Kasuisai temple in Fukuroi

While on the 2nd of January the visit to the temple was for wishing for a good year, yesterday we took Ken out to a couple of interesting temples out in Fukuroi for the purpose of sightseeing. Ritsy knew nothing about either temple but I had seen the signs for the two temples near one of the places that I teach at.
The first stop for the day was Kasuisai temple. The walk just before the temple you could see this interesting building with two beautiful statues bookmarking the door.
Naturally Ken was primed for sleeping by the time we got there.

The actual temple was nestled in the hillside and had a payoff of a beautiful cozy temple that was reachable with minimal walking.This temple had one of them cool giant shovels.
And the giant that crafted the shovel must have left his giant sandal behind as well.
As we walked away, quite satisfied with the discovery of this lovely little place, I was quite taken by this interesting guardian statue.
We then continued on to our next destination, also in Fukuroi- Yusanji.

New Years 2008

This picture just worked better in Black/White

One of the big traditions in Japan at New Years time is the trip to the temple to pray for good luck in the coming year. While Ritsy and I are not really religious people, we do believe that it doesn't hurt to just not tempt fate, be respectful to life, nature and to ask for safe passage. I do think it didn't work out too well for me last year, with the numerous trips to Temples in Nara- and my leg still got fractured so close to my baby's birth...
But we decided to lug little Ken out to Gansuiji temple on the 2nd. As I believe I mentioned, the temple is very popular for praying for babies, so it was a good fit. The other key point being that Gansuiji is so close to our home. Ken looked quite amused up to this point.
It was a pretty nasty cold day though, so we had to hurry along to do our business. At the front gate, they had their traditional New Years decorations out.
We went to the main shrine and said our Pleases and Thank yous. The shrine was decorated by a number of very colorful flags (not sure what the relevance is) and a thousand paper cranes as shown in the next picture.
Finally we had to hurry back to the car as Ken was not too happy about the cold weather, and I can't say that I blame him. It was pretty nasty.

My picks for the top 10 posts from 2007

One of the great things about keeping a blog is that there is a quick reference of the things that happen in our lives. Though it turned out to be quite time consuming (mental note, shorter posts) it was quite interesting to see the highs and lows of the year. A lot happened and it's always tough to say one post is better than another, but I tried my hardest.All you need to do is click on the title to relive each memory with me (and then the back button on your browser to continue on), here we go;

To Start we'll go with my pick for the worst post of 2007;

A Normal Post While it was actually a pretty special post, it was the first time I mentioned the imminent arrival of Ken, I also thought it would be funny to do up a picture in Photoshop combining elements or Ritsy's face and my face (and my nephew Mac's body). The end result was like Frankenstein's monster and probably severely traumatized some readers. So, it gets the worst of 2007 award.

Now the best picks;
10. A funny thing Fracturing your leg while playing basketball is not what many would consider good news to break (ouch! pun not intentional)- but this makes the list because of its relevance to my life. It was a pretty monumental happening!

9. A concert There was a few good party posts last year. A couple with Manami and Tet-chan's family and a couple at my student Josh's house. This one makes the list because it was quite a nice and unique musical show with a fantastic setting! Later Josh gave me a CD with the recording of the performance- a great touch.

8. Japanese Beauty At times I have been known to ramble. But every now and then a pearl of wisdom comes from this tendency. Japanese Beauty is very beautiful and speaks of the ways in which I appreciate Japanese culture- I can't believe that it was actually I that wrote it!

7. Princesses and Cherry Blossoms A nice post simply because of some beautiful pictures. 'nuff said.

6. Pete and Mari's wedding At the beginning of last year Pete and Mari had their wedding party locally. It was really interesting time and there was some nice pictures.

5. Lillooet This was my second Lillooet posting but I liked this one a little better as I took a little more of a humorous approach in recounting my story. Though some of the humour may be better understood if you read the first one too. And it really does look like the tv is eating him I think....

4. The Tokyo Series As there were a few series this year I tried to pick the best post from each group. The first was the trip to Tokyo. I picked this one because of the pictures of the old Kabuki theater in Ginza that apparently will be torn down. Beautiful looking building though.
3. Ise Another of my trips this year back in August. Man it was hot- and Ritsy was having a bit of the morning sickness still on the boat- but it was a great couple of days up there- and it's just great to explore Japan really. My choice had my favorite pictures from Ise, though I was actually torn between this one and the old shopping street.

