Fushimi Inari Shrine

Fushimi Inari Taisha ( Shrine) located in kyoto, Japan.  It is one of the most popular shrine among foreigners and the number of visitors is the largest in the last 2 years consecutively.

The shrine sits at the base of a mountain also named Inari which is 233 metres above sea level, and includes trails up the mountain to many smaller shrines which span 4 kilometers.

This photo below is the view of the street right after going through the exit of JR station, called "Inari".  This arch type structure, called "Torii", is a symbol of Shrine and it is a gateway from our normal world to the divine world of Shintoism.

Behind the main hall of this shrine, we will find thousands of Torii slog with the slope of the hill.

It is a sacred corridor  up to another hall.  Those Torii were donated by people who wish good luck on their everyday lives and futures.

Climbing up through Torii, we reach out the inner sanctuary. 

You will find red maple trees, if you are there in Autumn or the beginning of winter.
And another Torii  corridor is there up to the top of hill.

Labor Thanksgiving Day

November 23rd is a national holiday, named Labor Thanksgiving Day.

It used to be a historically ritual, called "Ni-Name-Sai"or "Shinjo-Sai", celebrating harvest of cereals such as rice, wheat, and so on.

The picture below shows an alter of Shintoism, worshipping the ancient royal family ( founders ) of Japan.

Usually, in this season of a year, the trees change colors to red, yellow or orange, but this year that transition seems slow.

cats in my house

Hello, I am Karron, 10 years old boy.

Some may know me through Skype.

Recently, I can sit like this and hold my neck up.

I can see things in the different view and feel how humans see things.

Let me introduce my sister Lien, a shy girl and please look at a picture below.

the Culture Day

November 3rd is called "the Culture Day"; one of the national holidays.

Before World War the Second, this was the holiday to celebrate the Meiji Emperor's birthday.

After World War the Second, the Constitution of Japan was proclaimed on the 3rd of November, 1946.
6 months later, on the 3rd of May, the Constitution of Japan was enforced and it is the national holiday as well.

This season is the mid of Autumn and trees and leaves are changing their colors, not so many but some trees feel the atmosphere of Autumn coming.

The Super Moon

It was the Super Moon in September 27, sorry, it is a little late topics.

Unfortunately it was clouded after heavy rain due to a strong atmospheric pressure, but still the moon showed up to say hello for us.

Super Moon is the moon to which the closest distance from the earth.

The picture below is shot by iPhone 6, see its wide dynamic range.

If it had tiny zooming lens, a digital camera would lose that market.

The List of National Holidays in Japan

This page lists the national holidays in Japan and most of holidays are supposed to be  linked to the page describing the history and customs of the national holiday respectively.

(Sorry, some holidays are not linked yet; they are under construction)

I set this page up to banner menu above, so that you can check them out whenever you want.

January 1st:  "Oshogatsu"  the New Year Day

The second Monday of January: "Seijin no HI"  the Coming-of-Age Day

February 3rd:  "Kenkoku Kinen no Hie" the day of national foundation

March 20th:  "Shunbun no Hi" the Spring Equinox 

April 29th:  "Showa no Hi" the day of "Showa"

May 3rd:  "Kenpou Kinenbi" the Memorial Day of the Constitution 

May 4th:  "Midori no Hi" the day of Green

May 5th:  "Kodomo no Hi" the day of Children 

July 20th:  "Umi no Hi" the day of Sea

The third Monday of September:  "Keiro no Hi" 

September 20th: "Shuubun no Hi"   the Autumn Equinox

The second Monday of October: "Taiiku no Hi"  the day of Sports

November 3rd: "Bunka no Hi"  the Culture Day

November 24th: "Kinrou Kansha no Hi"  the Labour Thanksgiving Day

December 23rd:  "Tennou Tanjobi"  the Empelor's Birthday

The Silver Week 2015

September usually has 2 national holidays; the Respect for the Aged Day and Autumn Equinox, and this year, we have an extra holiday between two holidays.

