After going through the vermilion-lacquered Ichino Torii Gate (First Torii Gate), there are wide open grass plots on both sides of the approach path to the shrine. The local citizens use these spaces on an everyday basis, and on the 5th of May, they are used as riding courses in a Shinto ceremony called the Kurabeumaejinji. In addition, on the west side of the approach path to the shrine, there is the Saiou Sakura (Saiou cherry tree), said to have been loved by the Saiou (a single woman chosen from the members of the Imperial Family to serve dedicated to the Shinto religion), and many other cherry trees that have bloomed throughout the ages, including some low sweeping shidarezakura weeping cherry trees. After going up the approach path to the north for awhile there is a wide plaza on the east side of the grounds, and running from the north side of that plaza to the east side, you will notice that there are small streams there. On the north side there is the Omonoigawa River, used in purification rites to cleanse the articles used in festivals, and the Mitarashigawa River, used to purify people, and these streams run along the east and west sides of the Honden Hall. These two streams merge near the Hashidono Hall, forming the Nara-no-ogawa River as it runs down the east side of the plaza and out of the shrine grounds, where it is called the Myojingawa river. The Nara-no-ogawa River is so named because it includes the Narasha auxiliary shrine in its basin and it runs along many Japanese Nara oak trees, and also because in one of the poems witten by Fujiwara-no-Ietaka (1158-1237), one of the One Hundred Poets who wrote the Ogura Anthology of One Hundred Tanka-poems, court nobles threw Papercraft called hitogata in the river in a purification rite known as the Nagoshiharaeshiki to cleanse sins and social blemishes. Now, there is a stone monument to this poem erected on the west bank of the Nara-no-ogawa River.
Furthermore, on the north side of the Narasha Shrine, there is the Shokeien Garden, built in the architectural style of the latter part of the Heian Period. There are several religious ceremonies held here, such as the Kamokyokusui-no-en, where women dressed in the Heian Period style line up from the east to the west, pouring cups of Japanese sake into the water as they recite poems.