Meriken Park Kobe

 

Meriken Park is a waterfront park in Kobe that is a major tourist attraction because of the many tourist sites in the vicinity. The BE KOBE logo is apparently what is known as an Instagrammable spot. This was taken quite a few years ago and when I was there last year people were lining up to have their photos taken there.

The harbour around Meriken ark is home to numerous cruises around the bay as well as a cruise ship terminal and a spot for various big visiting ships.

Meriken was the Japanese pronunciation for America back in the Meiji Era when Kobe was one of the main sites of foreign settlement. The Oriental Hotel with its distinctive curved architecture is one of the landmarks.

In front of the Oriental Hotel are a couple of wedding halls, one all glass and reflective pools of water, the other with an overhead lattice that is prime for the kind of photos I like to take.

Long term readers of this blog will have seen different pics of this piece of architecture before....

Perhaps the most iconic sight at Meriken Park is the Kobe Port Tower.

For some time it has been undergoing renovations, but I believe it is once again open to the public.

Another of the architectural marvels that intrigues me at Meriken Park is the Maritime Museum, but I will save that for the next post as I went inside and explored.

This visit was on the 4th day of my walk along the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage, and after reaching Kobe I spent the rest of the day exploring as a tourist...

The previous post was on Sorakuen Garden.

Uzumemon no Yakata Karatsu

 

While walking in central Karatsu I came across Uzememon no Yakata and as it had free entry went inside.

It is a type of community centre for local people to have classes in various traditional Japanese arts and crafts.

Subjects such as Tea Ceremony, Ikebana, various types of music and dance and also Noh theatre.

The building is built in the style of a fairly high-ranking samurai residence.

It is not actually a reconstruction or rebuilding of an actual building that existed though.

Most visitors think it is though.

There is a minimal style garden around the building with Black Pine and Maples.

I visited on day 73 of my first walk around Kyushu. The previous post was on the huge floats of the Karatsu Kunchi Festival.

The Legend & Treasures of Dojoji Temple

 

Dojoji Temple is a very old Tendai Temple and is thought to be the oldest temple in what is now Wakayama. It is located in what is now the city of  Gobo and is close to the  Kiiji route of the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route that runs from Kyoto down to Hongu.

It is believed to have been founded in the early 8th century, possibly as early as 701, and is known as the setting for the  ancient story of Anchin and Kiyohime.

The story was recorded in a picture scroll and became famous through the Noh play Dojoji, and also as a puppet play and a kabuki play, as well as lullabies and assorted songs. In all more than 100 versions of the story existed.

Anchin was a young, and of course handsome, monk on a pilgrimage to Kumano in 929 when he spent the night as a guest of a village headman a little to the south of Dojoji.. Kiyohime, the beautiful daughter of the headman, fell in love with Anchin and became besotted with him. He promised to meet her again on his return and continued on to Hongu.

However, on his return journey he took a different route that bypassed the village. When Kiyohime found out she became distraught and started to chase after Anchin, in the process her rage transformed her into a dragon. Fearing for his life, he sought refuge at Dojoji and the monks lowered the huge temple bell over him to hide him. The dragon melted the bell and so incinerated Anchin.

There are many variations and additions to the story, but in the Hobutsuden, a modern building displaying the treasure of the temple, visitors can listen to the story told by a monk from one of the existing emaki, picture scrolls.

The Hobutsuden is a delight. Many temple treasure halls are rather musty and dark, but here it is open, airy, and bright, like a modern museum.

Several of the statues are National Treasures, including a Senju Kannon, and a Nikko Bosatsu and Gakko Bosatsu, all dating from the Heian Period.

Also from the Heian Period are numerous Important Cultural Properties, a Juichimen Kannon, a Bishamonten,  the Shitenno, and a Shaka Nyorai Triad.

Other Important Cultural Properties dating back to the Nara Period include another couple of Senju Kannons.

As evidenced by the statuary, the temple was very prosperous during the Heian Period. Most of the temple was burned down during Hideyoshi's invasion of the Kii Peninsula but was rebuilt in the 17th century with further reconstruction in the 18th century.

The main hall however survived as did most of the statuary. It is a National Treasure and dates to 1357. The Niomon dates to 1694, and the Pagoda dates to 1763. The honzon of the temple is a Senju Kannon.

I visited on the 6th day of my walk along the Saigoku Pilgrimage and Kumano Kodo. The previous post was on the nearby Kishu Railway, in one sense the smallest railway in Japan.