The respect for the Aged Day is the third Monday of September, and Autumn Equinox is the 23rd of September.  Then, 22nd is the Bridge Public holiday, meaning in between the two holidays.

http://www.timeanddate.com

I went out of town to visit our friends lodge in the South Alps mountains, just 3 hours away from the metropolitan area.

Trees and leaves are just getting to change their colors and cool enough to put on a jacket.

Water is very nice and tasty, no chlorine, no artificial purification.  

In mountain area, one of the typical food is "Soba noodle", made of buckwheat.

Black things on the top of Soba noodle are sea weed.

Usually, we dip Soba noodle into soy sauce base soup, and fried shrimp and /or fried vegetables are good side dishes to Soba noodle.

A donkey, ducks and a chicken (maybe hen) are playing around outside of cages.

It looks very "natural".

University of Tokyo

This historical gate is called "Akamon", meaning the Red Gate in the University of Tokyo, the top university in Japan.

This gate used to belong to a famous samurai residence, and now it is a symbol of the university and academia.

The picture below is the front gate of the university.

The university of Tokyo was established in 1877, so as to nurture the beaurocrats to manage modern Japan in Meiji period, just after Tokugawa Shogun era.

It's another Rainy Season in Japan

September is a transitional period from the summer to the autumn in Japan.

Some days are hot, but the night is getting cooler than in August.

One of the typical seasonal events is the attack of typhoon.

We have had seventeen typhoons this year already and the seventeenth one brought huge damage in Kanto area, which is surrounding area of Tokyo, where the Kinu river in Ibaragi prefecture was flooded and took cars, houses and even human lives away.

The traffic signage in the photo shows the warning, "Heavy rain warning has been issued, Travel Caution".

The graph below shows the average amount of rainfall, the hours of sunlight and average temperature in each month for 30 yeas (1981~2010) in Tokyo.

The amount of rainfall in September is heavier than that in June, and the hours of sunlight  in September is shorter than that in June.
Why don't we say September is now rainy season?

(Japan Meteorological Agency: http://www.data.jma.go.jp/obd/stats/etrn/view/nml_sfc_ym.php?prec_no=44&block_no=47662&year=&month=&day=&view=p1)

I had an appointment in such a heavy rain near the Tokyo Tower,  where one of the famous neighbors was Zojoji temple, cemetery for Tokugawa Shogun Clan.  In addition to this, Zojoji is famous among fans for "the Lord of the Rings".

The photo below is the Zojoji in the rain, where the ring of "the Lord of the Rings" has been dedicated.

The tower in the right is the Tokyo Tower, supposed to be "Sauron" at the event of the dedication of the ring.

SOBA noodle

I went to one of my favorite soba noodle shops in Nagoya, the city where I was born and raised.
It has a hearth in the middle of the table.  However, old Japanese house used to have a hearth on the floor, just like the picture beneath.

Actually, ordinary Japanese house had used charcoals as fuel at home in rural areas until the mid of 20th century.

The left picture is a hearth in the old post town where I visited this spring. See the following URL; http://ritztalk.blogspot.jp/2015/04/ancient-post-town-in-japan.html

This day, I ordered Soba Lunch Special, which includes a bowl of Soba noodle, a piece of sesame tofu, a piece of rolled egg (not egg roll), a bowl of vinegared rice with marinated bonito (unrolled sushi), a cup of thinly sliced and dried radish and a dish of sliced cucumber.

Ｔｈｉｓ type of fire place have been replaced with modern kitchens such as gas ranges and ovens in the middle of 20th century.

A funeral in Japanese style

15th of August became another Memorial Day for my family, in addition to the end of the Pacific War.

My mother passed away on the 15th of August after two month long coma.
On 18th, we had a funeral ceremony in a multi-purpose hall, and this picture shows the altar decorated with many flowers for my mother.

This is Buddhism style ceremony.

What we do in the ceremony is that the priest recites the Buddhist scriptures and while scriptures are recited, the attendees burn incense for the repose of a departed spirit.
After this ceremony, we burn the dead body at a crematorium.

