Tour Report of Meiji Shrine & Harajuku on April 21, 2024

Thank you to those who participated in the Tokyo Free Walking Tour (TFWT) at Meiji Shrine & Harajuku.  We welcomed 8 guests from the USA, Canada, Australia, and Taiwan.  We hope you all enjoyed and shared interesting and joyful conversations with each other during the tour.

Unlike “Omikuji” (fortune telling slips) offered in most shrines, Meiji Shrine offers a very unique “Omikuji”.  How unique?  Most omikuji tell us good or bad luck concerning our daily life like health, money, love and so on.  On the other hand, Meiji Jingu’s omikuji is the form of Waka poems.  Waka poems are the Japanese traditional poems consisting of 31 syllables in the pattern of 5-7-5-7-7.  These Waka poems included in omikuji were composed by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, both of whom are enshrined in the shrine.

How to draw omikuji in the shrine:  1. Put ¥100 into the offering box.  2. After shaking a wooden box in order to mix well sticks inside, turn the box upside down. 3. Draw one wooden stick from the box. (There is a small hole so that only one stick can come out.) 4. After finding a number written on the stick, put it back into the box. 5. Take one fortune telling slip from the number’s drawer. 

The message of each Waka poem is based on the traditional Shinto ethics.

Please visit Meiji Shrine HP for more information.  Also, you can draw virtual “Omikuji” from the homepage! (Try to scroll to the bottom of the front page in Japanese mode.)

Your feedback or comments are always important and helpful to us all. If you enjoyed our tour, please consider posting a review on our Facebook, homepage, Instagram etc.  Once again, thank you very much for joining the Tokyo Free Walking Tour during your precious time in Tokyo.  Please don’t forget to share your experiences with your families and friends!

posted by KAZ

For more information about our tours, please visit our web site at https://tfwt.jp/top, https://www.facebook.com/TokyoFWT or Tokyo Free Walking Tour at https://www.tripadvisor.jp/ .