Sunday, September 4, 2016

The Temple Next Door, Seisho-ji, Minato, Tokyo

Last August when hubby and I first arrived into Tokyo and spent the weekend exploring our neighborhood, I posted on our neighborhood shrine, Atago Jinja. It took me a whole year later to realized I'd completely neglected to post on the neighborhood temple also. Actually, I should say temples, because there are a few, but the biggest one is Seisho-ji (not to be confused with Senso-ji in Asakusa).

My humble opinion is that Seisho-ji stands out for the reasons below:
- It's sandwiched in between 2 giant buildings, the Atago Mori building and the Atago Forest Tower where our friends live.
- There's also a board outside the temple gate where they write a weekly poem kinda-sorta in the form of waka.
- The temple tolls its bell at 6pm everyday and you can hear the bell blocks away!


The temple gate is cool-looking in black and white.

There are a few sakura trees in the temple courtyard. When mum and aunt-in-law were here back in April, we caught the sakura in bloom.




It's neat being surrounded with many tall buildings. The inner temple ground is perfectly visible from J.'s apartment in the Atago Forest Tower, including the large cemetery.







Here's hubby showing his mum the smaller bell on the side of the main hall.

What I found odd was this somewhat western-looking dragon fountain. It's sort of hidden on the far left corner of the temple, almost like it didn't belong...


Here's the main bell that they toll everyday at 6pm.


Not sure what this is all about until I remember the story of Siddhartha's conception. May be this is a reference to that?

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