Shinmei Hikawa Shrine in Tokyo

In the quiet residential area between Nakano and Sasazuka stations in the western districts of central Tokyo, it's all houses and apartment buildings, small neighbourhood stores and cafes. But about half-way from one to the other, not far from Nakano-Fujimicho subway station, there's a cluster of trees packed tightly around a small shrine, so that you can imagine you've been transported to a forest, far from the city.

It's a pleasant place to take a moment, take in the quiet, relax your mind. The worship hall and the side shrines are unfussy, the guardian lions variously new and handsome, or old and of unusual design. I think it's great that in a city where pretty much every scrap of land is developed, we can find a venerable temple or shrine, unchanged in hundreds of years, while the surrounding city has changed beyond recognition. What tales these lions must have to tell of all they've seen over the years.