Karatsu Kunchi Hikiyama

 

Karatsu Kunchi is the main festival of the coastal castle town of Karatsu on the coast of Saga in northern Kyushu.

It takes place on November 2nd, 3rd, and 4th every year and features a parade of giant floats called hikiyama.

Many of the famous matsuris in Japan feature giant floats, and unique styles have been developed.

All the floats in Karatsu date back to the early to mid 19th century, and 14 of the original 15 are still used.

The floats are between 5 to 6 meters in height and weighing between 2 and 5 tons, with each one created by and representing the 15 different districts that make up the town.

The floats are started with a wooden framework which is then built up upon with sometimes clay, sometimes linen, and sometimes Japanese paper. This is then lacquered and finished with gold leaf..

All manner of creatures, mostly mythical, are represented, with lions being quite popular, but also dragons, phoenix, and turtle. Perhaps the most unusual design are the kabuto, or samurai helmets, with the kabutos of the great samurai Raiko  Minamoto, Kenshin Uesugi, Shingen Takeda, and Yoshitsune Monamoto.

If you can't visit the festival, the floats are displayed throughout the year in an exhibition hall. These photos were taken when I visited and the hall was located directly next to Karatsu Shrine, but a new hall has now been built close to the main JR station of the town.

The previous post was on Karatsu Shrine, the origin and home of the Karatsu Kunchi.

Dance of the Herons Sagimai in Tsuwano

 

Sagimai, the Dance of the Herons, is an elegant,  medieval dance that originates in the Gion Matsuri, the Kyoto festival that is  the most famous of all festivals in Japan.

The best place to see it is in the former castle town of Tsuwano in the mountains of western Shimane close to the border with Yamaguchi, where the dance has been kept alive for more than four centuries after it disappeared from Kyoto.

Two male dancers dressed as herons, one male, one female, perform a kind of mating dance, and while the two "birds" are the stars of the show, there are plenty of other characters in the performance.

Two dancers called bofuri, wearing bright red wigs and carrying long rods slowly circle the two herons, twirling the rods to keep the space free from evil spirits. One bofuri moves clockwise, the other anti-clockwise.

The Toya, festival head, with some guards. Historically a hereditary position of the influential Hori family, the position of Toya is nowadays rotated among parishioners of the Yasaka Shrine.

The remaining halberds, or kasaboko. Originally 13, one for each month plus the largest for the whole year. Because of depopulation, there are no longer enough people to carry the halberds so they are left on display at the community center where the dance begins.

The dance takes place at several locations along Tonomachi, a street of preserved historical buildings from the Edo Period. All the dancers and musicians have their own "guards" as they walk the short distance. The crowd, never that big, usually accompanies the procession to the next venue.

While the herons are dancing, and the bofuri are circling, another pair of dancers called kakko mai are dancing. Kakko is the name of the small drum attached to their waists which they don't actually play. Their movement do not mimic, but is synchronized with, that of the herons.

Behind the kakko mai, the musicians playing flute, cymbal, and drums sit or squat, and behind them stand the singers.

The dance takes place on July 20th and 27th, the start and end days of the Gion Matsuri in Tsuwano. It was probably introduced from nearby Yamaguchi in 1542. The Ouchi Clan who ruled much of western Japan had introduced a lot of culture and tradition from Kyoto including the sagimai.

It stopped being performed in Kyoto during the time of the Onin War in the 15th century when Kyoto was a smoldering ruin and the dance died out there. Later it also died out in Yamaguchi, leaving Tsuwano as the only site in Japan where the dance continued until modern times.

In the late 20th century the people of Tsuwano took the sagimai back to Kyoto and taught them the details. Nowadays it can be seen at Yasaka Shrine in Gion, though it would be best to be in possession of a powerful telephoto lense if you want to see much of anything.......

In 1958 Tsuwano created the Kosagi Odori, literally the Heron Chick Dance, as way to get the towns children involved , and it has now become a feature of the festival every year.

Young boys have recently taken part in the Chick Dance, a result of the dwindling population. In a similar vein, women have started to take part in the main Sagi Mai, though so far only as guards of the procession.

One final note,.... Herons are quite a few species of different birds, with the one represented in the sagimai most likely a Little Egret. There are several egret species in Japan, all white. What I would call a heron is the Grey Heron, called Ao Sagi, blue heron in Japanese, and the egret is shira sagi, white heron.