Yukata Matsuri

Yesterday and today is the Yukata Matsuri (festival) here in Himeji. [A yukata is a lightweight cotton robe (looks like a simple kimono) with a big obi (sash/belt).] This festival is very special and unique to the city of Himeji. A long time ago, the daimyo (feudal ruler) of Himeji only allowed his serfs to wear dark colored clothing, except for one day a year when they could wear bright colors. Obviously people celebrated on that day (and continue to celebrate now, hundreds of years later - maybe I'm exaggerating with hundreds - don't really know).
For the last few weeks, all the stores in town have been selling yukata and all the accessories. All of us at Shirasagi decided to get in on the action! We all bought yukata and obi (about $30), and geta (shoes), and fans, purses, hair clips, etc. And yesterday some kind and patient Japanese friends came over to help us get dressed and to tie the obis (a real skill!).

Me and Taube being demure.

Julian and Rob earnestly discussing the finer points of Rob's umbrella...


Boarding the bus

Once we got all dolled up, we hopped on the local bus (which charged half price if you were wearing a yukata that day) and headed downtown for some group photos. First we stopped into Koko-en, the beautiful garden next to the castle and took photos of each other there.

Lyn posing prettily on walkway

Me and Sue on the bridge

Next we went on towards Himeji Castle where we had an appointment with a professional photographer. The clouds were ominous so we took some quick photos before the rain came. Just as we finished those, the rain started so we stood under the main castle gate until it let up. We managed to get another round of photos taken in front of the castle.
Showing off our obis

While we were doing that, many other people came around to take our photos too. It seemed everyone got a kick out of seeing the foreigners dressed up in yukata. We had our own personal paparazzi! We were asked to stay and to see the children’s parade so that the paparazzi could take our photos while we admired the parade! We didn’t know at the time who all was in the paparazzi bunch, but this morning I got an email from a friend that we were on the morning news!



As soon as the parade finished, the rain started again, so we beat a path to Miyuki-dori, a covered arcade (street filled with shops). Miyuki-dori was absolutely packed with people in yukata and booths selling street food and other carnival paraphernalia. We got separated but managed to meet up again for dinner at our favorite izukaya (happy hour place) and then did purikura (photo booth where you can decorate your photos afterwards).
The line for the purikura machine (the machine is the pink thing in the background)

Rice Planting

On Sunday, we were invited to the home of Sue’s principal. He has a very nice, large home out in the country. In one of the first rooms of the house is the Buddhist altar, a common item in most Japanese homes.

His grandchildren were there visiting and kept us entertained with their gymnastics and other stunts. They were very, very cute. These two girls are cousins, 3 and 4 years old.
By the time we arrived the rice planting was almost finished. Not planting, actually, but transplanting rice seedlings into the flooded paddies.

Most people have a really expensive machine ($30,000) used only for a couple days a year to transplant rice. There is a second machine used to harvest rice in the fall. Growing rice is an expensive operation here and heavily subsidized by the government.

This fellow is planting rice the hard way.
Lunch was yakiniku – a sort of Japanese barbeque: beef, pork, pumpkin, onions, green peppers, cabbage, eggplant, corn and mushrooms grilled over charcoal. Everyone just gathers around and grabs pieces they want with their chopsticks, then dips it into their bowl of sauce.
As you can tell from the photos, I’m enjoying seeing all the water everyplace and the reflections of mountains and buildings and towers in the still water of the paddies.

Kokedera, the Moss Temple

On Saturday, Taube, Julian and I had reservations to visit Kokedera (a.k.a. Saiho-ji, Koinzan, and the moss temple). We made our reservations by postcard a couple of months ago, as the guidebooks all say this temple and its garden are a must-see. We were told to come at 1 pm and that we would be required to spend some time copying sutras, in Japanese of course. No problem. We imagined it would be the three of us and a patient monk who would probably be trying hard not to laugh at our child-like attempts to write kanji. So we were very surprised to arrive at the temple along with a tour bus full of Japanese people!
We giggled our way through copying sutras, hoping we’d be able to keep them, until we were told to be quiet and to turn in our sutras along with a prayer or wish and our address. I don’t know why they needed our address, maybe so Buddha can find us to grant our wishes? After the sutra writing, everyone else in the temple (i.e. all the Japanese tourists) joined the priests in chanting what we had just written.
Then we were free to wander around the temple garden which was the real intent of our visit. The garden was beautiful with 120 varieties of moss and a pond in the middle of the garden in the shape of the character for heart, not that we recognized it. I took a lot of photos so here are just a few, and the rest are on a web album here.

dragon fly on lotus plant

Angie and Ash's Visit (Part 5 -final)

We spent the next day of Angie and Ash's visit on the train to Mt. Koya and had our first adventure before even leaving Tokyo. To get all the way to Mt. Koya by 5:30 p.m. when dinner was served, we had to leave Tokyo during morning rush hour. What a nightmare that was! We experienced first hand the white gloved train conductors pushing people (us and our suitcases) into crammed train cars. Reminded me a lot of matatus in Kenya! We ended up having to separate because we couldn’t all fit into the same train car, so I took a later train, which stopped at a different platform at the next station. After 20 minutes of trying to find each other at another Tokyo train station, we finally met up again, and settled in another train for a more comfortable ride south.
After countless hours on the train and eight transfers, including a cable car up the mountain, we finally arrived at Mt. Koya.

