🗾 What to visit: Nezu Shrine in Bunkyō, Tokyo

Among the lots of things Japan is famous for, we can put temples and shrines in the top 3. The main difference between the two is this: the shrines are places were you worship Shinto gods and deities, temples are for Buddists.
Today I wanted to talk about Nezu Shrine, in Bunkyō ward, near the more famous Ueno Park.
This shrine is probably an hidden gem not many people know about, or they decide to skip it in order to visit much bigger shrines....NOT.A.SMART.IDEA!

The area around the actual shrine is very calm and quite and the beside the shrine, the best feature are the dozens red torii gates, just on the right side of one the entrances!
You can walk through them for their entire path and enjoy an upper view of the shrine...
It was amazing just like this now that's still winter, just imagine how beautiful would it be during springtime with all the cherry blossoming!!

Nezu  Shrine is also a spectacular work of architecture and it has all the things you can find in a bigger shrine: omikuji, which are paper strips with a soothsaying written on them...if it's good you get to keep it in order to make it true, if it's bad you have to tie it up on a bar in the shrine to leave the bad luck there.

You can buy EMA (wooden boards where you write your wishes and hang them in the shrine, but you can take them at home as souvenirs as well), omamori (good luck amules in different shapes, the most common is the sachet one) and there's the opportunity to have your Goshuin notebook signed (a stamp book where you can collect all the shrines and temple signatures).

Nezu Shrine's EMA - how cute is it!!

What I liked the most about my visit were there have been the quiet I found and the fact that there was almost no one, so it felt like a private sighseeing.
I highly reccomend you visit this place, it's just 5 minutes walk from Todai-Mae Station and from here you can head to Ueno Park, the best park to go to during the cherry blossom period.

Nezu Shrine's stamp and omamori (this white one is for good luck in your studies)

Ph: all pictures taken by me!