Meiji Jingu sits in the heart of Tokyo, wrapped inside 70 hectares of forest planted by volunteers when the shrine was established in the early 20th century. The trees, 120,000 of them representing 365 species, came from every corner of Japan, a collective act of devotion to Emperor Meiji, the man who pulled a feudal nation into the modern age before his death in 1912.

The shrine itself, completed in 1921 and rebuilt after Allied bombing in 1958, is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken. Three torii gates mark the path in, each one a threshold between the ordinary world and the sacred. The two ancient camphor trees in the inner courtyard, bound together by sacred rope, draw couples and lovers who come to pray for enduring companionship.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use Meiji Jingu as the gateway to understanding the Meiji Restoration itself, tracing how a humble fishing village called Edo became one of the most populous cities on earth, and connecting the shrine's traditional nagare-zukuri roofline to the curves of the 1964 Olympic gymnasium just down the road.