Mino National Park

Last week i went for another hike at Mino National Park to see how far away the change in leaves was. A few places the maple leaves had turned but it's probably about another 3 -4 weeks away. It was a beautiful day and mino is always a nice change from Osaka. The creek that runs all the way along path is full of fish and the air actually smells like air. About half way up is a small temple called Ryanji temple is the place where i took photos of the yamabushi festival earlier in the year. I spent about an hour here looking around and taking some photos. After that i walked up to the waterfall and sat around for a few hours in the sun and listened to some music. perfect afternoon.

here's the guide map for the part of the area. see if you can notice
anything wrong here. Just think politically incorrect. maybe click on the picture
to see it bigger.

these small bells hang from the roof of the temple and look really amazing
when it rains. Each little one fills up then overflows and fills the next. not sure
what they mean though.

This is part of the temple complex. This one is a 9 exposure
HDR.

Here's the local Yakuza boss keeping an eye on things at the waterfall.
Or maybe he's just seeing miami vice to many times. thankyou Don Johnson.

Horyuji - it's like history

two sunday's ago we went to Horyuji to see the worlds oldest wooden building. We got there pretty early, around 7am i think. It's on the way to Nara, so about 1hr on the train. From the station it was a 20min walk to the temple grounds. Luckily we accidentally found the tourist information centre on the way and found out we could get a guide for free. I can't remember our guides name but he only usually works a couple of days a month so we were lucky to get the only english guide for the tour. He was a really nice old guy who goes to Nova (big english school) once a week and wanted to use his english. He took us on a tour for about three hours and i learnt a lot about japanese history and buddhism. It was a bit strange for mika going sightseeing in japan with a japanese english tour guide but his english was a mix of english and japanese so was easy for her to understand. I think they both forgot they were japanese for a while because they started having a conversation in english.

anyway Ikaruga temple was built first built in 607 along with a buddha statue, Yakushi Nyorai (arrival as a healer). The temple and budha was built by prince Shotoku and empress suiko who was actually the first female emperor /empress of japan. Prince shotoku is famous for being able to listen to 10 conversations at the same time and give the correct answer to each. Useful if you want to have multiple wives.

here's me and mika outside the temple grounds. above my head you can see the top of the pagoda (Goju no to) which is the oldest five story pagoda in japan. The pagoda is the most important structure in a budhist temple and is the place where the relics of a buddha are enshrined. the pointy thing at the top weighs 7 tonnes and is supported by one pole.

Here's the same view without me and mika. As you can see there are a lot of school kids here. Apparently 80% of high school kids in japan do a school trip here. to the right of the pagoda is the main gate to the temple complex. itw as built in 711. It has two large guards standing either side. we found out that one always has its mouth open and the other shut. its because the sound ahh is the sound that starts the word day and mmmm is the sound that starts the word for night. so you have a day and night watchmen. to the right you can see the roof of horyu which is the temple built in 607.

again this is the pagoda goju no to which. there were some amazing statues inside but of course no photos allowed. This pagoda is known to have a femine form because it tapers from top to bottom so is supposed to be more beautiful. i guess tapers is a nice way of saying big ass.

here is Kondo (main hall) built in 607. Inside was amazing with many clay statues. the pine trees in front have been capped because a few years ago there was a typhoon heading towards the area and people were afraid of a foreign tree falling on them.

Amagasaki City Festival

This one is from about a week ago. We'd been seeing footage of this festival on TV for weeks but couldn't find out any information about when it was happening. Luckily Mika's mum saw a poster near her work and let us know. In the afternoon there was all the normal stalls you have at a city festival. Lots of toffee apples, fairy floss, beer and hot chips. At japanese festivals they always have a stall where you can catch goldfish. Not sure why but it's popular. There was also a tank full of eels that you could pay a couple of hundred yen ($2) and you get to keep it. Japanese people love to eat eel.

Here's mika at the chocolate fountain. I had beer and chips.

Typical festival, cost 500 yen for a beer.

This is a just a few of the floats from the festival. I think there was around 16 or 18 all up. Basically they run into each other until one of them breaks or someone dies. Apparently someone got caught under one a few years ago and got crushed to death. It's mostly young guys with way too much testosterone and not enough sex getting over excited and trying to hurt each other. Makes for good entertainment though.