2. Aunt and Mom's Visit Sorry ladies, you will have to settle for second place! It was awesome to show the ladies around Japan a bit, and selfishly I was able to see a lot of stuff I haven't seen before. There were actually a lot of great pictures from the series- but I'll go with my favorite location Todaiji- the home of the great Buddha in Nara. Honorable mentions go out to Kohfukuji and Hatasan in Fukuroi.
1. Ken Of course the arrival of your baby- especially your first is just a special moment- and I took a lot of time and recorded the events leading up to his birth quite nicely.

There it is the highlights of my blog world for 2007.

Now it's time to build a new year of memories.

Koshinji

Going back to early August, I had made a couple of attempts to hop on my bike and take some pictures of some local points of interest. One of the days was a write-off, as it involved walking through overgrown forest paths that I was not comfortable traveling through wearing shorts, I will return to those locations one day though....

I did have one successful trip however. On the drive up one of the main roads leading up to my home (Route 152), I had noticed a street sign pointing towards Koshinji temple- actually only about 4- 5 kms from my home. My thinking is that if the place has a sign it must be a point of interest to some people, so I decided to check it out.
The temple is located next to a local sake brewery called Hananomai, you can see their storefront in the forefront of this picture. In the back is the torii leading into the temple.
The temple grounds are actually pretty small, and though not special the area is charming in it's quiet atmosphere and neatly kept area. Directly to the left on entering stands the above statue in the pond.
Throughout the area was a number of old carved stones. Really makes me wish I could read what they said.
Upon leaving I found this interesting small, quaint, old-fashioned looking store front.

It was a nice and peaceful adventure and I was happy to find the payoff on this little exploratory trip.

{Blogger has added functionality to upload videos directly to the site, so I am trying a little experiment here. This is more pictures and video that I took from my camera!}

Guess what? More Ise- Okage Yokocho

The evening of our arrival, we finally settled down to rest after an interesting journey and a delicious dinner. The fun didn't end there- I was excited to see this very old TV, I believe it was the first model ever sold in Mie Prefecture...
As this is a family blog, I will spare you the details as to why Ritsy had to make this mask- let's just say there was no fan in the restroom...
The next morning we had a nice breakfast and headed back to the Naiku gate region to check out the ancient looking shopping road known as Okage Yokocho. Apparently according to the link Okage means appreciation- so the road is the road of appreciation leading up to the ancient temple.
All of the shops have an ancient Japan feeling and it was really quite cool to walk down and get a taste of what an old shopping hub would look like in Japan. Naturally we couldn't walk all the way to the end as Ritsy, of course, has a bit of an extra load to carry and got tired pretty quickly.
The area is famous for it's rice cakes covered in sweet bean paste (if you have been to Japan you know that a lot of places are famous for a similar combination) called aka fuku. I thought it must mean red clothes, but I have been told it means Red Luck. Either way, we bought it and enjoyed it later. The above picture is the main headquarters for AkaFuku.
Finally, I liked the visual effect of standing under this loosely-woven straw roof. the light effect actually made me feel like I might be standing in Cambodia or Thailand or something like that. I have never been to either place so I am not sure why I had that feeling.

Our time in Ise had drawn to an end and it was time to head back home. We did make one stop off before hopping on the ferry- so stay tuned for Toba Aquarium Highlights...

Ise part 3- Revenge of the Ise

After replenishing our liquids we hopped on a bus across town to the other main location of Ise Jingu- known as Naiku. From getting off the bus we could tell that this was the more popular of the two locations as it is a much bigger area and there were a lot more people.
To enter we must first cross this bridge which tempts us with a glimpse of green scenery.
Here the gods are smiling on Ritsy and baby as they stand under the large tree.
These trees really impressed me with their positive outlook (get it? They are looking up!).
Unexpectedly, Ritsy launched into a picture taking war with me. Naturally I won with this great shot.
Much like Geku we had to scrape for glimpses of the interesting ancient buildings, here a couple of buildings tease us through the cover of the trees.
Finally the walk out was lined with bonsai trees completing the entire Japanese feeling of the setting. Actually we walked the course backwards though, this should have been the beginning walk. Oh well, we make our own rules!

