My Japan Adventure18829
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CatCovers private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @Byrdibyrd The blue bird there makes me wonder if someone is trying create some kind of abominable mongrel of graffiti and tweeting. | ||
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Byrdibyrd private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by CatCovers What that tweety bird is doing there is a mystery to me. The phrase can be de-mystified to a degree. 'Horumon' in Japanese basically means cow giblets. It sounds so much like 'hormone' when someone says it that the spelling has been adopted for the word when it gets written out in Roman letters. I'm serious. They're actually popular. You can go to a hormone place and order lungs or other organs. Where I found that bit of... wall art, there was a hormone place nearby. I suspect the oddly happy birdy was somehow thrilled over cow innards. Personally, I would have thought the birdy would need to be a vulture in order to be pleased with cow guts, but what do I know? |
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My yummy street food getting cooked up! Smells great    |
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 I have a problem with fattening women up.
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Bronte private msg quote post Address this user | |
| What is it? | ||
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 " . "
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Davethebrave private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @Bronte since @Byrdibyrd is likely eating, Iâll guess based on photos that itâs a pancake or okonomiyaki. Looks a lot like Korean seafood pancakes I sometimes make. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by Bronte In the foreground is okonomiyaki, a type of savoury pancake. Mine is pork. In the background is takoyaki, or octopus balls. Bits of octopus and other yummies in a savoury batter and cooked into a ball shape. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by Davethebrave That's okonomiyaki, all right. Very tasty, very cheap (mine was maybe $ 4.50), and it's a takeout, so I ate it in my hotel room. |
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| Today was a fun day. I went to Kanazawa for the first time and I went on the new train route that goes from Osaka out to Kanazawa. It did take a while to get there, but I made sure to get up early. My first goal was to check out Kanazawa-jÅ Castle. Remember that I went to a flat spot that used to be a castle in Nagoya, and it was the birthplace of Maeda Toshiie? Wanna see how well the guy did for himself? Here he is!  Kanazawa-jÅ Castle was his. The castle has long since been destroyed, but a lot of effort is being put into restoring parts of it, and they're using traditional building materials and building methods. It's pretty amazing.    There's even an archaeological dig going on at the castle site. They've recently found traces of the residential palace and are trying to find the rest of it.  Check these out. They're colloquially known as 'stairs of doom.'  This turret's interior is being faithfully restored, and that includes the traditional stairs. I've been in some of the only remaining original castles, and that's the kind of stairs you actually get to climb. They SUCK. Hundreds of years ago, people used to run up and down those damn things carrying stuff. It's insane. If you've ever watched Japanese period films, and seen any that were shot in Himeji-jÅ Castle (Kurosawa's Ran would be one), you will have seen actors booking it up and down stairs like these. Unbelievable. After leaving the rebuilt turret(s), I went through the Ishikawa-mon Gate. This gate was designed as a chokepoint should the castle ever be invaded. A small gate leads to an enclosed courtyard ringed with walls that have arrowslits, and the only way out is back the way you came or trying to breach the massive iron-clad doors on the inner gate.   Directly from the castle I went to Kenroku-en Garden, considered one of Japan's most scenic gardens. I won't dispute that. It was a lovely garden, though I unfortunately couldn't explore it all, as it was more extensive than I had realised. What I did see was exceptional. I also got to watch a beautiful great egret fishing in one of the pond features and a little grey heron near a waterfall.    After Kenroku-en, I went to a few shrines in the area. Some were more noteworthy than others. Kanazawa-jinja looked pretty nice, due to having recently been re-painted.  Ishiura-jinja had a fascinating pair of koma-inu. They were actually set up backwards. Pairs of guardians at shrines/temples are set up in a very particular way. The one on the right will have its mouth open while the one on the left will have its mouth shut. These are set up opposite, and these are the only ones I know of that are like this.  Another interesting thing at Ishiura-jinja was a pretty neat wooden carving of MusashibÅ Benkei stealing the bell from Mii-dera Temple. I have no idea why that was there, but I enjoyed seeing it anyway.  Oyama-jinja was nice, too. The shrine itself was pleasant, but it had a nice garden on the grounds, and I found out that garden used to be one of the gardens for the residential palace at Kanazawa-jÅ Castle. The shrine also had a very unusual main gate with... stained glass.    I headed back to the train station not long after that. It took me about 3 hours to get to Kanazawa, and it would naturally take that long to get back. It was a great place and I know I didn't see everything that I was interested in. I'll for sure be going back for a more in-depth look at both the castle and the garden some day. Tomorrow I'm not positive what I'll be doing, but I might be really taking a serious daytrip and going all the way out to Iwakuni. If I do, you may find out why we call it the Land of Ice Cream!  |
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| I look forward to ice cream! | ||
