A wintry exploration of our main shrine 👹🍣🎎 Wonderful Japan

Unexpected is usually the best. At least, if you are still able to make spontaneous decisions and also know how to implement them. What counts is not perfection, but rather the fun of going for it. This fun spiced with a little curiosity and sense of adventure has already brought many people to the greatest places on this planet.

Well then, when I was driving around recently I wasn't necessarily planning on discovering new continents but I quite spontaneously took a chance and turned right. The weather was rather rainy and it was drizzling, but a few days before it had snowed a lot, so everything around us was really white. Thus, following my spontaneous idea, I turned into the parking lot of our main shrine and got ready for a little wintry round. I tightened my boots one more time and zipped up my jacket properly, and then I was ready and really looking forward to what all the things ahead.

I hadn't been here for a couple of months, and back then a completely different color dominated the place. But I knew exactly that I was in the right place and my good mood was probably the best proof of that.

As always when you visit a shrine, at the beginning you first go through a torii. The typical gates are located in the entrance area of almost every shrine and are often easy to spot from a distance. Especially like here, when they are kept in red, you simply can not miss them.

As always when you visit a shrine, at the beginning you first go through a torii. The typical gates are located in the entrance area of almost every shrine and are often easy to spot from a distance. Especially like here, when they are kept in red, you simply can not miss them.

Inside the shrine area there was still a lot of snow, which made for a nice background and invited me to go further. Snow often has such charming and calming effect, especially when it is not on the road in front of me.

And especially in combination with all the red that you find in many shrines, the snow makes for a great contrast.

It was a pretty rainy day, but I didn't let that stop me. On the contrary, even in the rain you can find some interesting motifs all over the places.

And there was also this gorgeous water basin which is used for ritual hand cleansing. On this day it was decorated with these beautiful pink flowers and formed a wonderful splash of color, which of course I had to look at very closely.

This little dragon is taking good care and is watching over everyone passing by. These days he didn't seem so busy so I came over to paid him my respects.

There was another basin in another place, which was also so wonderfully decorated. I think on these winter days, we all need a little bit of color.

I kept walking and enjoyed the winter scenery which then lead me into the garden area, which was part of this shrine...

The small pond in the middle was frozen over and the winter landscape around me looked in some places as if it came from another time. If you didn't know otherwise, you might think time was just standing still.

Nex to the way I was walking there were some Koma-inu, these stone lion dogs, which take good care that no one get the idea to start any trouble here.

Of course, I behaved well and was allowed to pass, which I took with a sense of relief....

At some other place there were some more Koma-inu which looked rather cold and seem to have no interest in what I was doing. So I just said hello and kept walking.

The two swings will probably have to wait a bit longer until life comes back here. Me too, I am already looking forward to the next swinging session, when I will again try to reach the branches of the next tree with my feet.

At the end, the city got me back and I went on my way back home. But this spontaneous round through the snowy shrine ground was exactly what I needed on that day. I am glad I took the chance to go for an unplanned walk on this wet but still lovely winter day. I will come back here soon, but by then the snow will be gone and we will prepare for a different season which will also provide for some lovely moments. Even though I am looking forward to spring, but I am not in a hurry at all. I rather want to enjoy winter as it lasts, with all its cold and snowy beauty. Life is great, and I want to see much more of it!