Tochigi’s Mystical Hydrangea Shrine

For the Weekly Photo Challenge, Brie has got us thinking about what is our muse. Without a doubt, my biggest muse is nature itself. I am always inspired by flowers in particular and can spend hours walking around a garden taking photos!

Yesterday, I visited a shrine called Ohirasan Jinja which sits on top of a mountain. To get to the shrine, you walk through a forest and up a path that consists of 1000 stone steps! By the first 100 steps I would say the sweat was already starting to pour out! But I felt like reaching the top was an achievement, and the view over Tochigi city was beautiful.

Not only is the view nice, but the hike up is also part of the attraction. The stairs are lined with thousands of hydrangeas which burst open in the rainy season. I spent about 1.5 hours in total meandering my way up and back, stopping every 2 metres to admire this spectacular little corner of the world. I’ve taken a million photos of hydrangeas before, but I never get tired of them. I’ve also been experimenting with water drops recently, and have been trying to take macro reflection photos (without much luck yet). There’s so much hidden beauty in nature. It’s fun to try and capture things from a different point of view!

Bright blue petals

Unique blue centre

Trying to capture the flower in the water drop

Water drops

Spiders web