Yasukuni Shrine & The War Memorial Museum

On Friday Dan and I went to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which gained infamy for enshrining the wardead, often war criminals, from the days when Japan tried to build its empire in Asia, and during WWII. There was a lot of negative press when it was brought to light that some of Japan's prime ministers had been visiting the Shrine annually to pay their respects.

We were interested to see what all the fuss was about, and I'd never been there before, which is always a bonus when doing touristy things!

One of the guards tried to stop me taking a photo of the actual Shrine, and that's when I saw the No Photography sign. Oops! But I got this one photo.

From the grounds of the Shrine you can see the Hosei University Ichigaya campus, where a few Leeds students were placed. I actually originally wanted to go to Hosei, because of the central location, but from what I've heard I'm getting a much better education at ICU.

There's a War Memorial Museum (靖国遊就館, Yasukuni Yushukan) in the grounds of the Shrine, just to the right of the main road. Dan and I didn't have any plans for the afternoon, so we decided to wander round the museum. And entry was very cheap for students (Y500), but a normal adult ticket was Y800.

After the moving experience of going around the Hiroshima War Memorial Museum in 2008, I was expecting something equally as good. Unfortunately, I found that a lot of the information was very biased, and a lot of the awful things that happened were glossed over, portrayed as necessary, or just not mentioned.

I was very disappointed with the museum. Even though they had a lot of interesting exhibits, the lack of balance in the information put a downer on the whole experience. I wouldn't recommend going there, unless you fancy going round and picking holes in everything!

Overall, it was an interesting afternoon at Yasukuni, and the Shrine area was very nice, but I wouldn't go to the Museum again.