In November, I went on a trip to Kyoto to visit a friend. We visited various temples, shrines, and other attractions. So here's a bunch of pictures from our trip!
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So the English department at my school had a welcoming party for me and a going away party for another teacher. We went to an Izakaya called Mugi. Parties like this are called Enkai. You usually pay a set price before, and then during the party it's all you can eat and all you can drink. Usually they bring out the food in multiple smaller courses. And you will see your coworkers eat and drink more than you thought a human being ever could. But these are really great ways to get to know your coworkers, as the atmosphere is so much more relaxed and fun than what you're used to at school or in the office. Now I was very lucky, because of course the teacher who organized the event called ahead and explained to them that I was a vegetarian. And she spent 15 minutes just explaining to the person what that meant and what I could and couldn't eat. It's things like this that really show you the Japanese spirit and heart. They ended up bringing me about 6 or 7 special dishes just for me! While everyone else had a mix of individual small dishes, and shared plates. But the thing that is the most impressive to me is the way the food is presented and the thought that goes into creating seasonal dishes. You'll notice that my special plates often will have matching themes and colors. One of the more obvious things you'll learn about me is my absolute obsession with all things pumpkin. In America, I am quite limited to essentially October and November. Which can lead me to getting quite carried away while I have the chance.
Lucky for ME Japan has pumpkin all year round. Also Japanese pumpkin is delicious! To top that off, Japan has a pretty fantastic Halloween season. It's still a pretty new holiday and it's totally unheard of to see little kids going door to door. But Halloween decorations appeared in stores half way through September. So that's not too far off from American stores. Plus, a lot of people love the excuse to dress up in weird costumes. So it ends up being more a thing adults do for fun. Or often you'll see Halloween events at schools as sort of a Western cultural lesson. Well anyway, as I'm basking in the glow of pumpkins and ghosts, I want to share with you a little of Japan's Halloween flavor. Now, as you may recall, I live in a very rural town in Kyushu, so it just goes to show you that the commercialization of holidays knows no boundaries. So here I have for you pictures of all the Halloween products I found in just ONE TRIP to the grocery store. Some of the food products have special Halloween flavors, but you'll see a lot of them are just Halloween packaging with no change to the flavor. You'll also notice that Japan doesn't do pumpkin spice flavor, as they don't really have pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice. Everything is just actual pumpkin flavor.... which... is pretty gosh darn awesome. I mean I like pumpkin spice too, but to put ACTUAL pumpkin in the food? Revolutionary. Today I went with Arao Taishi High School to Yotsuyama Jinja in Arao.
Yotsuyama Jinja was built near an ancient burial mound made in the late 6th century. It is said that the Bodhisattva Kokūzō Bosatsu (虚空蔵菩薩) descended there. Records say the temple was first built in 1070 C.E. Then the temple was rebuilt by the lord of Higo, Kiyomasa Kato, in the 1600's. The enshrined deity is Ōyamatsumi, elder brother of Amaterasu, and an important god who rules mountain, sea, and war. He is also the father of Konohanasakuya-hime, the kami of Mount Fuji (from wikipedia). So recently I went on a little one day adventure to find as many shrines or temples as I could. Read more about that here. I ended up going to a total of 11 and taking lots of pictures. But before we start, here's a brief explanation of the two. There are two main types of religious buildings in Japan, temples and shrines. Shrines (jinja, or jinguu after a name) are for Shinto dieties, while temples (otera, or ji after a name) are Buddhist. Japan has many of both, sometimes with them being right next to each other or even one inside of the other! There are some general differences in construction, which you can read more about here. But the easiest way to tell them apart is that a shinto shrine will always have a torii gate at the very entrance. From my experience visiting these local little shrines and temples, the Shinto shrines are often overrun with nature and not very well maintained. Most looked like they had some basic supplies for visiting priests, such as brooms and mats for sleeping. But that was basically it, just the shrine and nature. They're also made of an outer structure with no walls, so you can walk up to it and pray. The first open area connects to an inner locked structure where the spirit resides. Anyone could go to these shrines and pray, even though there's no priests attending them. The Buddhist temples, on the other hand, were often more like a complex of buildings that were very well maintained. Every single one I saw showed signs of people living in the nearby buildings (cars, air conditioners, etc). You also couldn't walk inside any buildings, everything was closed up and there was nothing for a visitor to do. It's not like you could just walk into a building to pray. In that sense, it's more like a Christian church. You don't just go on a Saturday and expect to go walking around inside.
Okay, enough about the general characteristics, let's look at the temples and shrines I visited! Takano Tenman-gu 高野天満宮 The first stop on my trip was Takano Tenmangu, a shinto shrine. The deity of this shrine is Tenjin, a kami of scholarship and learning. There are many famous temples dedicated to him, but this is just one of the smaller shrines. Shrines dedicated to Tenjin are often called Tenman-gu (天満宮). A large camphor tree next to the shrine is estimated to be over 800 years old. NOTE: I know this post does not have the correct formatting when viewed on mobile devices. I'll try to keep the layout simple in the future so it displays well both on web and on mobile.
If you go into any Asian grocery store in America and find the candy isle, you will often find some really interesting things. Specifically, some really unique flavors of potato chips. Well, of course in Japan they have a lot more interesting flavors. So, I went to my local drug store and had a grand ol' time documenting the various kinds of potato chips I could find. Every year on August 15th and 16th is the Yamaga Lantern Festival, or Yamaga Toro Matsuri (山鹿吐露祭). The origin of the festival comes from an ancient story in Yamaga when the legendary Emperor Keiko (71 to 130 CE) became lost in the middle of a fog. The villagers of Yamaga led the Emperor and his followers out of the forest by holding pine torches.
The highlight of the festival is the thousand lantern dance. Hundreds of women in yukata wear lanterns on their heads and dance in a circle. Before the festival, large paper models of famous Japanese buildings are displayed around the town. And at the end of the festival, both the paper lanterns and models are presented to Omiya Shrine. Throughout the event, you can see many performers dancing to Yoheho-bush, a traditional song from Yamaga. There is also a fireworks display, an impressive number of food and game booths, and various other attractions. So, on to the pictures! Paper Models For the festival, they spread out the paper models of buildings throughout Yamaga. And I really do mean throughout Yamaga. To go from the furthest two points is about an hour walking. And they had a contest where you had to get stamps at the different stops. If you got a certain number of stamps, you were entered to win a prize. Of course, I entered myself and got 21 out of 30 stamps. It took many hours to get them! So here are some pictures of some of those paper models. |
AuthorAra is a kimono enthusiast and student of Japanese culture and history. Currently they're working as an English ALT in Yamaga City, Japan. Follow along for a window into daily life in a small rural town in Kyushu. Archives
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