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Let me see what I can do about reconstructing the post I tried to make this morning.  I went into how to read a shrine goshuin, now we can look at a temple goshuin. There are a number of similarities between the two. Both have the same two elements: calligraphy and stamps. Both have locations on the goshuin where these things will be found: right side, center, left side. The goshuin is still a record of what the pilgrim was doing, when, and where. With all the similarities, one might wonder what could be so different. A big part of the issue is simply how shrines and temples are set up, and how a visitor communes with the divine. A shrine, no matter how big or how small will, almost every time, have a main hall where the visitor goes to pray/pay their respects. There may also be sub-shrines and mini-shrines, and those may be worthy of a visit, too, but all that is small beans compared to the main hall. If you have visited a shrine, you are considered to have gone to the main hall, and whatever else you did was up to you. The key is that with only a very few rare exceptions, you are not paying your respects to a physical object. You are paying respects to a divine spirit. You pray to a divine being at a temple, too, but that divine being might be embodied within an icon. Like shrines, temples, will also have a main hall, but even small temples might have a number of additional halls, some of which will be considered on par with the main hall depending upon what the pilgrim came to do. Within these halls there will be icons, possibly dozens of them (seriously - dozens). Sometimes an icon that is not in the main hall will become more prestigious than the temple's principal icon, particularly if there is a prestigious pilgrimage involved. When a pilgrim goes to a temple, things need to get more specific than just having stepped onto the grounds with the intention of communing with the divine being(s) represented there. Which hall did the pilgrim go to? Which icon did the pilgrim pray to? If a formal pilgrimage is involved, which one? On a shrine goshuin, the calligraphy on the right is the hÅhai and on the left is the date. There may or may not be any calligraphy on the center. There will be the shrine's official stamp in the center, and that may be the only stamp on the goshuin, though some shrines will have more. For a shrine, nothing more is needed. In calligraphy on a temple goshuin, the hÅhai is still on the right, but the date is also on the right, below the hÅhai. In the center will be the name of the hall or icon the pilgrim visited. On the left will be the name of the temple. Many (though not all) temple goshuin will have a stamp on the right, and it will often have additional identifying details about the temple. The reality is that some temple names are very common and there need to be ways to tell them apart. Another stamp that can be found on the right is a pilgrimage cartouche, if the goshuin is for a specific pilgrimage. In the center, if the calligraphy is the name of a hall, there will be a stamp that identifies the icon. If the calligraphy is the name of an icon, then the stamp will be something like the icon's Sanskrit symbol, or a Buddhist symbol. On the left will be the temple's official stamp.  This is a goshuin for Fukai Kannon from BanshÅ-ji Temple in Nagoya. The hÅhai and date are in calligraphy on the right. In the center is the name of the icon. On the left is the name of the temple. For the stamps, the one on the right has details about the temple's connection to the Oda family. The stamp in the center is a heavily stylised representation of the sanbÅ, the three Buddhist treasures of teacher, students, and community. The stamp on the left is the temple's official stamp.  Check out this goshuin for the Kannon-dÅ Hall at Mii-dera Temple in Shiga prefecture. The hÅhai and date are in calligraphy on the right. The name of the hall, the Daihi-den, is in the center. The temple's name is on the left. The stamp on the right is a pilgrimage cartouche for the Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage, the oldest and one of the most prestigious pilgrimages in Japan, and it states this temple is #14. The stamp in the center is the Sanskrit seed symbol for Kannon. On the left is the temple's official stamp, but there's also an extra stamp on the upper left. That stamp is the anniversary stamp for the Saigoku 33 Kannon pilgrimage's 1300th anniversary. There's no argument that temple goshuin are more involved than shrine goshuin, but in the end, the information on the goshuin is still the same. What was the pilgrim doing? Where were they doing it, and when? |
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Quote:Originally Posted by Bronte You are not alone. I have been sadly lacking in ice cream this trip and that is a situation that needs to be rectified. |
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| By the way, I did fill up my 3rd goshuin-chÅ today. I'll be taking my 4th one with me tomorrow (I brought along five). I'd love to post a picture of it, but I'd get suspended. Let's just say I got it at a fertility shrine and my nickname for it is 'ding-dong.' | ||
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Quote:Originally Posted by scratchtasia Thats incredible two forum people in Japan! @scratchtasia You should start a separate thread so we don't get you guys' pictures and stories confused. I'm old. |
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 It gets old smelling it everytime I go outside my door.
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| @Byrdibyrd Hey there miss adventurer.... Just wondering, you have done a ton of traveling within the country via trains. Do you get travel points like on airlines? You gotta have a truck load of miles already. Just curious. Also, do they have Uber or similar there? Have you considered renting a car? Cause if you rented a car, you would have the trifecta travel.  |
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| @Nearmint67 Sadly, there are no train miles accrued. It'd be a bit unfair with my rail pass. I tend to really travel around with it. I have rented a car here in the past. It wasn't the most relaxing experience. Driving here is pretty harrowing. The roads are super-narrow and they drive on the opposite side from what I'm used to. One thing, though. I may not have the automobile box  , but I did take a boat ride at Amanohashidate.  |
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| I'm on a bullet train now, going to Hiroshima. When I get there I'll transfer in order to get to Shin Iwakuni Station. Not many trains stop there, so I take a faster train to a station 'near' Shin Iwakuni - that would be Hiroshima - and transfer to a slower bullet train that stops everywhere. I was originally not sure I would go to Iwakuni, but I woke up to rain in Åsaka, and Iwakuni is far enough away for it to have nicer weather.  |
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My delicious tiramisu soft serve from the Land of Ice Cream! ð€€ |
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Nice. I'll keep this in mind whilst hiking around looking for Iwakuni-jÅ Castle. |
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I have a problem with fattening women up.
