A Little Trip to Harajuku Part 3 (Feb. 2, 2008)

Continuing our little Tokyo trip, our next stop was Yasukuni Shrine. A war memorial dedicated mostly to Japanese soldiers during World War II.

At the entrance to the shrine from Kudanshita Station exit, you see O-torii. This is one of the largest torii I have seen made from steel instead of the normal wood.
From the gate, we next see this statue of Omura Masujiro. Yasukuni Shrine was actually established during the Meiji period (1869) way before WWII. Omura Masujiro was considered the father of the modern japanese army during that period.
There is a long walk towards the main shrine itself. We next come upon the gatehouse called the Shinmon .
And after that would be the main prayer hall.

After spending a few minutes around the main hall, we decided to go towards the back of the shrine looking for some warm place to stay. The photo above is the back of the shrine with a lot of large trees around it. Unfortunately, they are not in bloom right now so I'm not sure what kind they are.At the back is a nice little japanese garden (Shinchi Teien). It was really a pretty nice garden encircling a pond with a lot of kois. I took a lot of photos of the garden all around the pond.

Finally we decided to be on our way to our next stop. But before leaving, one last snapshot of the shrine.=)

We returned to the station and I went to see if the fishing village we saw earlier was still busy.=P

And finally our last stop from a half day's worth of sightseeing. I couldn't leave without getting a good night shot of Tokyo Tower.