Towards the end of my Korea trip, I got pretty bored of shrines, temples and other commemorative red structures built to honour dead people or gods or whatever, so Shinto shrines weren't at the top of my priority list in Japan. But like Bulguksa, the proximity of a semi-famous shrine seemed worth a day trip from Fukuoka to Dazaifu, especially as the place is apparently dedicated to a scholar, rather than a pretend guy or a real guy who was just great at killing people.
If the public figures of Japan's Heian Period were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sugawara Michizane would be their Donatello. Actually, he'd probably be their Splinter, considering Splinter was actually Japanese. Or at least Hamato Yoshi was, before radioactive mutagen fused him with an American sewer rat and he became Splinter. Though in the film version, Splinter was a Japanese rat owned by Hamato Yoshi who later became man-size - what was that about? Why did these 'ninja' Turtles have Italian names anyway? What the hell were we watching?
Anyway, I enjoyed the shrine, though probably not for the reasons I was supposed to.
