Free PDF · 5 minute read · By a Kogakkan University alumnus

The 5 Things Tourists Do Wrong at Japanese Shrines

A free pre-trip guide so you arrive prepared. Five small etiquette fixes — each takes a minute to learn, and once you have them, every shrine in Japan becomes navigable.

• 1Why walking down the center of the path is a quiet mistake.
• 2The exact temizuya purification sequence (six steps, fifteen seconds).
• 3How to tell a Shinto shrine from a Buddhist temple in five seconds — and why it matters.
• 4The right way to make an offering, and why five yen is traditional.
• 5What to do with a bad omikuji fortune — and why throwing it away is wrong.