Meiji Jingu

Step off the train at Harajuku, cross a bridge, pass under the first great wooden torii, and within a hundred paces the noise of Tokyo is gone. Meiji Jingu is the city's most important Shinto shrine, dedicated in 1920 to Emperor Meiji, who opened Japan to the modern world, and his wife Empress Shoken. Its setting is the surprise: a dense forest of some seventy hectares that looks ancient but was planted by hand, with around a hundred thousand trees donated from every corner of Japan and laid out by foresters who designed it to regenerate itself. Wide gravel paths lead through the trees past a wall of brightly painted sake barrels — offerings from brewers across the country — facing a row of French wine barrels, a nod to the emperor's enthusiasm for Western ways. The Otorii, one of the largest wooden shrine gates in Japan, frames the final approach, and the main sanctuary itself is a restrained, elegant complex of cypress and copper rebuilt after the war. Here you can watch the shrine at work: worshippers bowing and clapping before the offering hall, priests in white and pale green robes, visitors writing wishes on wooden ema plaques, and on many weekends a wedding procession crossing the courtyard beneath a red parasol, the bride in white silk. Admission is free and the shrine is open every day of the year from sunrise to sunset, so its hours shift with the seasons — opening around five in midsummer and closing as early as four in December.

Shrine etiquette differs slightly from temple etiquette, and Meiji Jingu is the place to learn it. Bow once before passing beneath each torii. At the water pavilion, take the ladle in your right hand to rinse your left, switch to rinse your right, pour a little into your cupped left hand to rinse your mouth, then tip the ladle upright so the remaining water runs down the handle. At the offering hall, the custom is two bows, two claps, a silent prayer and one final bow. Photography is welcome in the grounds but not of the inner sanctuary rites, and weddings should be watched from a respectful distance. The shrine office sells omamori charms and goshuin stamp-calligraphy for collectors' books.

Beyond the main sanctuary there is more to see. The Inner Garden, which charges a small maintenance fee and keeps shorter hours, was laid out for the empress and is famed for its irises, which bloom in June, and for Kiyomasa's Well, a spring said to carry good energy. The Meiji Jingu Museum, a sleek low building by architect Kengo Kuma near the south approach, displays the imperial carriage and personal treasures of the emperor and empress. And at New Year, the shrine becomes the most visited in Japan, with millions arriving in the first days of January for hatsumode, the first prayer of the year — memorable, but expect queues that stretch for hours and controlled crowd flows from the station.

The shrine sits between two of Tokyo's most contrasting neighborhoods, which makes it an easy half-day. Exit south toward Harajuku for the candy-colored chaos of Takeshita Street and the tree-lined boulevard of Omotesando, with its showcase architecture by Japan's leading designers; exit west for Yoyogi Park, where weekend drummers, dancers and picnickers gather; or walk north through the forest to Yoyogi and the Shinjuku skyline beyond. Go early in the morning when the gravel paths are freshly raked and the light falls through the trees, and you will understand why so many residents call this forest the lungs of the city.