Meiji-jingu, Art and Architecture

This is the famous dog statue outside of Shibuya Station, where we arranged for our train tickets.

Casks of wine near the entrance to Meiji-jingu, or Meiji shrine. The wine was an offering for world peace from France.

The giant torii at the shrine. It is hard to give you a good sense of perspective, but the people between the posts are right under the cross-piece.

The courtyard at the shrine.

There were prayer offerings in many languages at the shrine.

After the we took care of the train tickets, Kenny offered me a few options - I wanted to go to Meiji Shrine. Like every other shrine or temple I have visited here, this one has a long approach, the gates, a wide gravel path, and then you turn the corner and there is the shrine.
It is hard to imagine how peaceful this is, since it's right in Tokyo, but there are, I'm learning, places like this in the Tokyo, that at not only look and feel serene, but are actually quiet.
After the shrine we walked through the neighborhood, if you can call it that, looking at the architecture, which I'll admit was a surprise. So many strange and beautiful buildings, including Omotesando Hills, a shopping mall where we didn't shop at all, just enjoyed the design. It's all very upscale. Very very upscale. The building is all angles and strange stairways and open spaces.
Kenny found a place in his Rough Guide that sounded good for lunch, and we set out in that direction. He knew most of the important buildings on the walk, and filled me in the architects and history. I have retained none of it, but I do appreciate the amazing-ness of it all.
The restaurant was tucked away and it took a bit of effort to find it, but it's a fun place, designed by the artist Nara, with a room-sized installation right in the middle of the restaurant. Sadly, I couldn't even eat the rice here, which was made with grains of wheat (why? why? why?), and had a nice strange lunch of coleslaw and potato salad.
We also stopped at the Issey Miyake store and Kenny tried on a shirt. I didn't try on anything.
After a little break in the afternoon, we headed out for two art shows.
The first, at the Suntory Museum of Art, was National Treasures of the Mii-dera Temple. The show, on two floors, includes statuary, sliding panels and a number of scrolls and documents. Last week I sort of randomly picked up a book on Buddhist sculpture, not knowing we would see this show, (and I only bought the book because it was in English, really) but it was good preparation for seeing these statues up close.
It was getting late, and there was still one more art show. Out the doors and across a pedestrian bridge to 21-21 Design Sight. How to describe this? Wood bowls so delicate and thinly carved that light shines through, all arranged on glass to resemble ice. And pottery floating in a pool of water. OK, that doesn't do it justice either.