Yasukuni Shrine and Kitanomaru Park

Photos:

• Top left: Torii at the entrance to the Yasukuni Shrine.
• Top right: the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. (See here for a BBC article about the shrine that was published last August.)
• Middle left: Praying outside the shrine.
• Middle right: a chain of 1000 paper cranes at Yasukuni Shrine. In 1955, a 12 year old girl from Hiroshima died of Leukemia, brought on by exposure to the atomic bomb 10 years earlier. Before she died her friends had told her the Japanese legend that if she folded 1000 paper cranes the gods would grant her wish to be healthy again. She died before 1000 were completed, but now the paper cranes are symbolic as a memorial of all the children who died as a result of the war and also as a wish for peace.
• Bottom left: some of the painted cards on display near the shrine. 2007 is the Year of the Boar, hence the many depictions of the animal.
• Bottom right: across the street from the shrine was Kitanomaru Park. I stopped by and found it to be pretty uneventful, but I thought this picture was nice. Mostly because it gives no indication of how dirty the water was or how much bird poop there was all over the walking paths.