Check out these animals facts images:
Coiled Dragon Waiting on Shrine
Image by JapanDave
A dragon waiting to drop on unsuspecting visitors who don’t donate enough money. Maybe. He sure looks angry. But then again, dragons always look like that. They are actually suppose to be gentle and good spirits in the East, gods of the weather and all around swell guys. Don’t judge them by their appearance.
In the woodwork behind him, it looks to me like some flowers and komainu. In fact, they look exactly like the komainu roof lion I posted about before. A reader told me that roof lion is actually a gasei-komainu ( 瓦製狛犬), if you are curious.
I mentioned the other day that I recently visited a shrine that claimed to be surrounded by over 1000 different types of plum blossoms. I think the claim was a bit of a stretch, but be that as it may, this photo below is from that shrine.
