Saturday, March 10, 2018

Kitano Tenmangu (北野天満宮) with plum blossoms in Spring 2018


Kitano Tenmangu is one of the shrines, which was built during the era governed by Sugawara no Michizane, more than 1000 years ago. As I introduced the last time (http://bit.ly/2GhaxS0) , Kitano Tenmangu provides some events throughout the year. Particularly, it is really famous for plum blossoms. From this year, 2018, this shrine started lighting up event as well.











If you know Japan very well, you have noticed that every Tenmangu is famous for plum trees. So why is it? This reason is related to Sugawara no Michizane. In Heian era, he composed a poem which the topic was about plums. After a long time, the poem have became a legend and Tenmangus are enshrining plum trees as the symbol.