Apr 4, 2015

The other shrine within the grounds

 Off to the right of the main shrine is a second shrine. It, too, has a torii, but it is much small than the other two. I have to duck my head if I walk through it.
The shrine itself is a small stone building on a stone foundation. The top of the roof is barely above the top of my head. I have seen a map that showed a name for this shrine but I could not read the kanji and have forgotten it.

One interesting thing can be seen in the second picture. Around shrines, temples, and even private homes, the Japanese tend to remove all the vegetation so that there is just bare ground. I am not at all sure why this is, but I suspect it may have had something to do with separating buildings from the natural environment, which will overwhelm a building in just a couple of years. The empty space protects the buildings in a sense. I have no idea whether or not this is true. It is simply my working hypothesis until better information comes along.

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