Yet More Round Windows

My previous posts of circular windows in Japan seem toi have been quite popular, so here are some more. This first one is in a garden fence at Garyu Villa in Ozu, Ehime.

This one is at the small local history museum on the island of Okunoshima in Hiroshima Prefecture.

Encho-en, a huge Chinese garden up in Tottori has many round windows....

This one is from a park shelter in Sakaiminato, also in Tottori.

This one is in Taishaku Gorge in Hiroshima...

An office building in Matsuyama, Ehime.

Vacation 2011 Day 14 In the Valley of the Roses

After leaving the gite we wandered through the alleys of the village before emerging on the banks of the river in the Valley of the Roses.

We followed the river upstream all day, sometimes needing to ford it. The water was cold and fast, being melted snow coming down from the Atlas Mountains.

Unfortunately we were too early to find any roses, however poppies were very much in abundance in the gardens of the villages we passed through.

One house had an unusual ornament on the roof......

Further up the valley the geology changed and we could have easily been in Arizona....

Camp was on the riverbank where the mules had plenty to drink and the chorus of frogs kept up all night....

Fukuyama Roses

Fukuyama is the second largest city in Hiroshima Prefecture and is known as the Rose City, so its not surprising that images of roses are everywhere. The bus I took to get there from Hiroshima City was called the Rose Liner.

Obviously designs of roses adorn the local manholes and draincovers.

I visited in March and could find no actual roses, though in May they hold the annual Rose Festival with more than half a million roses on display.Tthere were plenty of rose-related products for sale though.

The rose was chosen as the symbol of the city in the early 1950's to give hope to the inhabitants whose city was 80% destroyed by allied bombing at the end of the war.

Inside the Tokoro Museum

This is a follow on post from this earlier one. The most striking thing about the inside of the gallery is the wooden lattice roof that runs the length of the building and suffuses the interior with light.

The long, narrow interior has the space divided into descending levels that go down the hillside. Some of the interior space is divided by curved partitions.

The gallery/museum is located on the island of Omishima between Hiroshima and Ehime and is now part of the Shimanami Kaido which connects Shikoku to Honshu via a series of bridges and islands.

At the lower end of the gallery is a small cafe and patio with fantastic views across the Inland Sea. The end of the building is completely open, allowing the wind and weather in and giving the feeling that the museum is outside.

On display are contemporary scuptures belonging to the collection of wealthy art-collector Atsuo Tokoro, including artworks by Noe Katz, Marisol, Norichika Hayashi, and Takashi Fukai, none of whom I have heard of before as I no longer follow any kind of art scene.

Also on the small island are the nearby Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture, the Ken Iwata Mother and Child Museum, a big museum on the calligraphy of Murakami Santo, the Omishima Museum of Art, and several museums at Oyamazumi Shrine displaying samurai armour and weaponry, so worth spending a day there.

Shikoku 88 Temple 9 Horinji

Temple number 9 of the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage is named Horinji and is located in Awa City. The name means Dharma Wheel Temple though it is sometimes known as Hakudasan, White Snake Mountain, after the story that Kukai heard about a white snake that lived nearby and protected buddhists.

The temple was located further up in the valley but was burnt down by Chosakabe in the 16th Century and rebuilt in its current location.

The main deity is Shaka Nyorai, the historical Buddha, and the carving, attributed to Kukai, is unusual in that it is a reclining Buddha, uncommon in Japan, and the only one in the 88 temples.

It is a Shingon temple and locally renowned for healing problems with feet and the waist.

Izumo Yayoinomori Museum

Stumbled upon a brand new museum up in Izumo a few days ago. The Izumo Yayoinomori Museum is just across the road from the Nishitani Tumuli Park, a cluster of Yayoi Period tombs on the hill a little southeast of Izumo Station.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was entrance free to the main exhibition areas, but also that photography was allowed. There is nothing worse, to my mind, than paying an exorbitant entrance fee and then not being allowed to take photos.

The focus of the displays are on the adjacent tombs, with examples of the grave goods excavated from them as well as diaramas showing how they believe the tombs were constructed, and the internal structure. Overall I was quite impressed by the displays and found them most educational, though there is little explanation in English.

The adjacent tombs, 5 in all, were constructed in the early 3rd Century and are in the distinctive design uinique to this part of Japan, being square with 4 protruberences extending out from each corner. On of the tombs can be entered.

Encountered on the trail

Came across this skeleton of a young buck Sika Deer yesterday as I was hiking across the Kitayama Mountains at the western end of the Shimane peninsular. Every time Ive hiked here I have seen deer, and one time when I slept out there I had them running by me all night as I slept on a small piece of open ground..

It may have died a natural death, or it may have been fatally injured in a territorial dispute with another buck. They no longer have any natural predators.

