Gen­eral Description

Yukikami Shrine is sit­u­ated in roughly half an acre of land between two sub­urbs towards the outer city. Past the arch­way at the entrance, twenty stone steps lead up to a plateau where the shrine build­ing itself lies, at the end of a short tree-lined avenue. The build­ing itself is designed in a tra­di­tional Japan­ese design, and looks fairly impres­sive despite its small size.

Inside, beyond the building’s dou­ble front doors, vir­tu­ally the whole of the ground floor is one sin­gle room. The room is lav­ishly dec­o­rated in white, sil­ver and gold, and looks as if has been metic­u­lously tidied — in fact, it’s almost too per­fect; as if some­one devotes the major­ity of their time to mak­ing sure every­thing in this room is flawless.

The priest of the shrine, Suzu­miya Hiroshi, is a relaxed and friendly per­son, and he seems to always be happy to chat to vis­i­tors. His wife, Shima, can often be seen around the shrine, but always seems to be busy and on her way to deal with some­thing impor­tant. The fam­ily, includ­ing two school-age daugh­ters, live on the upper floor of the shrine build­ing, whereas the lower floor is reserved solely for reli­gious use.

Sea­sonal Descrip­tion: Winter

The trees that lead up to the shrine build­ing are stark and bare, and the ground under­foot is slip­pery and icy. The shrine looks slightly out-of-place — an almost bright red-coloured build­ing set amongst dreary land­scape and dreary skies. Inside, the atmos­phere is warm and invit­ing despite the weather out­side. More than ever, Shima seems pre­oc­cu­pied with other con­cerns, although she never fails to be polite and proper to vis­i­tors. Hiroshi seems to have an extra glow to his cheeks, although whether that’s due to the heat­ing or the amount of warm sake he drinks on cold days is a mystery.

Sea­sonal Descrip­tion: Spring

The shrine seems almost to nes­tle in amongst its sur­round­ing trees as it is seen from the top of the steps. The cherry trees that line the path are in full bloom, a vibrant wash of pink and white that cas­cades in occa­sional flur­ries to the ground. The bright sun in the blue sky over­head casts its warm­ing light across the grounds, and across the shrine build­ing itself whose win­dows cast sparkling reflec­tions. Inside, the nor­mal white colour­ing of the shrine’s dec­o­ra­tion is tinged with greens and pinks. At this time of year the shrine’s doors are often left wide open, and this easy­go­ing and relaxed atti­tude per­vades the shrine’s staff as well.