Sacred Japan

About this book

57 vs 300. The standard English guide to Japan's shrines covers 57 shrines — and no temples at all. This guide covers 300 sacred sites: shrines AND temples together, in one uniform format you can actually travel with.

From Ise Jingu, rebuilt every twenty years for thirteen centuries, to a sea-cave shrine on the Nichinan coast; from the Great Buddha of Todai-ji to Kyoto's moss temple — each of the 300 entries gives you the same practical fields: the enshrined deity or Buddhist sect, the highlights not to miss, whether and how to receive its goshuin stamp, how to get there, and how to behave once you arrive.

Inside: a plain-English explanation of how shrines and temples differ (and why they were one landscape for a thousand years); a complete manners chapter — the temizuya, two bows two claps, why temples never clap; a full goshuin chapter on Japan's great collecting pilgrimage; a National Treasure hunter's guide; three model itineraries (a first-timer's Kyoto–Nara week, a goshuin pilgrimage, a treasure hunt); and a glossary.

Where a detail changes with the season — hours, fees, bus times — this book teaches you how to confirm it on the day instead of printing a number that would expire. What never changes is here in full: what each place is, why it matters, and how to be a guest in it.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.