Sumo Tournament in Osaka

I took a family from Florida to Osaka Sumo Tournament.
We saw the matches from a box seat!!


Here is a stomping sumo wrestler, getting ready before his match.
You can see sumo wrestlers in very close distance.





This is the opening ritual by wrestlers in the top divistion.
You can find in the middle a very tall man. He is Koto-oshu, very talented wrestler from Bulgaria. He is Ozeki, which is the second to Yokozuna, the grand champion.
We have so many non-Japanese wrestlers now. I want Japanese ones get much stronger
and climb up to be Yokozuna. There is no Japanese Yokozuna.

Guess who they are? Maiko-chan! They were sitting very close to us, accompanying their patrons who came to see the sumo tournament. I thought they would only accompany the patrons in their tea houses(meaning geisha house), so it was a bit surprising to me.

Can you believe they are teenagers? (Maybe the left one, yes.)They look so matured to me.

My clients were so excited about both watching sumo matches and capturing maiko:) That surely made their day.

Shokoku-ji and Kyoto Imperial Palace

The first 2 pictures are Kyoto Imperial Palace, the rest are Shokoku-ji.

I tried, but the last two won't be turned upright somehow. Sorry for that.

The autumn leaves are at their peak, turning pure red (and yellow)!

I can spend hours watching these beautiful trees.

Yellow ones are Japanese ginkos.

I love the combination and contrast of a ginko and maple tree.

Often times you can find them planted next to each other to enjoy the viewers.

Cheers,

Keiko

More aumtumn leaves pictures!!

These photos were taken at Konkai-Komyo-Ji Temple and Shinnyo-do Temple in Kyoto.
They have best Momiji(autumn leaves) in Kyoto!!

Got autumn leaves??

Lovely meal and lovely lady at HIRANOYA

Hello all! What's up?
I'm just back from the short trip to Arashiyama area of Kyoto,
one of my favorite places here, surrounded by mountains and rivers!
Me and my friends went over for lunch at a very famous Japanese restaurant, Hiranoya,
which is the picture above.

It's famous for its quality dishes( the mountain behind the restaurant is one of their properties, and many of the vegetables served there are cropped there.), and therefore, the price as well, is what you can't easily afford to. So even though I have known about the place since I moved to Kyoto, I thought it's the place only for high-class people.

But then, a friend of mine just told me that his dad actually did designing of their guest bathroom , and he knows quite well about the people there for years, and said he could take me there for lunch with the discount charge. Who could resist that offer??
It was very nice outside and a perfect day for a day trip!
This lady in a nice kimono in the photo welcomed us with a warm, charming smile.
(I love her hairstyle by the way!)

This is one of the appetizers. An assortment of seasonal farm products; sticky potato, butterbur flower stalk, bracken, and so on. They were amazingly delicious!!!!! Very delicately cooked and such soft texture! Surely it's good for digestion and your health!!

And we were served Tofu in a pot, tempura, cooked vegetable, rice, and dessert.

Almost no meat nor fish was included, still this lunch set costs about 10,000 JPY(110USD).

Believe it or not though, it's worth it.

Needless to say, none of these were artificially made. What surprised me most was that

they cook rice with a big iron pot like they did in old times.
One of the waitresses told us some guests say rice is the best dish here!

We were eating in this room, with a nice view of the pond garden with lovely red maple leaves..

You can actually walk there!

I can't say anything better about this place, IT IS THAT GOOD!

If you ever come to Japan, with your budget affordable(this is the most important),

this is the place you should go to.

People here don't speak good English, nor they have English menu, so you should bring someone

who understands Japanese.

Have a nice weekend....

Japanese puppet - B U N R A K U

Hope you readers are well!


Look at this poster.. it's called Bunraku, Japanese traditional puppet theater, having existed here more than 300 years since it got developed today's style.
Its origin even dates back to the 12C.


I joined the Bunraku lecture today set up by the guide federation I belong to to enrich my knowledge of it.

Having living in Osaka over 20 years where the culture was originated, I didn't have any opportunity to watch it, but now that I was so much fascinated by its tradition and the passion of puppeteers and Tayuu (a mixture of a narrater and voice actor ), it makes me feel I really gotta see it.






What grabs your attention when you first watch Bunraku is that puppets are manipulated by as many as 3 people. The main puppeteer does the body, head, and the right hand, while other two do the left hand and legs respectively. It used to be just one puppeteer, but as more improvements were done on puppets, they got difficult to manipulate and came to require more than one.

And like other Japanese traditional arts, there are no female players as in old times women were strictly prohibited to perform on stage of any art form for moral reasons.



So this is how puppets are usually manipulated.

The omozukai who does the head can show his faces. Others must wear hoods. To become omozukai, it takes nearly 30 years. You have to start off from doing chores, opening and closing the stage curtains, etc to manipulating legs for about 10 years, and then a left hand for another 10 years. Being a great puppeteer is not just about technique and skill, it's more about how much life experience one has, how you live your own life. Every single day of your life makes up who you are, and it naturally builds up your own taste in playing puppets.

To be continued..

Gion Festival

Please enjoy photos...

Can you believe these floats were handmade and they are pulled only by men?
The wooden-made floats weigh around 1 t on average...
Good job guys!