After the cremation, the relatives get together and have some banquet to finish the period of mourning; we are allowed to have meat and fish.

For seven weeks after she passed away, we worship the burned bones of the deceased at home on a decorated tentative altar at home.  The right side is the formal alter for the ancestors and she will join there after burying  the burned bones seven weeks later.

May peace be with her.

"Obon" and the memorial days of World War ll

August is a special month in Japan.
Many people go back to their home towns in tolerance with heavily crowded transportation and stay with their families and friends around 15th of August.
For many Japanese people, this period is one of the longest vacations in a year.
We call this period " Obon", literally meaning a tray or a container carrying dishes and glasses filled with offerings on, then "Obon" has been symbolized the activities to welcome the spirits of ancestors in their family.

"Shoryu-Uma",  Katori city, Japan

"Torou-Nagashi", photo by Miki Yoshihito

These two pictures are typical events in Obon period; the upper picture is "Shoryu-Uma", meaning the horses and the cows for the spirits to move around during the "Obon" period.
The lower one is "Torou-Nagashi", a lantern ship to seeing off the spirits back to their places after "Obon" period.

"Obon" is a traditional and religious event, in addition to this, 15th of August has another aspect: one of the most important memorial day for Japanese and other countries, such as the anniversary of the end of the Pacific War (World War ll), even though it is not a national holiday.

Not only 15th of August, 6th is an Atomic Bomb Anniversary of Hiroshima, and 9th is that of Nagasaki.

Atomic Bomb Dome, Hiroshima
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
/media/File:Genbaku_Dome04-r.JPG

Atomic cloud over Nagasaki, 15 minutes later
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
/media/File:Atomic_cloud_over_Nagasaki_from_Koyagi-jima.jpeg

My question is why Japan did not quit the war before Atomic bomb attacks.

Before August, Japan had already got catastrophic damages at urban areas such as Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and many cities, moreover, met the US troops at Okinawa and resulted in the crushing defeat.

However, the termination of war seemed untouchable and it was difficult to speak up the termination for governors by sensing the mood in the Japanese government at that time.

We need to figure out what types of group dynamics let the military and government not decide to finish the war.

If we understand this dynamics of the hesitation to speak up whatever opinions against the mood are, I hope we will prevent Japan from repeating the bad decisions on the war; in other words, we may figure out other solutions besides the war.  Moreover, we can provide with the universal solutions for the peace over the world.

Japanese Garden

This picture shows a traditional Japanese garden, decorating trees, stone lanterns and big stones and pebbles, lying looking like a river with a stone bridge.  
The upper picture shows the whole view, and the lower shows the detail around the stone bridge.

The Bonsai has a similarity to the traditional Japanese style garden, in the sense of the shapes of trees and the allocation of stones with moss.

Stones and pebbles prevent from weed's growing, but in the hot summer day like this year, wild weeds are very active and let us make a lot of efforts to pick them off.

                            

Traditional Japanese Tea

This is a bowl of green tea, traditional Japanese tea.

We use several scoops of tea powder and stir the tea with bamboo-made whisk.

Usually, a green tea is for a tea ceremony with strict manners, but my grandmother used to drink it everyday at home without such manners.

I learned  only how to make it through her and now it is one of my favorite drinks.

Unfortunately, I don't know the traditional manners, I can't join a tea ceremony but I can enjoy it.

Life Sustaining Treatment

My mother, 81 years old, ate a piece of bread that clogged her throat and made her stop breathing.  Then my dad and brother called an ambulance and this happened on the last Tuesday, June 16th..

She had been unconscious for 5 days and in a coma on her hospital bed at the CCU room and she started breathing without artificial ventilation on Saturday but  with very weak brain wave.

Fortunately she is still alive, but unconscious now due to cardiopulmonary resuscitation comprising of an artificial hydration and nutrition, intubation and mechanical ventilation.

The doctor recommended that she needs to be on a life sustaining treatment, such as Tracheotomy for airway management and Grastrostomy for nutrition.

