The Grand Tour London Olympics Orbit

The Orbit is the iconic observation tower built for the 2012 London Olympics.

It is considered to be the biggest sculpture in Britain and is 114 meters high.

It was designed by artist Anish Kapoor, and from the observation deck there are expansive views over the Olympic Park and onto London.

Constructed out of 600 prefabricated "nodes" and held together with 35,000 bolts. In a bid to attract visitors post-Olympics, you can absail down the tower, and soon what is billed as the tallest and longest tunnel slide will be opened.

Critical reception has been largely negative, but I kind of like it, simple guy that I am, I'm easily impressed by spectacle.

Wakamitsu Inari Shrine

Wakamitsu Inari Shrine is located right next to Nose Hachimangu in Iizuka, Fukuoka Prefecture.

This is one of the most unusual fox statues I've seen,



I couldn't find a date for its establishment, though it is known that the cult of Inari became very popular in the Edo Period. Depending on how you define "shrine" either Inari, or the neighboring Hachiman are considered to be the most common shrines in Japan.

Interestingly, neither Hachiman nor Inari are mentioned in the Kojiki or Nihonshoki, and both have origins connected to the continent and also to Buddhism, but are now firmly identified with "native shinto".

Iwami Mandala Kannon Pilgrimage Temple 3 Fukujoji

Located just outside  Mononobe Shrine, Fukujoji, number three on the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage is just a small rural temple, however it has a large Kannon statue in the grounds.

It's a Pure Land sect temple, and the honzon is an Amida Buddha.

The Kannon statue was not erected and paid for by the temple per se, rather it was the parish womens group. There had been a lot of difficult and stillborn births in the area so the Kannon was for the local women to pray for safe and healthy childbirth.

Noso Hachimangu

Noso Hachimangu is the main shrine of Iizuka in Fukuoka. When I visited it was a few days before the new year and so the place was busy with people preparing for the busiest time of the year for most shrines.

The first record of the shrine, formerly known as Noso-Gu, is 1359, though legend has it that Jingu stopped here after returning from the Korean Peninsula.

There are some nice Tengu, Komainu, Zuijin etc.

As befitting a towns major shrine there are numerous subordinate shrines within the grounds, including several Ebisu shrines, a Gionsha, Tenmangu, Daijingu, Shiga, and a Sumiyoshi shrine.

The biggest secondary shrine is a Wakamitsu Inari, which will get its own post...

Senbazuru... Thousand Origami Cranes

Senbazuru, 1000 origami cranes strung together, are found all over Japan in various kinds of locations. They are very often done in multiple colors, and in fact kits to make them this way are very common.

Cranes were considered to live for a thousand years, hence each one represents a year. Dating back to the Edo Period, they were given as gifts for good luck to couples at weddings and new born babies etc.

Nowadays they are most strongly associated with Sadako Sasaki, the young Hiroshima girl who died from leukemia contracted from the radiation of the Hiroshima A bomb.

The Japanese Crane was though to be extinct, but has made a comeback though are still very rare and endagered. Edo Period cookbooks consistently ranked the crane as the best tasting bird for eating. These two facts may be related.

All these photos are from my recent walk around Shodoshima. The last photo shows senbazuru made out of metallic paper, but hung in a cave where soot from candles and lanterns have coated them.

Kyushu Pilgrimage Temple 11 Myokan-ji

Temple 11, Myokanji, is a small temple notable for its "zen" garden. The Honzon is a seated kannon that is supposed to be quite unusual, but unfortunately the main hall was locked up and there was no-one home when I visited.

Locally the temple is known for its acupuncture clinic. Being a Shingon temple, there were a couple of nice Fudo Myoo statues. Many of these smaller temples on the pilgrimage are in no way outstanding.

There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to pilgrimages. For many, especially those that drive or take tour buses, the emphasis is on the temples themselves. For those who walk, the emphasis is often more on the journey and the space between the temples.

For many who walk, there seems to be an attempt to complete the pilgrimage as quickly as possible as if it is some sort of a race. For me, I like to take my time and keep my eyes open.....

Hiwasa Hachiman Shrine

In the morning of the tenth day of my walk along the Shikoku Pilgrimage I came into the small fishing port and town of Hiwasa. Right next door to a museum displaying information about the turtles who lay eggs in the area was the local Hachiman Shrine.

