Approached from “Kita-sando” (the north path), nice to walk in a grove. The grove is artificial, developed by over 110,000 volunteers in the beginning of 20th Century. They started to plant needle trees including cypress and cedars for unmatured ground condition, not broadleaf trees such as oak or camphor. The plan was to grow needle trees first, waiting broadleaf trees to grow, spending 100 years. It seems very successful now.
The Great Torii Gate is the second generation built in 1975 which was imported from Taiwan, as well as the first generation.
Since the first one is destroyed by the lightning, you see the thunder rod to avoid lightning strikes it again (the third picture, on the left of the torii gate).
A large white signing board shows the Emperor Meiji and his wife, Shoken’s poems. In Meiji-Jingu shrine, they provides you their poems as a kind of Omikuji (written oracle), thus no levels of your luck (Daikichi or Kyo, Very Good Luck or Ill Fortune) is depicted. Instead, you’ll have one of poems as an oracle from them.
The open-close depends on the time of sunset and sunrise, thus the open hours changes every month.
