A figure was relaxing in the shade of a tree in a deserted, Shinto forest of the Meiji Jingu Shrine

When people resolve to visit Meiji Jingu, they almost invariably alight from the train at Harajuku Station. In their minds, they envision the textbook pilgrimage: entering through the bustling South Approach, passing under the grand torii gate, and marching straight toward the main shrine. Yet, regardless of the season, this path crawls with a relentless swarm of humanity. Just traversing it is an exhausting ordeal, as you are battered by the collective, chaotic energy of the crowd. For a contrarian like myself—someone who craves a quieter, more introspective solitary walk—I highly recommend the back-alley alternative: approaching from Sangubashi Station on the Odakyu Line.

Slipping into the sacred grounds from this unassuming station, the cacophony of Harajuku vanishes so completely it feels like a trick of geography. But simply walking a straight line up the West Approach lacks poetry. The real pleasure lies in a deliberate detour, veering off toward the Shiseikan martial arts dojo. Here, fellow walkers are few and far between. You are left entirely alone to absorb the atmosphere of a primeval forest, so deep and dense it makes you forget you are trapped in the dead center of the world’s largest metropolis.

Remarkably, this sprawling wilderness is not an ancient, untouched leftover of nature. When the shrine was built during the Taisho era, garden architects meticulously arranged nearly 100,000 trees donated from all over Japan. They calculated exactly how the forest would evolve over the next 150 years, engineering a complete, self-sustaining ecosystem. It is, in reality, a flawless artificial forest. Walking through this magnificent illusion, outsmarted by human ingenuity, I trudge along, feeling a quiet, stubborn sense of self-satisfaction.

Emerging from the deep canopy of this brilliant architectural deception, the world suddenly breaks wide open. On the path leading from the dojo to the main shrine, I stumbled into an bright expanse that felt less like a sacred grove and more like an ordinary public park. Before me stretched a meticulously manicured, vibrant green lawn, bordered by a comfortable row of grand, beautifully branched trees. Looking closer, the dense, solemn atmosphere of the shrine had entirely evaporated. Rather than a holy sanctuary, it was merely a serene, idyllic meadow. Under the deep shade of a leafy canopy, a few early birds were already lounging on the grass, doing absolutely nothing at all. Beneath that high, spacious early-afternoon sky, one gets the feeling that if you were to just lie down and let the time drift, the vital energy drained by the vices of modern city life might just, when you least expect it, slip quietly back into your bones.