I have yet to get past part one in my Suwa Jinja Matsuri series. Someday I’ll return to those pics. Fast forward six months to a neat-sky Sunday in February. I was out for a walk with my camera and decided to visit this Shinto shrine again to see if there were any plum blossoms on the grounds. There weren’t, but the sky made for some good photos anyway.

Normally you approach a shrine from the front, passing under the torii. I came from a park in the back (which is the order of today’s pictures). The kids’ park has been overrun with homeless men. There wasn’t a kid in the place, but there were about a half dozen homeless men hanging out or sleeping in their makeshift, blue-tarp, tent homes.

Ironically, there were boy scouts putting away their own tents on the shrine grounds when I arrived. A chain-link fence was the only thing between the homeless campers and the boy scout campers who were about to head home. I thought it was a strange scene. I wonder if the boy scouts or the homeless dudes felt the same way.

At last I exited, through the normal entrance.

Posted on March 3rd, 2010 under Japan. Tags: clouds, japan pictures, shinto, skywatch, torii. Comments: None

Last week, hoping to see a bit of snowy Japan, we headed north to Nikko for a night. Ironically, the night before we left, Tokyo experienced its first real snow of the winter. The way there was beautiful, with the snow covering shitamachi in Asakusa and extending all the way to Nikko.

We purchased a Tobu Nikko World Heritage Pass, which saved us several thousand yen. Some sites on the internet say you need to show your passport with your “visitor visa” in order to obtain the pass and prove you are not residing in Japan. However, I could find nothing on Tobu’s site stating such. They didn’t ask for our passports or any proof so I suppose this restriction of “foreigner’s only” is either no longer the case or not enforced.

The top photo is of Shinkyo (神橋), one of the first things we saw upon arrival in Nikko. I’m sure it looks great in any season, but I thought it was very nice with fresh snow.

The Sacred Stables (厩神 or umayagami) can be found on the grounds of the Toshogu Shrine (東照宮). I didn’t realize the place was so famous until doing a little research after our trip as no one was taking pictures of it, even though I thought it was lovely in the snow. Actually, there were few people period, which is probably very unusual for Toshogu. A weekday in the dead of winter is a good time to avoid the crowds (and be very cold in the process).

Why is umayagami famous? Because of this:

The oldest rendition of the “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil” monkeys (三猿) can be found here.

Posted on February 10th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: japan pictures, nikko. Comments: 1

As mentioned a couple days ago, Tokyo experienced some January temperatures in the 60s (upper teens by local Celsius measures). To celebrate, I took another of the Day Walks Near Tokyo. Walk #9 is called Tama River.

Most of the content in the book about this walk is too dated to be useful. For starters, the book (copyright 1992) states the Komiya Station (小宮駅) has only one exit. Sometime in the past 18 years, a second exit was added to the station, and, of course, that happened to be the one I took which left me instantly lost for the first of a dozen or more times during the day.

Eventually, I found myself in the neighborhood pictured in today’s entry. Parts of this neighborhood didn’t exist in 1992 (although much of the above photo probably did), but this area is along the route of the suggested hike.

There is now a firefighter training center near the Tama River (多摩川), and a group of kids were on a field trip to watch the action.

Did I mention the weather was lovely? You can see part of the kotatsu (炬燵) in this home, but the residents wouldn’t need to use it on this warm day.

Posted on January 27th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: hiking, japan pictures, people. Comments: None

Before actually getting on the trail, the road from Kori Station (古里駅) to the dirt path is very scenic.

There are thatched-roof houses, small farms, and colors galore.

After turning to the right, you will begin to climb. The views don’t last long as after a few hundred steps you will be in the trees for at least a couple of hours.

If you can’t read kanji, and are doing this hike without a Japanese person with you, you’ll want a list of what a few dozen kanji mean. The trails are well marked for the most part, but you can easily get lost if you take a wrong turn. The signs don’t have any romaji on them. There are many junctions, some going off in more than a half dozen different directions.

Posted on November 24th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: buildings, hiking, japan pictures, japanese maple, mt. mitake, signs, thatch roof. Comments: None