Vacation 2010 Day 11: King's College Chapel

While I was in Cambridge I took one of the guided walking tours on offer so I could get inside the chapel at King's College.

It has the largest fan vault ceiling in the world as well as some wonderful stained glass.

Construction began in 1446 and it took more than a century to complete, spanning the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III, Henry VII, and Henry VIII.

The Master Mason John Wastell was the architect of the ceiling which was constructed in just 3 years. It has been called "the noblest stone ceiling in existence".

The superb organ dates from the 17th Century.

The chapel escaped damage during WWII but the stained glass was removed and repaired as a precautionary measure.

The detailing is also incredible.

Inaka Ilumi

Uzui is a tiny village up in the mountains near to the border with Hiroshima Prefecture.

If there is more than 100 people in the village I would be surprised.

It does, however, have a railway station, on the Sanko Line, the line that follows the Gonokawa River past my village. 5 trains a day in each direction.

The station is not actually IN the village, rather above the village. 6 stories above.

Incidentally, there is no escalator, only stairs.

This last weekend Uzui hosted "Inaka Ilumi", and the station and other places around the village were lit up.

It may not match the illuminations of places like Kobe, Disneyland, or the new Tokyo Sky Tree, but it was fun and a surprising number of people visited.

As well as the station, the 4 little bridges across the stream were lit up, several paddies had illuminated domes in them, the forest at various points up the valley were floodlight, and even the stream itself had strings of lights floating on it.

Asuka Nimasu Shrine

Asuka Nimasu Shrine in Asuka, the ancient capital of early Japan is a very old shrine and is one of the possible sources of the name of Asuka.

The three main kami enshrined here are Kotoshironushi, Takamimusubi, and Kayanarumi.

Kotoshironushi is an Izumo kami, one of Okuninushi's sons, nowadays equated with Ebisu. Kayanarumi is a daughter of Kotoshironushi, and Takamimusubi is one of the three "creator" kami. In some versions of the Kuniyuzuri myth that explains the ceding of Japan from Okuninushi to the Yamato, it is Takamimusubi who orders the process and not Amaterasu, and in fact Ninigi who descends to rule over Japan is the grandson of both Amaterasu and Takamimusubi.

Kayanarumi is the most interesting of the three, and an alternate name for her is Asuka no Kannabi mi Hime no kami, and this relates to what happened after Kuniyuzuri. Okuninushi decided to place himself and several of his relatives in the Kannabi (sacred mountains) surrounding Yamato, and Kayanarumi was placed in a mountain in Asuka, so it seems likely that she was the original main kami of the shrine.

There are a lot of secondary shrines within the grounds, enshrining Onamuchi (the name of Okuninushi enshrined in nearby Miwa), Oyamazumi, an Asuka Yamaguchi Shrine, and Sarutahiko.

There is also an Inari Shrine, one for Konpira, one for Daijingu, and one for Shirahige, a Korean god brought over with immigrants who settled in the Lake Biwa area.

When we look at some of the things for sale in the small office of the shrine it becomes clear what the focus of the shrine is,..... fertility!

This is a male/female sake cup.

The shrine is home to a famous matsuri, the Onda matsuri, which includes a performance with masked dancers that includes explicit representations of the sex act.

Japanese Marten

I found this little guy recently stretched out on the road. It wasnt squished and I couldnt see any injury, so maybe he died of a heart attack!

Its a Japanese marten, Ten in Japanese, (martus melampus).

The first time I saw one was back when we first moved to the village. Someone gave us a single hen to raise for eggs, and one night I heard a commotion so went outside with a flashlight to check and caught a marten exiting the coop with the dead hen clamped in its jaws.

It ran off into the forest and a few minutes later I heard 2 different animals screaming at each other, so some other forest critter that likes chicken was obviously trying to take it from the marten.

Korakuen

Korakuen garden in Okayama City is ranked one of the top 3 gardens in Japan.

With its large lawns it is more like a park than a usual Japanese garden.

Earlier I posted on some of the details in the garden as well as the Lotus blossoming.

In the 133,000 square meters of garden are 6 shrines, tea houses, an archery range, several ponds, various groves, bridges, waterfalls, a greehouse with cactii, and a crane aviary.

The garden was completed in 1700 for the pleasure of the local Daimyo whose castle overlooks the garden.

The garden is open from 8 to 5 and entrance is 350yen. There are two entrances, one from the castle, and one from the south.

Yanai Kingyo Chochin Matsuri

Yanai Goldfish Lantern Festival

When I first saw these drain covers in Yanai, a small town on the south coast of Yamaguchi Prefecture, I wondered what relevance owls had to the town. But, it turns out they are of course not owls, but goldfish, or goldfish lanterns to be exact.

Goldfish lanterns are a local craft product, so its not surprising that the towns annual matsuri features them. On August 13th every year the town holds its Kingyo Chochin Matsuri when teams parade with extra-large versions of the lanterns on floats.

Before and after the matsuri the town is decorated with more than 2,000 regular sized goldfish lanterns.

Access - Getting There

Yanai is located on the JR Sanyo Line between Hiroshima and Tokuyama (both of which are on the Shinkansen line).

Hachiman Asami Shrine

The Hachiman Shrine in the Asami district in the south of Beppu City is the tutelary shrine of the town, and was founded in the 12th Century.

The entrance is flanked by two ancient cedars and the local tradition says that if a couple walk together between the trees they will be married.

Hachiman shrines, in Kyushu at least, tend to have retained more of their earlier decoration and are often painted a a dark red, rather than the vermillion associated with imperial or Inari shrines.

Since the Heian Period the kami nof Hachiman shrines have been equated with the legendary Emperor Ojin, and the kami are usually listed as Ojin, his mother Jingu, and father Chuai. Sometimes Ojins wife is listed too.

Now called the God of War, Hachiman has had a multitude of varying identities. The best resource in English on Hachiman is the American researcher Ross Bender, and many of his papers can be found here

The shrine has various interesting things within its grounds, some unusual-shaped stones in the walkway, a pure water spring, a treasure house

This huge camphor tree is said to be over 1,000 years old.

There are several sub-shrines in the grounds, but have been unable to find out exactly which kami they enshrine.

2010 garden report

Garden

I was more conscientious with my gardening this year. I'm usually quite a lazy gardener.I spent a lot more time with preparation and weeding. I might as well have spent my time playing pachinko. Unseasonable weather and hungry critters really took their toll. Yields of most crops were down to 10% at times.

Millet did OK, but the grains were much smaller than last year.

Hung the black beans up to dry last week. Late as usual.

Went out about an hour later and there was a bloody great monkey helping himself.

An hour later he returned with some of his buddies but by then I was stripping the pods from the plants and bringing them indoors to dry. The wild boar have been much more troublesome this year too. They took some of my taro and sweet potatoes, so I dug them up early, but the boars still came back most nights and rooted around in the gardens causing damage. The sweet potato crop was good again this year though, and its nice to pop a couple in the dutch oven on the woodstove each evening for a late night snack.

Typical Japanese Landscape 28

The industrial "heartland" of Japan extends primarily from North Kyushu along the Pacific Coast up to the Tokyo area. This is where most Japanese now live.

These shots are taken in Tokuyama, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and I have no idea what is produced or manufactured here.

Akaoni (red demon) masks of Kunisaki

Since I started to make masks myself I have become interested in searching out examples of older, wooden masks.

Shrines are a good place as many of them have old masks on display.

The red demon is often paired with the white demon.

All of these masks were at shrines on the Kunisaki peninsular in Oita Prefecture, northern Kyushu.

You can see a couple of my red demon masks here.