A major Buddhist temple in the city of Narita near Tokyo has been spruced up for the New Year.
About 40 monks and staff members wearing masks gathered in the main hall of Naritasan Shinshoji Temple shortly after 5:00 a.m. and began dusting Buddhist statues and altar ornaments with brushes and cloths.
A drawing of bodhisattvas, or Buddhist saints, has been discovered on one of the doors at a World Heritage-listed temple in Kyoto Prefecture.
The door was made nearly 1,000 years ago, when the Byodoin temple was built in what is now Uji City. It was for the temple's phoenix hall.
A famous Buddhist temple in Japan's western city of Kyoto drew crowds of tourists on the first weekend since the government's domestic tourism incentive campaign started including Tokyo residents earlier this month.
Visitors to Kiyomizu-dera and nearby places included sightseers from Tokyo.