Meiji Shrine
| The Good | The Not-So Good |
| Peaceful island of tranquility | Quite a lot of tourists |
| Get to see a wedding parade (sometimes) |
Access to Meiji Shrine
There are two main entrances to the shrine complex; one from the Harajuku station end and the other closer to Yoyogi station (not Yoyogi Park). The Yoyogi side entrance is easily walk-able from Shinjuku station (South East Exit then head south under the bridge) or Yoyogi station (West exit then head south past the Police Box). It is highly recommended to follow the Tokyo Parks Walk plan here as this will allow you to enter from the Yoyogi station end and exit from the Harajuku station end, thus getting the most out of the experience.
Once you have entered the Meji Shrine grounds, you can use the handy map on the official website.
Inside the Meiji Shrine site
You can read about the history here. If you want to walk around the entire site it will take a good couple of hours if you include the Treasure Museum (Homotsuden – currently closed for renovation) and the Treasure Museum Annex (Bunkakan). If you are lucky, there will be a wedding procession that you can watch inside the main Shrine complex . Having a wedding at a shrine is fairly popular and Meiji Shrine is one of the most famous in the country. A wedding there will set you back upwards of ¥500,000 for 20 people (you get that back as each person usually “gifts” around ¥30,000 for turning up – it is the custom in Japan).
Wedding procession inside shrine 
Make a wish! (you pay for the block) 
Offering a prayer and spare change to the local Gods
Anyone can offer a prayer however and there is a method to do it, however most Japanese skip the first two customs on that page. The shrine is incredibly popular at the dawn of New Year’s Eve, with people lining up in their literal thousands to be one of the first to enter the shrine at 12 midnight. The amount of coins that are offered gets so great that they set up a massive enclosure before the shrine building where people can throw their money.
There are special events throughout the year so check out what is coming up the week you visit. There is a massive festival held around the end of August called the “Harajuku Omotesando Genki-matsuri Festival — Super Yosakoi“, which involves large dance groups for high schools around the country waving flags and generally being very noisy. It’s actually really good, check out the 2019 highlights.