My mother told us that she would not like to be under life sustain treatment and she wants to have a natural death.  She has been suffering from Parkinson's disease for 6 years and she knew that now it is her time.

Some articles revealed that the spirit of a comatose person leaves the body and float around the bed. This spirit hovers over the body and sees it from the birds view angle.
Unfortunately, I did not feel her spirit around her bed.  She is still alive and I will be looking for her spirit for a while.

Hydrangea in the wet season of Japan.

Hydrangea is a symbolical flower with the wet season in Japan.  June in Japan is usually wet in everywhere besides Hokkaido, the northern island in Japan.  This wet season is called "tsuyu", which literally means "Japanese plum (Ume) rain", but the relation between Japanese plum and rain is not clear.  Some people say it is the time for Japanese plum to ripen, but no evidences.

Regarding to the rainy season, we have two rainy seasons in Japan; one is the period from June to early July, the other is from the end of August to the beginning of October, the same time of typhoon attacking at Japan.

I say "wet season" instead of "rainy season", because I would like to distinguish with each other and this season is more wet and makes feel blue.

Italy Journey during the golden week

I visited Verona, Venice, and Florence in Italy during recent Golden Week.

This year is the 30th anniversary of marriage with my wife and we took longer vacation than usual.
This was the second time to visit Italy in 10 years. In the previous visit, I missed so many places to visit and things to do. In stead of latest vist, I have studied more about Italy and have learned some Italian phrases.

The reason why I chose Verona, Venice and Florence is because these cities have their own specific characteristics with tourism spots and activities. Nevertheless, they have a lot of historical heritages to be appreciated.

I stayed at an apartment in Verona, close to the House of Juliette, as in the drama of "Romeo and Juliette" by Shakespeare.  The House is not so gorgeous as the apartment where I stayed, but it is big enough to make us understand that the family was rich.

 The center building is the apartment where I stayed in Verona for two nights.

This is the living room of the apartment where I stayed.
The compartment is 3 bedrooms altogether and I used one room with old wooden door.

My room has this wall paint on the celling.

This is the House of Juliette and a tiny balcony is in the left.
Romeo might have climbed up the fence in the left.






It looks 3venues with 3 floors building.  It is made of block, neither of marbles nor limestones.  That means the family was not super rich.

This is the castle of Vecchio and is famous with the wall pictures

The next city is Venice and I will post it on the next post. (to be continued)

Children's Day

May 5th is Children's day, used to be a boy's festival, just like a girl's festival on March 3rd, to celebrate or wish children's growth and to thank for their mothers.

According to WikiPedia, a boy's festival seems to have begun 800 years ago to wish the family will be succeeded by sons.

(see http://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/端午/)

Many families decorate samurai armors as below; dedicating special rice cakes. There are two types: one is called "Kashiwamochi", covered with oak grass, and sweet mushed black beans- inside; the other is called "Chimaki", covered with bamboo grass.

For kids, it seems more fun to have snack time to eat "Kashiwamochi" and "Chimaki", especially for me.

The first photo is the full set of the decoration, and it is almost 2m height.

The photo below is the real samurai armors.

The left photo is a tiny decoration in my house.
This is located on a piano and just 30 cm height.

May 3rd: Constitutions Day

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%86%B2%E6%B3%95%E8%A8%98%E5%BF%B5%E6%97%A5

Constitution Day

May 3rd is a national holiday, called Constitution Day, and has been set for the memorial of the new constitution of Japan.

Accoding to Wikipedia, the specific date to be enforced was an issue among the cabinet in1946.

May 1st had already been set for "May Day" (similar to the Lavor Day in western countries), even though it was not a national holiday,  then May 5th came up  as the next alaternative date however, it has been celebrated as Boys Festival for long time, even though this day had not been set for a national holiday until 1948, the Cabinet seemed to worry about gender issue.  Then, the last alternative was May 3rd and would announce at November 3,  which used to be celebrated as Meiji Empelor's birthday (Meiji Empelor Memorial Day) before 1945.