The name Sika Deer comes from the japanese word for deer, shika. There are not many in the mountains of shimane, but this little range of mountains is like an island and it is well populated with them.

A Walk from Honshu to Shikoku Day1

There was a spell of fine weather last week so I took the opportunity to go for a walk. My route was along the Shimanami kaido, a new 70k road that connects Onomichi in Hiroshima on Honshu with Imabari in Ehime on Shikoku. The road passes through 6 islands via 7 bridges. I spent the morning on the Temple walk in Onomichi, a route that zig-zags up and down the hillside visiting 25 temples and several shrines. From the top of Senkojisan there are fine views down on the town and across the channel to the first of the islands Mukaijima.

The bridge across to Mukaijima doesnt have any sidewalks, so its recommended for cyclists and pedestrians to cross over on one of the frequent ferries. there isnt a lot to see on Mukaijima, and the first part of the route, well marked with blue lines along the road, passes through the built up area but then heads south down the west coast where the views become nicer.

The Innoshima Ohashi is the suspension bridge that connects Mukaijima to Innoshima. It was built in 1983 and is 1.4 kilometers long and  has a main span of 770 meters.

Pedestrians, cyclists, and mopeds travel under the bridge. My plan had been to head up to the top of Mt Shirataki , the highest point on the island, to spend the night and enjoy the views over the Inland Sea at sunset and sunrise, but it was only 3pm so I decided to push on across the middle of the island.

Roughly in the middle of the island is what is the main tourist attraction of the island, the Murakami Suigun Castle. Sometimes called a navy, sometimes pirates, they are best described as privateers who controlled the waterways of the Inland Sea for much of the medieval period. The reconstructed castle houses a museum. Woirth a visit if you are passing by but not worth a special trip unless you are into that kind of thing.

the sun was getting low when I reached the other side of the island and the Ikuchi Bridge that connects Innoshima with Ikuchijima. With a span of 790 meters, this was the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world when it opened in 1991.

I went a few more k once I got to Ikuchijima before I made camp on the sea wall on some waste ground between two small shipbuilding yards.

Ochidani Shrine

Ochidani Shrine is at the far end of Ochidani Park a little to the south of Tottori castle ruins in Tottori City. There is a long approach and obviously it was a grand shrine in formner times. before Meiji it was named Inaba Toshogu.

The Nio that once inhabited the gate would have been removed after shinbutsu bunri , the separation of the buddhas and kami, which is also when the name was changed. Toshogu shrines enshrine Tokugawa Ieyasu as  Toshu Daigongen, and the most famous Toshogu is the original one at Nikko.

There were once 500 Toshogu throughout the country but now only 130 remain.

This one in Tottori was built in 1650 by the local Daimyo, Ikeda Mitsunaka, who was a great grandson of Ieyasu.

The gate, haiden, and heiden, are registered as Important Cultural properties.

Origin of shimenawa

Shimenawa, the ropes usually made of rice-straw though increasingly of plastic, are found in many places in Japan though typically at shrines. They can be found wrapped around sacred rocks, sacred trees, strung across torii, shrine entrance gates, and across shrine structures. they come in a huge diversity of styles and sizes up to the 5 ton giant at Izumo Taisha.

There are many theories as to the origin of shimenawa, many connecting it to the use of rope to mark possession of things or space, and I have also read that it originates in the rope tied around the campsite of central Asian nomads, but the simple truth is nobody knows for sure.

When it comes to the mythological origin of the shimenawa however we are given two different origins, one connected to Amaterasu and the other to Susano. Not surprisingly the myth connected to Amaterasu is by far the dominant.

According to the Iwato myth, wherein Amaterasu hides herself away in a cave and plunges the world into darkness, she is finally tempted out by the dance of Uzume, and after Tajikarao pulls her out another kami stretches a rope across the cave entrance to stop Amaterasu from going back in. I realize that myths do not have to make sense, but this story makes no sense at all because if a shimenawa is supposed to stop a kami from entering a space, then why are they used to mark space that is inhabited by kami?

In Okayama there is a story that tells how Susano instructed the local people how to make a chinowa, a hoop woven out of reeds or sometimes rice straw that by passing through purifies the person. Further north in Tottori a similar story tells how in return for a kindness Susano teaches a local man how to string a rope along the street to purify it and keep out disease. Shimenawa mark sacred space, and in Japan the sacred is equated with purity, so these stories make much more sense.

So why is the Amaterasu version the most common? Since the beginning of recorded history the Yamato have been denigrating Susano and elevating Amaterasu. Much of contemporary "shinto" is still tied to Imperial Shinto and the State Shinto of the late 19th Century. These forms of shinto placed the imperial family and Amaterasu at the apex and this is still put forward today. The Yamato were relative latecomers, even their own myths say that Susano and his descendants ruled over "Japan" before they did, so it makes sense that some of Japanese culture must originate from Izumo traditions.