Shine On

Meiji Jingu was one of my favourite places to visit in Tokyo. Between Shibuya and Shinjuku, it was always somewhere I took any visitor on their first day. I know, how routine am I?

This week was the 50th anniversary since it was rebuilt after its destruction in WWII.


It's a funny thing, being a tourist at a site that no longer stands original. Most of the temples in Japan are reconstructions, and the tombs in Ireland had new walls to prop them up. These structures are still incredible, but I feel that something is missing when I read on the placards that it's not the original.

There's a philosophical question, the Ship of Theseus, which asks whether something that has parts of it replaced until the whole object is new, is still the same as it was before? Imagine a hammer. You replace the head. Is it still the same hammer? Then you replace the handle. Still the original? It's an odd question but when you consider something like the Great Wall of China or the temples in Cambodia, which are slowly eroding away, if they are one day reconstructed so that none of the original architecture stands, do they still hold the same importance?


Anyway, there have been night illuminations this week, to show off the temple. The pictures I've 'borrowed' can be found here, along with others. It's events like these that make me so desperate to be back in Tokyo viewing them first hand.