We stayed at Rengejoin Temple where the head priest’s mother spoke English. What an extraordinary life story she told us over dinner. She is 88 years (a very young 88!) and told us about how she went to Tokyo to study English at university as a young woman. Of course, this was during a time when women didn’t go to university, and IF they did, it was to study domestic sciences. She returned to Mt. Koya after graduating. All of the young men were off fighting the war, so after some time, she married the head priest of Rengejoin temple. After the war, the temple was in ruins, and there was very little food available. But eventually they prospered and had two sons, the elder of which is now the head priest at the temple. (The position of head priest is passed down father to son.)

The temple had a beautiful rock garden that the head priest was raking (a light rain had disturbed the design) and a lovely garden with a pond.

Before dinner we had to attend a 40 minute meditation service, which was rather long for Angie and me. Ash enjoyed it and told us over dinner how his grandfather used to make him meditate as a child and even threatened him with “meditation camp”. Dinner itself, while vegetarian, was still typically Japanese with many unidentifiable things.

As instructed, after dinner we bathed in the Japanese style bathroom, and then retired to our adjoining rooms for an early night.

We were required to attend a 6 a.m. morning service before breakfast. The morning service was chanting, which while interesting, was a little long for me, half asleep and hungry from not having eaten much of my dinner the night before. Breakfast was also typically Japanese, rice, miso soup, and pickles, and we quickly decided our first stop of the day would be to supplement breakfast with some “normal” food.
We spent the day exploring Koya-san (Mt. Koya) and really enjoyed the little mountain-top town. There are 117 temples in this town of 7,000 people. The town is the headquarters of the Shingon Buddhism sect established by Kobo Daishi (Kukai).

What we learned about the founding of Koya-san: In 804, Kobo Daishi (not his name then) went to China for Buddhist training. From China he threw some sort of shiny Buddhist implement towards Japan. When he returned to Japan in 806, he went looking for a place to establish the new sect of Buddhism. He met a hunter with his two dogs in the woods and asked the hunter if he knew of a good place for his temple site. The hunter told him he had seen something sparkling in the trees of a mountain. Kobo Daishi went up that mountain, and sure enough, there, hanging in a pine tree, was the golden implement he had thrown from China. Imagine that. So he decided that was a sign to establish his sect there and it became Koya-san. The descendent of the pine tree which caught the implement is encircled by a fence and revered.
We visited several temples and pagodas before having lunch and then wandering on to the famous Okunoin cemetery. There are an estimated half million tombs here, marked by mossy stone statues. We enjoyed wandering along the path and snapping lots of photos.
At the end of the day, we hopped back on the trains and came to Himeji. Saturday was spent at the castle, but unfortunately the festival we had hoped to catch that day was postponed due to rain. The next day Angie and Ash headed off to spend a week sightseeing on their own.

June 12 on 12

It’s the rainy season here, and we could get as much as 8 inches of rain in June alone. Typhoon dependent of course! Mostly it’s been overcast and drizzly, but yesterday I did get stuck in a downpour while on my bike. Which leads into my first set of photos: umbrella management. There is truly a love of umbrellas here. No one wears a rain coat, they choose to carry an umbrella instead. People can even bike one-handed with an umbrella which is a lot harder than it looks. I’ve tried a few times and it’s downright dangerous because you can’t really see where you’re going, and the wind catches the umbrella, sometimes even turning it inside-out. Because people are always carrying umbrellas around, there are lots of these locking umbrella racks. You put your umbrella in and take out the key so no one can steal your $5 umbrella. (Japanese people will, however, leave their expensive cell phone on an empty table to save a space in a busy restaurant, but they don’t dare leave their umbrella unlocked!)

You’ve heard me go on about the endless shoe and slipper changes here. This photo was taken at Himeji castle where tourists must take off their shoes and either wear slippers or go stocking-footed to visit the castle. You can see the system in place. Slippers all lined up to people to grab a pair. Staff passing out plastic bags for people to carry their shoes in (they do reuse these bags).

I’ve been meaning to include a photo of a sock store. Yup, this store just sells socks. Obviously when changing shoes is a big part of your day, you want your socks to be stylish. Curiously though, there is no great need to match your socks with your outfit.

Thought this was funny. For those times when you simply can’t communicate, just use an etch-a-sketch! (zoom in to read the English instructions for another chuckle)

This month’s ikebana arrangement. The tall flowers are arranged in a fan shape. I was happy because it was a different arrangement from our usual 100-70-50 arrangement.

This is a common sight on the streets once it gets dark. Fortune tellers set up a table and a lantern and read people’s palms.

Ohtsu Junior High School has a kendo club. Kendo is a Japanese martial art, very strange to watch. The costumes look like something out of a Star Wars set (or maybe a Star Wars set looks like something out of a kendo club). Kendo-ers (not sure what we’d call people who practice Kendo) do this weird skipping thing, and then stomp one bare foot onto the ground and screech when striking their opponent. When I first heard the Kendo club practicing, I thought they were killing birds!


These next couple of photos are Angie and Ash’s (having them here reminded me what’s interesting and weird!)

I may have blogged about these yellow lines before. If you zoom in you can see a raised marking on them. They're for blind people to use with their canes so they can walk safely down the sidewalk. The pattern changes when there is a turn to make, or at points to cross streets. The entire country is covered with these yellow lines, making me wonder if the government expects a sizeable chunk of the population to turn blind in the near future.

Even during Tokyo's rush hour, you can see the inherent orderliness in everything here. In this photo, people are lined up in two lines for the next train. When the train arrives, each line will go up to the train against the door, leaving the middle free for people to exit the train.

I should have included this one in a winter 12 on 12 because this is a classically Japanese winter thing. It's called a kotatsu. It's basically a low table (notice the lack of legs on the chairs) with a small heater built into it, and a quilt under the table top. It's quite cozy for your legs, but not so cozy for your upper half.