Akasaka Toyokawa Inari Temple

An early flowering cherry blossom, the Edo-higan (江戸彼岸), is in full bloom at Akasaka’s Toyokawa Inari today! Birds were playing around the pink flowers delightfully. This tree usually blooms around o-higan (March 21) in Tokyo. The enshrined deity here rides on a white fox, and followers of the temple believe that foxes are attendants of the deity. After the wishes of believers are fulfilled, they offer fox statues to the temple. There are large numbers of fox statues all around the precincts.