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Odawara Castle wall during cherry blossom season
I have been through the Odawara Station many times, but I have never made it to the castle itself. Today’s photo was taken by my better half when she met up with some other TIS moms for an outing while the sakura was blossoming (first week of April).
Oslo Harbor in July after 9 p.m.
I took today’s photo last Thursday night in Norway. The weather was really good in Oslo. The colors in this picture are in large part due to the slowly setting sun. This far north, the sun doesn’t set in July until nearly midnight. Although this image may look like it was taken in late afternoon, it was actually taken at 9:12 p.m. with a fast shutter speed (1/320 of a second) because it was so light out still.
In the background, on the left, you can see Akershus Slott, Oslo’s medieval castle.
While the western media continues to fuel a panic, resulting in the USA and Britain now joining the French who immediately panicked, the cherry blossoms around Odawara Castle prepare to blossom.
Meanwhile, the levels of radiation in Tokyo remain about the same as they were back in December. Below 60 is normal. As of this writing, Tokyo sits below 20, yet the panic intensifies thanks to a media looking for ratings.
In my neck of the woods, the fear and panic isn’t much better. Stores in Oregon are reporting a run on potassium iodine tablets, leaving the shelves empty. Never mind that radiation from the equivalent of 1,000 Chernobyls was released closer to Oregon (mostly in the Pacific Ocean) during the nuclear testing of the 1950s and 1960s and taking potassium iodine wasn’t necessary then either.
Where are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert when you need them? It’s time for another rally.
The setting for my first picture in this series was the grounds of Maizuru Castle Park. Shingen’s troops gathered here before heading off in their regiments for the “parade.” The atmosphere was very good. The weather was fine, Mt. Fuji loomed in the background, and the samurai were getting drunk before heading off to battle (the pavement of Kofu’s streets).
The Japanese guy above was enjoying the mood as well. I was merely taking an incognito picture of his group when he spotted me and performed this “charge.” It was actually more of a pose than a charge, but I appreciated his willingness to provide a nice action shot for my camera without actually impaling me.
Let’s not forget this was a festival and not a battle reenactment. Therefore, there was plenty of yakisoba, takoyaki, and the like to be had, as well as monkeys doing tricks and other matsuri standards.
The guy in the middle of this group, with the tall helmet, is the president of his company and represented one of Takeda Shingen’s generals on horseback later in the evening. I chatted with him for a while earlier and had my picture taken with him. Photos of people like me in regular clothes with those of Japanese in samurai gear don’t look right though.
As each of the 24 regiments left the castle grounds they gave a battle shout like the one you can see in the above video I took. Some groups were more serious than others. Applause at the end seemed a little… wrong.
After all of the festivities at Takeda Jinja I planned to catch a bus down to the station to walk Kofu’s shopping district streets for the first time in ages. However, the bus was so loaded with people thinking the same thing that I opted to walk back down Takeda Dori. The other people at the bus stop went the sardine route.
I purchased a bento on Takeda Dori and ate it at a deserted shrine closer to the bottom of the hill. A bit farther along was an empty temple (pictured above) called Manzoin (満蔵院). Manzoin doesn’t appear to be well cared for at the moment.
The streets of Kofu seem to have changed in the past couple decades as I don’t remember the bridge that goes over the tracks being there. The top photo in yesterday’s blog entry is from the new bridge.
Instead of heading for the shopping area, I was drawn to Maizuru Castle Park (舞鶴城公園), just over the bridge, which is extremely different than it was in the 1980s. I remember the place as a fairly small park with some cherry trees. Now it is a partially reconstructed castle, sometimes called the Kofu Castle.
Most of the buildings and fortress walls are new, or at least I think they are new. I don’t remember them.
Great views of Kofu and Mt. Fuji can be had from the top. These banners are advertising the Shingenko Matsuri (信玄公祭り or Takeda Shingen Festival). The irony is that Kofu’s original castle was built after Takeda Shingen was dead. Shingen died in 1573. The castle was built in 1583 by Tokugawa Ieyasu after he defeated Shingen’s son in battle. Needless to say, Takeda Shingen never flew banners from the top of it. But they looked pretty cool on this evening anyway.
Why are these two photographers pointing their camera at me and taking my picture? Have they never seen a gaijin before?
Actually they probably couldn’t even see me. They are taking pictures of Himeji Castle. I was in the top room taking pictures from quite a distance with maximum zoom. I didn’t even realize I had captured a couple of photographers looking my way until I offloaded the pictures onto my computer and cropped out much of the image.