The Tokyo Jinja Good Luck Tour will get you to visit eight shrines across Tokyo, where you can pray and hopefully bring luck upon you.
To commemorate your tour, you can get a booklet with golden pages to collect the shuin of each of the shrines. The calligraphy part is already done and you only need to get the red stamp on top. The booklet is 1800¥ and each of the following stamps is 300¥. There is no entry fee to any of the shrines. Upon completion, you get a good luck sticky badge as well as a completion stamp in the booklet.
The eight shrines are the following.
- Hebikuko-jinja
- Togoshi-hachiman-jinja
- Takanawa-jinja
- Karasumori-jinja
- Namiyoke-jinja
- Fukutoku-jinja
- Torikoe-jinja
- Asakusa-jinja
I unexpectedly started my journey in Asakusa when I saw the booklet for sale at Asakusa-jinja. As I really like that kind of course, I felt that I had no choice but to do it. If properly planned, it is possible to visit them all in a single day and the official webpage suggest an itinerary using a one day subway pass.
I decided to do it mostly on foot over two days as I wanted to stop by other locations. I actually stayed near Asakusa, so we can say that I got the booklet and the Asakusa-jinja stamp while visiting sight in Asakusa on day zero. In the morning of day one, I walked from Asakusa to Tokyo station, stopping by two of the shrines. I stopped by Tokyo station for lunch, then did a detour to get the Edo castle stamp, but would have need more time to visit the Imperial Palace. I continued my walk to Tsukiji market, collecting two more stamps on the way.
On my second day I was changing hotel so I stopped by Shinagawa station to drop my bag in a locker inside the station to stop by the relatively new Takanawa Gateway station to get my first stamp of the day, before walking back to Shinagawa to see the Nikon museum and to get lunch before walking to the two final shrines. From there I took the JR train back to Shinagawa to get my bag.
Doing it mostly on foot got me to walk close to 17 km each day.
Most of the shrines have nothing spectacular, but they were still nice. For me the highlight was really Tgoshi-hachiman, where I also got a cute shuin with cat and I was offered some tea that I could drink on the sofa installed in front of the shrine. Hebikubo shrine was also interesting as you do not often see shrines with snakes.
Overall I am quite happy that I complete this tour.