Toyono

Early last week was a national holiday so Mika had a day off so we decided to go and see the cosmos in full bloom. We had some visitors coming that night so we only wanted to go somewhere close so we could get back in time. The guidebook didnt say anything about the 1hr bus trip up the mountain. So after a 30min train ride then the 1hr bus trip it was almost time to head home. Toyono is a rural district in moutains to the north of osaka. At the start of autumn its famous for the millions of comsos in full bloom. It was a really nice area and i wish we had some more time to have a look around. There were lots of farms and very old traditional houses. anyway still had time for lunch and took some photos.

this is taken with the 60mm micro mika's father lent me but saddely

it's been returned now :-( (click on the image to get a close up)

This was taken smack in the middle of the day. The sky was as clear as
as i've ever seen it. One of the things i love about my new D80 is if you're
carefull you can take a really nicely exposed pic even at the worst time of the day.

Tera Machi, Amagasaki

Last week i decided to go on a bike ride to visit a few local spots. About 20mins ride from our apartment is a place called teramachi and is an area that has 11 temples all on the one street. I went in the middle of the day so no great photos but will head back soon late in the afternoon. really interesting place and there's a lot of really old homes and building in the area also.

I was just playing around with lighting effect here.

This is the "rose of sharon" a symbol of Japanese temples along with Hydrangea.

Yoshino

Here's a few photos from the day after my hike up Omine-san with Mika's father. After waking around 10am we had to check out of the hotel and did some sightseeing around Dorogawa, the town where the hotel was. We visited a local shrine and a suspension bridge that was quite big and offered a nice view of the town. Dorogawa is a really nice rural town and full of inns and onsens. Seems to be the wives stay at an onsen while the husband climbs the "mens only" omine mountain.

After Dorogawa we went to Yoshino, a place that i've wanted to visit since coming to Japan. It's the most famous Cherry blossom viewing area with something like 30,000 cherry blossom trees. It's also the home of Kinpusenji, one of the most important buddhist temples in japan and centre of shugendo, a sect of buddhism the is based around mountain worship.

click on the images to see them large

These four are from Dorogawa. The first one was strange to come across. they were taking it in turns standing under the waterfall and screaming at each other. The second is Mika and her parents on the suspension bridge. the third is a photo of Dorogawa from the suspension bridge. The last is my new shirt. I went through all my clothes on the hike because it was so sweaty so needed some new clothes. It's a hand painted picture en no gyoja http://arvigarus.bravehost.com/history_005.htm.

just a few random pics from the temple at Dorogawa.

These four are at Kinpusenji, Yoshino. I'm not exactly sure what the second one is. Mika's father had a miniature one that he would shake while doing prayers. The reason i took this photo is because you can see in the third photo Mika's grandfathers name is written on the monument (bottom left name) . Pretty impressive considering this is one of the most famous temples in japan. Last is our lunch. Cold soba and sushi and of course some nice cold beer.

Birthday Cake

lots of cream and strawberries what else could you want.




 

Omine San - midnight hike !!

Last weekend Mika's dad invited me to go hiking to Mount Omine in the Nara Prefecture. Mount Omine is a famous place not only because it's a world heritage site but also because women have never been allowed on the mountain. It has the repution of being the most sacred mountain in japan.

We started the hike up the mountain around 10pm to view a ceremony that started around 3am. The ceremony was to close Ominesanji temple until about June next year. I didn't think it would be a difficult hike because it was at night and most of the yamabushi climbing it were quite old. I was certainly suprised by how difficult it was. It took about 3 hours to get to the top and a lot of the way were very steep stairs. It was typical mountain weather too. At the bottom it was hot and humid. about a quarter of the way up it was very comfortable and then as we got closer to the top it got very cold, windy and wet. Cold wind is just great when you're clothes are soaking wet from sweat.

Once up the top it was quite amazing. there were about 6 large building that had seating for around 300 people each, beds and heating. I guess this is the accomodation for each group when they come for training. We rested for about an hour and then went and watched the ceremony. Most of the ceremony was based around fire and was visually spectacular but couldn't understand anything else going on. I got to go in the back of the temple to watch the yamabushi diong there prayers in different chambers of the temple that was very interesting. Once finished we started the hike back down the mountain still in the dark.

On the way down Mika's fathers batteries went flat on his headlamp but luckily he had a spare set but then about 5mins later my headset also went flat. After falling on my ass once i remembered my camera flash takes 4AA batteries so a quick change and we were all set again. We arrived at the bottom around 6am, went back to the hotel where mika and her mother were staying and soaked in the onsen (hot bath) for about and hour, had a few beers for breakfast then went to sleep.

me below the gates that basically says no women

It was one of the most difficult things i've done in a long time and my legs were still aching for days afterwards but it was one of those experiences you can never pass up.