A Day In A Forest

The beautiful cherry blossoms are gone now, but in turn we welcome the season of fresh green. And I am just back from Yabusame shinji( a ritual of horseback archery) at Shimogamo shrine in Kyoto.

It is famous for its huge forest, and May is definately the best season to view it. This ritual of archery has been held , with some halts in the past, for about 1000 years, in a riding ground inside the forest, 12 days ahead of the main festival called Aoi Festival. Needless to say, it's one of the most attractive traditional events in Kyoto.

It's been on my To Do List for these couple of years, and I finally could see it!!

The purpose of this type of ritual is to pray for the safe execution of the festival, and to entertain the deities of the shrine.

A young archer in court noble's kimono.. he is coming back from his first turn. So cool!!

Best archers from all over Japan are selected for this. So he must be the one with great skill.

Usually Yabusame is held in warrior's style, but this event includes noble's style, which makes it very unique and attractive.


Actually, there were about 25,000 people who came here to see Yabusame.
There were lots of foreigners too, therefore ,the annoucement was made in several languages,
which surprised me a bit.


This was taken after the ritual. You can see how long the tail of the archer's costume is.
When he rides on a horse, he folds it up around the hip. Plus he had to put on a pair of wooden shoes!


This is the starting point of the gound.
The guy in the middle is showing the sign that the next archer is ready to go, waving a holding fan gracefully.



Start!!

Good picture, huh?

This archer is in warrior's style. Once horses enter the riding ground, they break into a trot and dash about 500m straight to the end. Archers have to shoot the arrows to the target at 3 different points. This whole movement is really fast, exactly like an arrow. I wanted to capture the moment where the arrows pierced the targets, but soon I realized that I was in a wrong position to do that. I should take revenge next year and surely I will reserve the special seats that are offered to spectators.

I love how they yelled before and after their shooting arrows, "ye---------!!!!" "yo----------!!!!" I wish I could have recorded the scene.

It was such a lovely day, I was lucky I could see Yabusame ritual under good weather in a beautiful green forest. I enjoyed myself in many ways..

I will try to post the main festival, Aoi maturi in a next few weeks!

Welcome to the country of Sakura!

Yes, spring has come!! Japan is now full of blooming cherry blossoms.

Here are some Sakura( cherry blossom ) picutures I want to share with you!!

from above:

Konoe-tei( court noble's house ) at Kyoto Imperial Palace

Suika Tenmangu Shrine

Beautiful Blue heron in the pond garden of Heian Jingu Shrine

Osaka Zohei Kyoku ( Mint in Osaka )

Oh! Sumo-san!!

Look who I'm with in the picture!
I came across two sumo-wrestlers in Osaka! In Japanese they are called お相撲さん(osumou-san)
Who are they?? What ranking are they in?
I'm sorry,, I don't know :p

Waving flags with the names of the supporters ...these are displayed around the big dome in Nanba, Osaka, where I came to work today.
Sumo tournament is held here in this time of the year. I didn't know about that..

Actually never have I thought that sumo tournament, our traditional sport has been held in middle of the downtown area like this.

This is the entrance gate! not so crowded... because matches were already started by then.
It was around 4 p.m. when I passed by here.. the highly ranked osumou-sans will show up for match later than this. So I guess the ones I took pictures with could be the lower-ranked. But I'm happy anyway!!

It's time for Ume!

Everybody who comes to Japan in spring is so excited to see Sakura, cherry blossom.
It's coming soon! But before that why don't we enjoy another special flower??
This time of the year is the best time for viewing 梅(ume) or plum blossom.
Plum flower is another famous flower, and lots of historical buildings have them in their gardens.
Here, Kitano Tenmangu(北野天満宮) is the best place if you want to see a lot of beautiful plum blossoms.

Why it's famous for plum blossoms? The deity worshiped here was said to be a plum blossom lover. He is called Michizane Sugawara(菅原道真) , also renowned as a great scholar in ancient time. This episode gives a great influence on the fact the shrine crest here is the design of plum blossom.
Plum was brought from China and originally used as a medicine.
When one said {flower}, actually it often referred to plum blossoms.
So it started to be one of their favorite flowers to view.

What do you think they are doing here??
This is the place to make wish to the deity who is enshrined in the main hall, which is located behind the building in the picture. They are lining up for wishing.. and most of the time their wish is connected with study for Michizane himself was a great scholar in Japanese history.
I used to line up like them when I was a student!

Michizane was also a competent politician, climing up the ladder in Imperial Court, and won the strong trust from the emperor. As a result, he succeeded in being his right arm.
But there came up a group of people who were so jealous of him(he was not from the higher class of family and many of the bureaucrats were from prestigeous families)and whispered to the emperor about his bad rumor, which made Michizane fall into their trap. He was demoted to a minor official of a further western island of Kyushu, where he later ended his life by disease.
What happened after his death was epidemic disease and thunders and storms attacking Imperial Court and Kyoto, which made them believe that all this were invoked by Michizane's anger.
So people started to build small shrines for him to appease his anger. That is the story behind the establishment of this shrine.. Things never change! We can not escape from being jealous.. I guess it's the fate of human beings.

These are wooden votive tablets at the shrine.

People write down wish on them. There are lords of them!!

Kitano Tenmangu is one of the major spots not only in Kyoto, but Japan to make your scholastic wish! This season is the time of entrance examination at schools, so I saw a lot of young people today.

