Finding special goshuin in Japan

Although you can find goshuin at the majority of shrines and temples across Japan, there are some you can only get under certain (usually time-limited) conditions.

Special goshuin usually appear at certain times of year to coincide with festivals, for example during New Year celebrations, cherry blossom season (late March to late April) or during the summer when there are lots of festivals going on. Some shrines and temples offer different goshuin on a monthly basis though – this seems to have become more of a thing in recent years. 

Special goshuin will usually be offered in addition to the regular goshuin, and most are regular sized but some might take up two pages of your goshuincho. A lot of the time they are pre-drawn so you’ll need to stick them in your book later.

 

Tips for finding special goshuin

• Shrines and temples usually advertise on their website if there’s a special goshuin available. You’ll often need to use a rather ropey translation system so I’d advise looking for 御朱印 (the last kanji looks like the letters ‘EP’) or translated text that reads ‘red-letter seal’ or something like that.
• Follow Omairi club on Instagram or check out Jinja-memo in advance of your trip. Their posts are mostly in Japanese but the translation option will usually tell you where a shrine or temple is. 
• Look through posts with the #御朱印 hashtag on Instagram. There you’ll find loads of special goshuin, although you’ll need to see if they’re geotagged to determine where the temple or shrine is.
• Here is my my special goshuin google map which lists the locations of each of the goshuin from my collection below. (NB: some temples and shrines change designs each year so the one on offer might be different from the designs below).

Notable mentions!

• I would like to give a special mention to Sukunahikona Shrine in Osaka – this shrine offers a regular goshuin, a New Year goshuin, and an additional two-page goshuin which changes every couple of weeks. Oh, and if it’s raining, you can get an umbrella design too (sadly I was too jetlagged to get one).
• I also managed to get an embroidered goshuin from Hasedera, which is in Hase near Kamakura.
• Speaking of Hase, Goryo shrine offers both a cat and a train goshuin which I love! Unlike the rest of the goshuin here I think these ones are actually available all year round!

Here is my collection – enjoy!