It seems to be set intentionally that this process to decide the promulgated date of the new constitution so as to meet the date of Meiji Empelor Memorial Day and to preserve this day deep into the people's minds.

This above is my personal feeling and I was wondering if General Headquaters looked over to promulgate the new constitution on the Memorial Day of Meiji Empelor.

In other sense, it was a very intelligent procedure to discuss the enforcement date first.

Once the enfoecemt date would be set, then the promulgation date would be fixed.

The Golden Week in Japan

This calender is from timeanddate.com.

From the end of April to the first week of May is called " the Golden Week" in Japan.

We have consecutive national holidays and many people may combine paied vacations to national holidays in that week, then comes out the long vacation about a week.

This year, April 29th, Wednesday, is "Showa day"and May 3rd through May 6th, Sunday through Wednesday, are also national holidays, so if a person takes paid vacations from Thirsday to Friday twice, he or she gets 12 days vacation.

I have already touched upon April 29th "Showa day" and May 4th "Midori no Hi; Greenery day" in my previous post, please check it out.  So let me explain the rest of national holidays, from May 3rd to May 6th.

May 3rd and May 5th are also national holidays but May 6th is not always a national holiday, the details are as follows:

-May 3rd : Constitution day; to remind and celebrate the enactment of the current constitution of Japan, oriented to a fair and peaceful society.

-May 4th : Greenery day; "Midori no Hi" is described in my previous post, Showa Day, please check it out. 

-May 5th : Children's day; to celebrate or wish children's growth and to thank for their mothers.  This day used to be a boy's festival, just like a girl's festival on March 3rd.

-May 6th : a substituted holiday for May 3rd; this year May 3rd is Sunday.  Whenver a national holiday meets Sunday, the following weekday will be substituted as a national holiday.

This substituted holiday is one of the activities to achieve so called "work-life balance" for hard working Japanese people, who hesitate to take paid vacations.

The reasons are a little complicated and someday I will discuss this topic on my post if I find a good article to be introduced about the characteristics of Japanese people on working style.

Showa Day

April 29 th is a national holiday, called "Showa Day".

"Showa" is the name of the era during the reign of Emperor Hirohito, and it implicates "wishing the peace of both the people and the world".

Here, let me explain the background of this day.

Japan keeps the tradition enacting the name of an era for the Emperor or the Shogun since the early beginning of the foundation of Japan.

Before Showa Day has been enacted, April 29th had been the Emperor's Birthday since 1926 and a national holiday.  Showa was terminated in 1989 with his demise and the name of an era changed to "Heisei", the current era, meaning "peace everywhere", and the name of the day was also changed into "Midori no Hi", meaning the day of green called "Greenery day", referring to the season in which trees and flowers are blooming vividly.

Since 2007, "Midori no Hi" has moved to May 4th, and April 29th remained as a national holiday so as for the people to remember the hard times after World War 2 and the process of overcoming the hardship.

An Ancient Post Town in Japan

My wife and I visited a village that preserved ancient Japanese landscapes, named Tsumago, about 200km west from Tokyo.
Tsumago used to be a post town on the mountain side route from Tokyo to Kyoto, called Nakasendo, one of the main interstate in Edo period.(1602-1868).

Even a post office preserves its old style in housing but the workers are wearing in the current fashion.

The left bottom is the picture of a post office in Edo era.

We left Tsumago and moved to Suwa Grande Shrine, established over 1,200 years ago, and stayed at the hotel located in the Shrine territory.
We found two sets of Samurai armors  (O-Yoroi) about 1,000 years ago.

We celebrate May 5th, "Children's Day", decorating a samurai armors and pray for the growth of children, especially boys who will succeed  their clans and will bring prosperities to thrie families.

 "Samurai" as an occupation is diversified into many positions, in a sense, multi-functional workers.

They are not only soldiers but also administrative officers and law reinforcement at the same time.

A samurai in a lower class sometimes cultivates a field to afford their own food.