Tori Gate

    The Tori gate is the entrance way shown in the middle of the picture below.  The gate stands directly in the water and looks rather mystical. When low-tide occurs the ground that gate rests can be seen, along with all the little crabs running about.  The gate resides on a holy island where the Japanese take great  care as not to let any creature die, to maintain this pristine island.  The sick and elderly are shipped off the island when their death is imminent.  I'm not sure that this practice still holds in modern day Japan, but at least it was in feudal Japan.  This lack of death on the island has allowed the local fauna to become very friendly.  Deer just sleep in the streets because they have never been hunted, and the many tourists come and feed them.  This one deer was to impatient and ate the map that the tourist next to me was reading.  They are bold, because we were sitting in a building waiting for out boat with 100 other people and the deer just came right in.

   

The above pictures are the monestary that are located on the island, in view of the gate.  The entire monastary is over the water as well, though maybe only 3 feet deep at high-tide.

   

The large tower looking structure in these three pictures is call a Pagoda and can usually be found near a Shinto temple.  They themselves are not very wide and I can't imagine anything but stairs at each level.
   
 

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