The Shrines of Ise

            Today we rode in a bus 3.5 hours to the Shrines of Ise, the center for Shintoism (native religion to Japan). This religion essentially believes that everything living has a spirit and they worship these spirits. It is also the religion that claims that the Emperor line is directly from Amateratsu, the sun goddess. This religion is very nature oriented and is unique because their sacred buildings are town down and rebuilt every 20 years, 56 consecutive times (yeah that’s a lot of rebuilding). This is because they only use natural materials, which naturally decay after a while. So, they have two plots for every place where there is a shrine, and they will construct a copy of the current on the open spot and switch them all over at once and then deconstruct the old. Also, you can’t go inside of the holiest place, as only the Emperor can to move the sacred relic (a mirror to represent the Sun God – because when you look into it, it reflects your face in the sunlight). These shrines have evolved from the ancient Japanese granaries, which were the only elevated buildings in the ancient landscape to protect the grain from rats and rain, while the dwellings were subterranean. Really, it is cool that I learned about this religion and buildings in my architecture class and now I’m here seeing it. We couldn’t take pictures of the sacred part and you could only see parts of it anyways because of the way that it was set up, meant to only give you glimpses of the most sacred building. Either way, it was pretty awesome and the landscape was gorgeous as well. After we toured the two different complexes, we headed back.