I should say this plainly, because it is the truth: for most of my travelling life, I never liked visiting temples, churches, or other places of worship. I would walk past them, look at them from the outside, and feel nothing pulling me in.

India is the clearest example. I have been there nine times. In all those visits, I entered exactly one temple — and I didn’t feel comfortable there. Once I even joined a group tour to see the temples of Tamil Nadu, the great ones carved into enormous rock. At the time they left me unmoved. It was only many years later, looking back, that I understood what I had actually been standing in front of: marvels, carved by hand out of solid stone. I had been there and not seen them.

It was the same in Dharamshala, high in the Himalayas, and again in Bangkok, a city full of gold and incense and temples on every other corner. Places other travellers described as unforgettable simply passed me by.

Bright red and gold Shinto shrine facade with green tiled roof in Tokyo
The kind of building I would once have walked straight past — and in Tokyo, finally stopped to look at.

Then I visited my first temple in Tokyo

Something changed in Tokyo. After visiting my first temple there, I felt differently — and I want to be honest about what that means, because I can’t say I felt religious. I didn’t. It was a different feeling altogether from the discomfort I had carried for years.

Part of it, I think, is simply that I have grown more tolerant with age. I understand now why people build temples and why they pray in them. You don’t have to believe what they believe to see what they have made. And what they have made is beautiful. That, in the end, is the thing worth travelling for — the beauty people create out of their belief, whether or not you share it.

Large wooden shrine hall with a sweeping dark roof and open courtyard in Tokyo
A quiet shrine courtyard in Tokyo, early in the day before the crowds.

I noticed something else, too, and it surprised me. Every single time I visited a temple in Tokyo, I felt a sense of deep peace. Not excitement, not obligation — peace. It settled over me the moment I stepped inside the grounds, and it stayed.

Green-roofed temple hall with ornate eaves set against a blue sky in Tokyo
Ornate eaves against a clear Tokyo sky.

“You don’t have to believe what they believe to see the beauty they have created.”

Rafick, on the temples of Tokyo

Walking the shrines and temples

These photographs come from more than one visit to Tokyo, in 2022 and again in 2025. What ties them together isn’t a single day’s walk but a feeling that repeated itself every time — the same calm, in one shrine after another.

Stone torii gate at the foot of a long staircase climbing to a shrine in Tokyo
A torii gate at the foot of the climb — the threshold between the street and something quieter.

The approach matters as much as the buildings. A leafy path, a flight of worn steps, a torii gate marking the line between the ordinary street and the grounds beyond — by the time you reach the hall itself, the city has already fallen away behind you.

Leafy path leading to a white castle turret among trees in central Tokyo
Green in the middle of the city — the walk in is part of the calm.
Traditional temple gate with tiled roof framed by green trees in Tokyo
A temple gate framed by trees.
Green-roofed shrine building with vermilion trim beneath a blue sky in Tokyo
Vermilion trim and a green tiled roof under a summer sky.

Not everything I photographed was a shrine in the strict sense. Tokyo folds its history into its streets — a castle gate here, a garden lantern there, stone monuments worn smooth by weather and time. They belong to the same quiet as the temples, and I found myself slowing down for them too.

Historic stone and white-walled castle gate at the Tokyo Imperial Palace
A historic castle gate in central Tokyo.
Weathered stone lantern in a temple garden with a wooden hall behind in Tokyo
A weathered stone lantern in a temple garden.
Large natural stone monument resting on rounded boulders at a Tokyo temple
A natural stone monument set on rounded boulders.
Carved stone stele monument set among greenery at a Tokyo temple
A carved stone stele, half-hidden in greenery.

Coming home changed

Here is how I know the change was real. It was only after Tokyo that I finally visited the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Temple in Auckland, the city where I live. I had lived alongside it for years without going in. Tokyo was what sent me through the door at last.

I still wouldn’t call myself religious. But I no longer walk past. I go in, I look, and I let the quiet do whatever it does. That, it turns out, was worth crossing the world to learn.

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