Japanese spirituality is a little different from conventional Western views of religion. Shintoism is like the old tribal religion of Japan, sort of like Hinduism in India, very tied to the land, not a lot of proselytizing or conversion. Buddhism was introduced to Japan at some point in the second century BCE. But the Japanese, being practical about these things, didn’t get rid of Shintoism. Instead the two religions have coexisted, often within the same people. As a result, to this day you will frequently see a Buddhist temple with a Shinto shrine in it somewhere. A tour guide I had in Kyoto described it this way: “Shinto takes care of us when we are alive, but does not care about us when we are dead. So when Buddhism came, it was very convenient. Now, Buddha takes care of us when we are dead. This is division of labor.”

So Shinto shrines usually have the torii (the special type of gate), certain carvings of deities, and other trappings that mark them as such. Buddhist temples have carvings of Buddha. To an outside observer, the differences beyond that are not all that noticable.