth or soup so it's cheaper than regular ramen and you can often get extra noodles for free, which is the case at Bura Bura!

Thankfully we went there before the peak dinner crowd so the shop was completely empty!

Initially when I heard the term "oily noodles" I thought it would be really greasy like deep fried stuff but it's actually really nice and light! It's not super oily, and the noodles has a nice chewy texture to them. And with free extra noodles, it fills you up pretty quickly!

The noodles were delicious! I don't normally go for thick noodles but the sauce (and their special Bura Bura chili) was absolutely yummy! I even managed to finish a large bowl! 😋

After finishing your noodles, you can also enjoy some nice chicken soup! Bura Bura provides a flask of hot chicken soup on each table and recommends that you pour some soup into your bowl and drink it! I don't have a picture, but I remember the label on the flask said something like "you can pour soup into your bowl and drink is good too". 😄

After our very filling meal, we walked around Shinjuku to digest and enjoy the night which was more cooling.

We also went to take some purikura, for mementos sake. It's kind of a tradition for us at this point to take at least one set of purikura every trip.

I was seriously getting into art at the time so we went to check out this book store for art supplies and there was so much stuff! I bought some sketchbooks to bring back.