Random thoughts, comments, observations and general fluff from a random bint who left London at the end of September 2004 to embark on a new life and new adventures in Tokyo, land of the cute.... and is leaving mid-June 2010 - and counting!

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Shrines and Temples

I've been using the two interchangeably. Bad Jo.

A Temple is Buddhist and a Shrine is Shinto.

Senso-ji in Asakusa is a Temple and Meiji-jingu, in Harajuku, and Yasukuni-jinja (the controversial one near the Palace) are Shrines.

How do you tell the difference? If they have a Buddha, they're a Temple. Otherwise, they can be fairly hard to differentiate between unless you can get really close.

Which we did today. We went to another Temple, this time in a place called Gokokuji. Apart from the Temple there were lots of other beautiful buildings and a cemetary on the site and, the biggest bonus, not many people and absolutely no other Gaijin (okay, I was with Japanese and Gaijin, but we don't count!

Anyway, we were allowed inside the Temple and were permitted to walk around and have a proper look at all the statues and interior of the building. There was one man kneeling down playing some eerie tune on a bamboo instrument of some sort, and also lots of Buddhist monks wandering around. Awesome. There were statues there with 'real' (blue) eyes. Most strange as normally statues' eyes are just made of the same material as the rest of them.

Another of the todays highlights was a restaurant called 'The Christon Cafe' http://www.ug-gu.co.jp/restaurant/shop/christon-tokyo.htm Now, the website doesn't do it justice, but I've included it anyway. It's like drinking (very cheap good sangria, etc) in a Cathedral, with very low lighting, Spanish music and Gothic decor. The staff are all pretty Goth looking too, and there are large gaudy chandeliers, crosses, stained glass windows, priests robes, etc around. We thought it a shame the waiting staff weren't dressed as monks and nuns, but I guess you can't have it all. And the pizza there was soooooo good :D and so were the comfy chairs and sofas though, unfortunately you did have to lean forward to speak to each other.

2 Comments:

Blogger Jo said...

i have no idea. anything more techical than typing or using the template i have to have done for me.

2:41 pm

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Jo, love your blog. What an excellent move you made. I have a small chance of dropping by in november or so of this year, if a few minor details (like being actually invited to a conference, securing funds&time off etc) work out. Will keep ou posted and wil try as hard as I can to make it to Tokyo this year. I'm tired of these shifts!

6:53 am

 

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