Themes

Gion Matsuri was started to pray for an end of a epidemic in 869.

July 17th, three gods from Yasaka Shrine visit the city to stay. And the citizen welcome the gods with the parade of 32 floats. Each float has been operated and owned by community of its home district for over 500 years.

These gods stay at Otabisho, the lodging shrine in the city for a week in order to prevent the epidemics in this hot and humid season. On July 24th, they leave the city and back to their home shrine.

The season of cherry blossoms is only a few weeks in a year. In these days, people can see cherry blossoms everywhere in the country.

In Japan, April 1 is the day of beginning of the first semester of schools and the fiscal year of offices. So new students and new employees begin thier new lives in hopes and fears under the cherry blossoms.

Every Japanese has some memories concerning cherry blossoms. That is reason why the most of old people love to see the cherry blossoms.

Pagoda (or ,more strictly,'Stupa') is a simbol of Buddhism. Originally, pagoda is the burial of the remains of Buddha. But the remains of Buddha is not enough to share among all Buddhist temples around the world. So the most of pagodas has precious stones in places of remains.

In Japan, five storied pagodas are not only simbols of each temples but also landmarks of some old cities and towns like Kyoto and Nara.

Gion Matsuri was started to pray for an end of a epidemic in 869.

July 17th, three gods from Yasaka Shrine visit the city to stay. And the citizen welcome the gods with the parade of 32 floats. Each float has been operated and owned by community of its home district for over 500 years.

These gods stay at Otabisho, the lodging shrine in the city for a week in order to prevent the epidemics in this hot and humid season. On July 24th, they leave the city and back to their home shrine.

This is a cat-egory for cats.
I love cats. I don't know why, I prefer them to dogs. Because they are always thinking something (or nothing?) and living in their own way. I like to see cats sleeping. A humanbeing sleeps for tomorrow. But a cat sleeps for sleeping.

Kobe is one of the few examples of historically multi-cultural city in Japan. It was opend as a international seaport when the country was opend to the world by the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Today there still exist communities of residents from several cultural spheres such as China, India, Islam, Jewish and Vietnam. You can see a Mosque near a Synagogue in Kobe.

Obama city is a small port town on the north coast of Japan. It is known with its rich historical monuments.

On a quiet bay, Obama was a good sea port from prehistoric age and there came ships from Asian continent. Because it is near from the Nara-Kyoto area where was the centre of ancient empire, Obama became a center of cultural contact with Korea and North East China. So there are many historical monuments that was influenced by the Sino-Korean culture and the Nara-Kyoto culture.

Kamo-Gawa (Kamo River) runs through the heart of Kyoto. It has been one of the symbols of this old city for 1200years.

Sometimes, the bank of this river was the execution ground. Sometimes it was an open-air theater for the Kabuki drama. And sometimes it was a SAKE garden. And today, it is a place of recreation as a park for the people of Kyoto.

It is said that majority of Japanese people are Buddhists -- and are Shintoists at once. In fact, for the common people, both of two religions have been marged into the syncretic and rustic folk religion.

I want to say that famous "Zen" was a religion for cultural elites. I think you may find the true "Japanese spirituality" in this good old nameless folk religion....