It was not a very big shrine, but had the usual collection of big trees, komainu, shimenawa, ema, zuijin, etc, some of which are shown here. However there were 7 very large storage sheds, each of which held a "chosa", a kind of matsuri float often translated as Taiko Yattai. Each one weighed more than ton and held a taiko drum and several drummers. They are carried on  huge frames made of giant bamboo measuring about 6 x 6 meters.

Each chosa is carried by members of each of the seven communities that make up the town, and along with the mikoshi are paraded around the shrine grounds before being carried down to the sea into which they are dipped to ensure good fortune for the fishermen.

The Hiwasa Hachiman Aki Matsuri takes pleace each October.

The Garden at Myokanji

I came to an appreciation of the Japanese garden quite late. The first two years I lived in Japan I was in Kyoto which reputedly has a large number of highly ranked gardens, but I didnt visit any of them.

Like many people, I think my favorite style is karesansui, the dry gardens of rock and sand.

This one is at Myokani, a small temple in Iizuka, Fukuoka Prefecture, and doesnt appear in any lists of gardens to see, but I found it quite appealing.

Karesansui is strongly associated with Zen, though I believe they were imported from China a little before Zen and the use of white gravel has been attributed to a Shinto influence. Myokanji is not a Zen temple, rather a Shingon one, but it may have been Zen in earlier times though I have been unable to find a date for the garden.

More Hagi Teramachi

The temple district, Teramachi, in Hagi is not on the main tourist route in the town but is well worth a visit if you are in Hagi for more than one day. There are a few historical buildings, a maze of narrow lanes, and of course temples... a few of which I have already posted about.

Kaichoji is a fairly large temple with an impressive gate, but what is interesting is the main hall which was originally built as a Confucian shrine. It was located at the Meirinkan, the domain school that revered Confucius. After the temple burned down in 1874 they purchased the hall and rebuilt it here as the temples main hall.

Red-bibbed Jizo abound, as do cemeteries. In my area graves are built behind houses, but in many places in Japan they are located at temples.

One can often see huge pyramids composed of gravestones, usually belonging to people who no longer have an living relatives in the area to care for them. These quite large, smooth rocks are unmarked and are I believe marker stones to unknown people.

Kyushu Pilgrimage Temple 12 Kinsoji

Kinsoji is a relatively modern temple, not being founded until 1914. Its location is right behind the Kibune Shrine in Iizuka that was very popular with boatmen on the two river forks that run nearby and I suspect that may have had something to do with it.

No-one was home when I visited so I couldn't get inside to see the Fudo Myo enshrined there. It is known locally as Chiri Kiri Fudo, and as best as I can ascertain it was prayed to to prevent "convulsions", in this sense I think it means fits of temper by babies. It also prevented children from running awaya from home.

It was a very small temple and hard to find as it looks just like a house. The giveaway was the Fudo Myo statue outside.

The Big Freeze

It had been a very, very mild winter so far. I'd already bought seed potatoes for planting. Then winter came. We get a fair amount of snow usually, but the next day it melts. maybe once a winter we will get a heavy snowfall that stays around for a few days.

This year it snowed for a week and temperatures didn't get above freezing. As happens regularly when the weather is anything other than normal, ie if it rains a lot, is very windy, etc, the local train line stops running.

This year many places in the area suffered from burst pipes. It happens sometimes, but this year it happened a lot. Even some of the mains burst and people are still without water. We had a couple of burst pipes as our water lines are outside, but lots of people had burst pipes indoors. Most Japanese houses are not very warm.

Didn't stop the monkeys though, they need to eat and so a quick trip to our gardens was in order...

Latest Masks

The two latest masks I completed. Every winter I have a rather optimistic plan to finish lots of new masks. Summers are too humid to make them as everything stays soft and doesn't dry properly. As usual the universe conspires to give me so many chores to do that I don't get the time I want on my masks.

These are two of the most popular of my masks. The customer has been waiting for them for a year. Obviously a very patient man, but he did say that my masks were worth waiting for. Sucker for flattery that I am. The garden will be demanding my time in a moon or two, but hopefully I will get time now for some new masks. I have been trying to finish a couple of Kitsune masks for three years now......

Buy Handmade Masks From Japan