Koinoki Shrine

This guide to Koinoki Shrine, a tiny love-focused sub-shrine within Fukuoka's Mizuta Tenmangu complex, follows its start in 1226 as an afterthought beside the grander hall built for the exiled scholar Sugawara Michizane. It traces how the shrine's caretakers later turned to the local Mizuta yaki pottery tradition to remake its approach path, and the potters who hand-fired heart-shaped ceramic tiles one at a time. You'll hear why this is the only shrine anywhere in Japan dedicated to its resident deity. Count the hearts carved into the torii gate as you pass beneath it.