Toshugu Shrine

This is the Toshugu Shrine, probably the most elaborately decorated building in Japan, a land that prizes simplicity. Its twelve buildings encompass the tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the samurai warrior who established a dynasty that ruled Japan for nearly four centuries, until 1868. Among the carvings are two of an elephant (the brass one and the gray one) that were created by a man who had never seen an elephant, but only had it described to him. You can also see a sleeping cat and the famous three monkeys ("hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.")