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Empress Shoken

Tour Report of Meiji Shrine & Harajuku on April 7, 2024

Thank you to those who participated in the Tokyo Free Walking Tour (TFWT) at Meiji Shrine & Harajuku. Today was such a perfect day for walking under the evergreen trees of the Meiji Shrine forest and finally Sakura in Tokyo is in full bloom.  We welcomed 6 guests from Brazil, Mexico and the Principality of Monaco.  We hope you all enjoyed and shared interesting and joyful conversations with each other during the tour. The Meiji Jingu enshrines Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, and April 11 is the 110th anniversary of her passing.  Prior to that day, the exhibition: A Ceremonial Court Dress of Empress Shoken, has just begun on April 6 and her oldest full court dress is open to the public at Meiji Jingu Museum.  According to the website, this big project of researching and repairing the dress started in 2018 with a lot of researchers, artisans, and experts from various countries and different areas of expertise involved.  The passion of this project resembles that of the time when the Meiji Jingu was built 100 years ago.  Those days, 100,000 trees from all over the country were donated to the shrine, and 110,000 young volunteers planted them. Why don’t […]

A break in the rainy season (TSUYU) : Tour report of Meiji Shrine and Harajuku Tour on July 2nd, 2023

On behalf of our guides, I just wanted to send a few words of gratitude. Thank you forjoining our tour at Meiji Shrine and Harajuku on July 2nd. We welcomed 35 guests from USA, Canada, India, Israel, Australia, Spain, Turkey and Denmark. The group was divided into five teams. I hope all of you enjoyed our tour in the wonderful weather, which is a break in the rainy season. We’ve posted group photos and snapshots so that you can look back on the fun times we had. (Team A) (Team B) (Team C) (Team D) (Team E) Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, who are enshrined in Meiji Shrine, left a lot of traditional  31-syllable Japanese poems. We can find some poems in the precinct. For instance, there is a panel which displays 2 poems during our tour.In addition, some of their poems are listed in Paper Oracle or “Omikuji” in Japanese. Omikuji usually indicates good or bad fortune, but the one in Meiji Shrine shows the poems written by both of them and tell us the guideline for humanity and morality. For instance, the left gold one written by Empress Shoken says,おこたりて 磨かざりせば 光ある玉も瓦に ひとしからまし(If just neglected, And never polished to […]