Grin Grin Park

Sometimes written Gurin Gurin, Grin Grin Park opened in 2005 on Island City, the artificial island in Hakata bay.

A series of connected forms, organically shaped, seem to emerge from the ground.

The structures are concrete and steel covered in glass and in places vegetation.

The spaces inside and under the structures contain plants of the area.

Grin Grin was designed by Toyo Ito who is often referred to as a visionary architect. Much is made of Grin Grin's supposed "eco" qualities, but as it is on an artificial island whose construction destroyed bio-diverse wetlands, I find it hard to see.

walkways snake up and over the structures.

entrance into the greenhouses is only 100 yen.

It was a few years ago when I visited, and maybe the growth of the vegetation has improved its appearance....

Buddhas, Jizo, and other statues of Kunisaki 3

The kunisaki Peninsular in northern Kyushu is home to a huge number of stone buddhist statues.

many are created by craftsmen and many are "folk".

I can usually recognize Jizo, Kannon, Fudo Myoo, and rakan, but others are still beyond my knowledge.

Not all of them are old.... these are Kannon, I believe, and were at a temple known as a "womans" temple.

Not sure who this guy is, but he is my kind of buddha!!

Gradually I am learning more about the huge diversity of gods and buddhas that populate Japanese buddhism.

These are the last I will post for now., next will be magaibutsu... carvings directly into cliffs and rocks. Kunisaki has more of these than any other area of japan.

Japanese Skink

Skinks are skittish creatures as well as being fast movers, but this guy got trapped inside a plastic bucket so I was able to photograph him/her.

The latin name is Plestiodon latiscutatus and apparently that is a fairly recent reclassification of the genus. In Japanese its called Nihon Tokage.

Juveniles and females have the distinctive metallic-blue tails...

Colorful Kawara

The original kawara, rooftiles, in Japan were I believe black, as are most of them nowadays. You can find a few bright blue examples which are traditional Chinese I believe.

Most of the tiles in my area are a reddish-brown which seems fairly common in the west of Japan, but nowadays you can get them in just about any color. These were on display outside a local tile factory that has now gone out of business.

There actually seems to be more colors available for rooftiles than there are for housepaint. Houses usually are painted in a very small range of colors.

Nagi Moca: Sun

The third and final section of the unique museum in Nagi is called "Sun" and is basically a huge cylinder set on a north south axis.

 

The artwork contained within is titled "heart" and is by artists Shusuka Arakawa and Madeline Gins. Entry into the cylinder is via a small room underneath. The walls are covered with photographic portraits by local residents of Nagi. A dark, enclosed spiral staircase leads up....

 

The interior of the cylinder is somewhat disorienting and playful, and at first the bright light from the end makes everything a silhouette and not at all clear. As one walks up to the end and look back it all becomes clearer.

 

The room contains a model of the famous zen garden from Ryoan-ji in Kyoto but also includes a reflection of it with radial symmetry, not mirror symmetry. 

The Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art in the mountains of Okayama is a unique experience created through a collaboration of the famous architect Arata Isozaki and several artists. The other two sections are called Earth, and Moon.

The view from the garden at 5am

The sun hits my riverside garden around 6am so I like to get as much work done in it before that.

In the countryside the PA plays its little jingle at 5am and 5pm, and while I see little point in getting up at 5am in the winter, in the summer it makes sense as it allows me to practise siesta.

Across the river gets the sun first.....

and then it hits the garden..... if it were a cloudy day i would work longer, but Im dripping with sweat by 6:30 so its time to head home for breakfast.

Back home in the valley it will be a few hours till the sun reaches over the mountains.... till then the mist slowly burns off....

Island Tower Sky Club

The Island Tower Sky Club is the tallest building in Fukuoka.

145 Meters tall with 42 floors it is an apartment building on island City, the man-made island in Hakata Bay.

It was designed by the Takenaka Corporation and opened in 2008

Buddhas, Jizo, & other statues of Kunisaki 2

This set of Jizo are quite unusual, not only in their facial expressions, but also in that they are ceramic and not the usual stone.

Often large groups of statues of different figures will be rakan, disciples of the Buddha.

I am not sure who this guy is, maybe one of you can tell me, but like many of the buddhist pantheon it seems to have its roots in Hinduism.

These look like Jizo, guardian of children among other identities. Possibly Mizuko Jizo for children who died before birth.

Once again, I have no idea who this pair are. maybe some of you know?

All of thesae photos were taken on the Kunisaki peninsular in Oita Prefecture, north Kyushu, one of my favorite places in japan and home to an enormous amount of statues, mostly of stone.

Genbu Shrine

Genbu Shrine is located north of the Imperial palace in Kyoto and was one of the 4 shrines for protection of the palace. It was built in the ninth century and originally enshrined a favorite sword of Prince Koretaka, a son of Emperor Montoku.

The name Genbu refers to the guardian animal of this direction, commonly represented as a turtle entwined by a snake.

The shrine is host on the second sunday of April to the Yasuraibana Matsuri based on hanashizume festivals which were held to ward of plagues.

There are two secondary shrines in the grounds, one to Inari and one to Miwa Myojin which is another name for the Miwa deity Okuninushi.

The tallest torii in japan

This really is the tallest torii in Japan, located in the town of Tanabe City in the mountains of wakayama.

It is made of steel and is 33.9 meters tall. It weighs 172 tons, and the top lintel is 42 meters wide.

The torii stands at the entrance to the original site of the Hongu Taisha Shrine that stood for more than 1,000 years on a sandbar where several rivers meet. In 1889 a disastrous flood destroyed the shrine and it was moved to its present hilltop site a few hundred meters away.

The torii and the associated hrine and the pilgrimage routes to the three Kumano shrines are now all a World Heritage Site.