Itsukushima Jinja Tahoto Pagoda

This guide to the Itsukushima Jinja Tahoto Pagoda near Hiroshima opens with an optical trick: built in 1523 under the priest Shukan, it looks like a two-story tower but is a single story dressed to seem otherwise, blending Japanese, Chinese and Indian design on the hillside above the shrine. For three centuries it held a carved figure of Yakushi Nyorai, the healing Buddha, until Meiji-era religious reforms forced Buddhism and Shinto apart. Look closely at the plaster band where the square base meets the round drum, nicknamed by old craftsmen the tortoise belly.