Geisha Neck (Kyoto, Japan)

A geisha‘s neck is left with two “V” shaped lines unpainted. On some special occasions, like when a maiko (future geisha) debuts, three lines are left unpainted. This is supposed to make the neck even more erotic. What do you think? Does it work?

Technically, since I was in Kyoto when I took the above photograph, I should refer to her as a geiko (or maiko). For all I know, though, she was just a tourist who paid to have the makeup and outfit for the day.

Posted on November 4th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: geisha, japan pictures, kyoto. Comments Off on The Geisha Neck

The Seibu Lions have advanced to the Japanese World Series. They are playing against the Tokyo Giants for the championship. Currently the series is even at a game a piece. If you can read a bit of Japanese then check out the latest here. Play resumes on Tuesday at Seibu Dome where the above picture was taken last year. Female cheerleaders come out and do their thing in the seventh or eighth inning in Japan. Then the fans fire off thousands of balloons. And this was for a regular old game, not the playoffs. I can’t imagine what happens when they turn things up a notch for the Japan Series.

Posted on November 3rd, 2008 under Japan. Tags: baseball, japan pictures, seibu lions, tokorozawa. Comments: 2

“I ran. It was fantastic how far I ran without stopping to rest. I can’t even remember what places I passed. I must have… run up the mountain path that was bordered by bamboo grass and azalea and reached the top of Mount Hidari Daimonji. Yes, it was surely on top of Mount Hidari Daimonji that I lay down on my back in the bamboo field in the shadow of the red pines and tried to still the fierce beating of my heart. This was the mountain that protected the Golden Temple from the north.” (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, p. 261)

Posted on November 1st, 2008 under Japan. Tags: japan pictures, kyoto, yukio mishima, 金閣寺. Comments Off on Daimonji 大文字

“[Yoshimitsu] had added the tiny Sosei, which projected from the temple like an overhanging pavilion. It was as if he had put all his aesthetic powers into breaking the symmetry of the building. The role of the Sosei in the total architecture was one of metaphysical resistance. Although it certainly did not stretch very far over the pond, it looked as though it were running away indefinitely from the center of the Golden Temple. The Sosei was like a bird soaring away from the main structure of the building, like a bird that a few moments before had spread its wings and was escaping toward the surface of the pond, toward everything that was mundane. The significance of the Sosei was to provide a bridge that led between the order which controls the world and those things, like carnal desire, which are utterly disordered. Yes, that was it. The spirit of the Golden Temple began with this Sosei, which resembled a bridge that has been severed at its halfway point… ” (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, p. 253-254)

Posted on October 31st, 2008 under Japan. Tags: japan pictures, kyoto, yukio mishima, 金閣寺. Comments Off on Kinkakuji’s sosei (金閣寺の漱清)

Part of the Hakone Loop includes Owakudani which means the big, boiling valley. Why do they call it that you ask? Because it smells like sulfur from the boiling trenches you see along the walk. As a tourist attraction, they hard boil eggs in the volcanic waters. The eggs turn black. Of course no one would normally pay the prices listed at Owakudani for a black, hard-boiled egg given that those visiting the place are almost ill from the smell of rotten eggs the sulfur provides to begin with. So they created the tale that if you eat these eggs boiled here you will live an extra seven years.

As evidence of the long living, they have hard-boiled Hello Kitty. The fact that Hello Kitty never seems to die is proof positive that there is something to the Owakudani, black, hard-boiled eggs.

Owakudani is actually not a very pretty place. However, the views of Mt. Fuji from Owakudani can be spectacular, and the cable you get to ride in on is lots of fun.

The word 黒タマゴ on Hello Kitty means “black egg” as if you couldn’t tell that Hello Kitty was a black egg.

Posted on October 30th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: hakone, hello kitty, japan pictures. Comments Off on Owakudani 大涌谷