An Ise tale continued

It's been nine days since posting! What has happened? Well I have just been busy! It's been an amazing last week or so, my company classes really filled out for August and partially for September (thanks Satomi and Time Life gang!) and it really felt great to have a productive week. The unfortunate thing is that I had little time to sit in front of the PC. I will try to get back on track now.

Our first day in Ise continues... Our Japanese style inn was very close to one of the 2 areas for Ise Jingu- known as Geku. We headed out pretty quickly and we were quickly impressed with the overall neatness and the always present serenity of the area(as you will know if you read the Nara posts).
All the buildings looked incredibly old (in a cool way). Indeed the area is very old- looks like it was originating in the late 5th century if I read this signpost and cross reference to the emperor mentioned correctly. {Wikipedia has a bit of a deeper analyses on the shrines} The thing that interested me is how neatly the rocks are arranged, you can see in the above picture the contrast between the white and the grey rocks.
Unfortunately the coolest looking places were blocked out. No photographs, and even through the archway, we couldn't see the area to it's fullest extent. The buildings and areas were quite beautiful and thusly even more frustrating that we couldn't see them a little closer.
This day turned out to be the hottest day on record in some cities in Japan (thankfully not in Ise where we were)- it hit 40.9 degrees in Gifu Prefecture. All the same, it was incredibly hot and by time we finished at Geku- we needed to cool off, so we hit this restaurant's tea room for a drink and a dose of air conditioning before moving on to Naiku, the other area.

An Ise tale: Part 1

I have no idea why, but I didn't blog once during my six days off! I thought that a lot would be written in that time, but I guess I decided to just lay low and enjoy the free time. One issue is probably the heat, the other day we recorded a record heat in Japan - 40.9 degrees. Luckily not in Hamamatsu, but it sure feels like it to me!
The other day, Ritsy treated me to a trip to Ise in Mie prefecture for a late birthday present. We can actually drive over there, but there is, in fact, a ferry that we can take that covers less distance for the trip (but takes more time because of waiting time - we had to wait 2 sailings). Anyway, the ferry sounded nice as I enjoy travelling by boat, so it was quite a nice way to travel.
At last, we were off! You can see how the dock looks on this clear day as we set sail. Very beautiful day.
This post has lots of Ritsy pics- here she is Hangin' Tough by the railing of the boat.
And finally she got to rest, this picture really shows how much she is showing now! Junior is well on the way now...
Finally we arrived at our accomodation, a really old looking ryokan, that in some ways was incredibly cool because of it's old look. The room was comfortable enough and they really redeemed themselves with that evenings' food offerings. We enjoyed a 12 piece meal (far too much, honestly) that included Matsuzaka beef, Ise Ebi (also known as lobster) fresh scallop and more- it was in incredible meal!

More next time...

Living it up at the Hotel Gansuiji...

This is a bit of a leftover topic I never got around to reporting on because of all the excitement with people visiting in April. There is a local temple called Gansuiji that is famous for praying for new babies and ceremonies for good luck for new infants. You can even pay them about $50 to choose your child's name for you- I am sure it is a great honour for some families, but I tend to think part of the fun of having a baby is coming up with the name. We went there in early April, to pray for good luck for our future child as we aren't spring chickens and we thought it doesn't hurt to play it safe. Well unfortunately they said that we should come back around the 5 month mark- it was too early for them to offer their prayers.
The temple is located on the side of my old enemy- Forest Park and so the entire scenery surrounding the temple is quite beautiful. Here a statue suggests a well traveled man arriving at the temple (although this is only my interpretation).
In the outlying area there stands this weather- ravished looking old hut. It brings me to wondering how this thing was still standing, looks like if you breathe too heavily it will topple.
I saw an interesting place that I wanted a picture of, so I returned there a few weeks later to take the picture.
Turns out to have been a great choice as when I returned the Cherry blossoms were in full bloom lending even more beauty to this quiet little area.
I found this hotel immensely interesting with it's all cement decor making it look like something out of a Stephen King movie. The sad fact is that it was probably a poor business idea as it looks like it's a long time closed now.