A preface to today's post: I have two monitors, one that's really good (a mid-level Eizo LCD), and one that's on the high end of normal (a Dell LCD). The intense colors of the cranes make today's pictures look amazing on the Eizo, but they're utterly bland and pedestrian on the more consumer-oriented monitor. Oh well.

As I mentioned the other day, we recently made a trip to the Tanigumisan Kegonji Temple several hours away in Gifu. In the picture above, you can see Anthony standing under the gate, just to the right of the leftmost tall white banner. Behind and around him are large bundles of strings of origami cranes.

It's likely that the larger bundles each have 1,000 cranes. The current Wikipedia entry for senbatzuru has a nice writeup about the practice.

When not in bundles of exactly 1,000, they're probably simple offerings for world peace. In Japanese culture, origami cranes have very strong connotations of peace.

While we're at the main gate of the temple, here's a shot showing some of the detail under the eves....

I'd have loved to see the design drawings when it was being planned (and I wonder when that was; the temple itself dates from 798, but doubt this gate is more than three hundred years old).