Back to Ume..

I'm taking the picture of a man who is trying to take photo of ume.

What flexible legs he has!

Unlike sakura, ume stay in bloom more than a week, so it means you have more time

to enjoy them and it's hardly possible that you miss viewing their beautiful blooms. These are parts of the reasons why I like them.

I'm so excited to see more beautiful flowers in coming spring..!

I'm a bit crazy photo person, so I'll post more pics of flowers as soon as I take some.

A Hectic City

Today, I'm going to talk about Tokyo. Yeah, today's capital of Japan.

Here is a little lecture why it's called Tokyo...

Tokyo (東京) literally means [Eastern Capital] while Kyoto(京都)means [Capital of capital].
So they both mean [Capital].



Last week I attended an on-the-job training for guiding in Tokyo.
Because I want to work more extensively in the future.. and Tokyo is the Must for travellers to Japan.
So I thought I should know how to guide in Tokyo.



Last Friday, I took a night bus to Tokyo and arrived there early morning.
This is, i think the 5th time to come to Tokyo.. however every time i 'm in Tokyo, I can't help but being amazed at the very very confusing train transportation system.
There are more than 60 lines in the metropolitan area( which is Tokyo and surrounding area).
There were often times where I have to change trains a couple of times to get to the place just 15 min away. You can't really afford to enjoy viewing the cityscape of Tokyo while on train because you just keep focused on where to get off and in which direction you should walk for connection. I'm sure if you can manage to use the transportation system here, you will have no problem with subway system in anywhere else.


1 day pass for the metro subway is only 710 yen, so you could get a great advantage of it if you tour around here.

The most impressive place in my visit to Tokyo was Tsukiji Fish Market..
Lots of good-looking food stands and restaurants at reasonable price!!!
,, and lots of them are family-run.. It's quite noteworthy to find such a place in the middle of the metropolitan area.
It's a shame the battery of my camera went out just before trying to take a picture.
Definitely I will have meals there next time I visit Tsukiji..


Picture 1: in front of one of the main gates to Imperial Palace
Picture 2: a view from 20th floor of Sinjuku Oak Tower (which is an office buiding)
Picture 3: the entrance hall for sightseers at Japanese Diet building(It's something like Japanese Congress).

Miko Part.2

The shrine is famous for its god of delivery of child, so a lot of people purchased the good "delivery" charms for their upcoming babies.
In very ancient time, there were a couple of small stones here.
The empress at that time who had a strong wish for a baby came to this shrine and strode them, and later she got pregnant. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a boy and he grew up healthy and became an emperor!
The stones had been replaced later, but still many married couples come here for getting the blessings from the sacred stones.
We Japanese, who have accomplished a certain level of economic success, still strongly believe in this sort of superstitious things like we always have been. Because we commonly believe sacredness dwells in natural objects.





This is a dancing stage. When people celebrate something, they dance here for the gods.



Aren't we all young?? Yes, only SINGLE & YOUNG women can become Miko.
Pureness is an important word for Shinto, so they don't have married or old Mikos.

In Japan, we pay visit to a shrine to celebrate the new year.
A lot of people do that in the midnight of the New Year's Day.
So that means we had to work overnight! We took two-hour nap every two hours..
and we had to stand outside under a tent!!!! It was sooo freakin' freezing!!!!
I think it was around 0℃ or something...


I purchased some good luck charms for me and my family. The bracelet above is mine with beads and a comma shaped stone. Comma shaped stone has been regarded as the emperor's treasures.
So it's very auspicious stuff! May this bring me a lot of happiness!!

.. and these are the gifts the family of the shrine gave us.

A bag of candies and a kind of hand towl with pictures of cow. (This year's Cow's year.)

..and they even treated us sushi!!!!!!

I've never had a more delicious lunch than this at my work!

The head shrine priest gave us some teachings during our duties. He was not preachy at all, , he was rather friendly & funny guy.

One of the impressive ones was "Please be a good mother, that will make your country better"

I will definately visit this shrine when I get married to wish for a baby!

But before that, I will have to come back here when the plum trees in their back garden will be in full bloom in March.

Happy New Year!!!!

How was your last year??
Well, I met so many people, maybe a lot more than ever in my life!!
It was very inspiring and fun! I should say..

At the end of the last year, I spent very memorable time at a local shrine.
Because I had a chance to work as MIKO around the New Year holidays..!!


Miko is a shrine maden, dressed in kimono and skirt!
I applied for the temporary Miko at a local shrine in November.
Because I wanted to know a lot more about Shintoism.

So this is the shrine I worked for..
The building on the left is a "temporary" main building.
Because there was recently repair work on the "regular" main building next to it.
It would be not safe for GODs who are enshrined there, so they moved them to the temporary one.

These are some of the mikos.. oh, there is me in the middle:)

We are selling good luck charms(on the desks),

and offering a little sake for visitors from the barrel on the left.

Real, or professional mikos do some purification rites as well.

But if you want to do that, you have to get a qualification by going to a Shinto college.

So temporary mikos end up being just a sales clerk:)

Often times why girls apply for temporary miko is that they simply want to wear

the traditional costumes. But of course among them there are some who are interested in Shintoism like me.

By the way I had some sips from the sake barrel too,,, wow,,, it was sooo good!

To be continued...