Ikushima Tarushima Shrine — Attraction in Ueda

This shrine is apparently the centre of Japan (which part of Japan, all of it? Just Honshu? Who knows, but there you go) so it's a "power spot". It's also interesting because, unusually, the torii gates do not face the main shrine hall. Instead, they're placed so that on winter solstice the sun rises inside one gate and sets in the other. There are some ducks in the pond you can feed and there are good festivals...

Not a huge shrine, but a rich, beautiful, and historic one. It's surrounded by a pond and has a wealth of interesting buildings besides the main shrine, like a beautiful kagura dance stage and kabuki hall that you can go beneath to see some of the stage machinery. There's also a very large torii gate about 1 km to the northeast of the gate at the entrance...

A very beautiful shrine, but the staff is very indifferent and even a bit impolite, putting on black faces all the time. I wonder if it is because foreign tourists are not welcome? But the view is really beautiful, but the relationship of the staff left a very...