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Bronte private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Yeah kinda puts a damper on the fund when you're fearing for your life | ||
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Quote:Originally Posted by Bronte I can dodge a little snake or two, no prob.  Didn't see any anyway. Well... not yet.  |
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You find the best things in vending machines sometimes. This is a hot can of chicken ginger soup. |
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Bronte private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I can't thumb up that drink. The only thing worse than coconut is ginger. Just the thought of ginger makes me want to gag.... | ||
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Quote:Originally Posted by Bronte It was VERY ginger, too. Almost too gingery for me. Hot soup was nice because it's windy and cold here, but next time I may stick to the corn potage, which is delicious and in vending machines all over the place. ð€€ |
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That pretty boy and lovely lady are Eurasian wigeons. That interloper I have dubbed 'Jaws.'   |
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You really can't argue with this view. |
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| Iwakuni has some odd things to offer as far as tourist attractions go. One is its SNAKES. Iwakuni is home to a small and unique population of rat snake. It's a separate species unique to the area and they are rare in the extreme. At some point in the distant past, this species differentiated from other rat snakes. The Iwakuni White Snake is a completely albino species, furthermore, they have smooth, shiney scales as opposed to the ridged scales that other rat snakes have. I went to the Iwakuni White Snake Museum, and I was able to take photos of some of the residents.   These snakes are very beautiful and there's quite a lot of folklore around them. They are the source of rainbows (nothing to do with leprechauns), and they can make it rain. They are also the messengers of Benten, goddess of music, arts, poetry, and water. |
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It gets old smelling it everytime I go outside my door.
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Nearmint67 private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by BronteI don't know about that can of soup, but I do enjoy a cold ginger-ale every now and again... |
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Quote:Originally Posted by dfoster43 Yeah, I wondered about that. By no means do I want to hijack this thread, but I didn't really want to start a copycat thread, either. And @Byrdibird invited me to share. So far we haven't really posted the same kinds of things. I'm not saying I won't get to a temple or shrine eventually, but those are pretty good signs that a post isn't mine. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by scratchtasia I have no problem sharing this thread at all. Like @scratchtasia said, we're posting about very different things, and there's just as much interest in modern Japanese culture, and I'm barely touching on that at all. I think @scratchtasia 's posts are complementing mine. |
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| Today's fun was all about going far away. Far away enough to escape the pouring rain in Osaka! I re-visited a place I haven't been to in a long time: Iwakuni. Iwakuni is a place that friends and I call the Land of Ice Cream due to all the soft serve ice cream establishments that don't just have one or two or a dozen flavours. They have many dozens of flavours! It's the soft serve mecca. Anyway, my goal when I reached Iwakuni was KikkÅ Park. In the park are the aforementioned ice cream vendors, a very picturesque bridge, the Iwakuni White Snake Museum, a couple of shrines, and Iwakuni-jÅ Castle. When I got there, I bought my multi-use ticket that would get me entry to the castle and a means to reach the castle (I will get to that), discounted admission to the snake museum, and a walk to the park and back over the bridge. Reaching the park means walking over the stunning Kintai-kyÅ Bridge, with its five arching spans over the Nishiki River.  Can you see wa-a-a-ay up on top of that mountain? That's Iwakuni-jÅ Castle. I went there after fortifying myself with some ice cream. The first priority was making sure that the ice cream really was as good as I remembered it. I had a lovely tiramisu soft serve and it was delicious. I also had a mandarin orange soft serve later, and it was just as yum. As odd as it sounds, part of the reason the ice cream here is so much fun has to do with the history of the region. Iwakuni was the home of Sasaki KojirÅ, a skilled and courageous samurai who had the misfortune to challenge Miyamoto Musashi to a duel. Ever heard of the duel Musashi had and he didn't even bother to bring his swords? The duel was on a boat and Musashi opened up a can of whoop-ass on his opponent by hitting him upside the head with an oar. The guy who lost was Sasaki KojirÅ. Iwakuni has never really gotten over it. Anyway, there are two ice cream vendors right across the street (dinky street) from each other. One is named 'Musashi' and the other is named 'KojirÅ.' They scream abuse at each other and try to steal customers! It's feckin' brilliant!! Sadly, Musashi was closed so today all my ice cream came from KojirÅ, but that didn't make it any less yummy.   Next was a trip up the mountain to get to Iwakuni-jÅ Castle, and that meant taking the ropeway. Ropeways are just a fact of life in Japan, where it can get very steep and mountainous. They're just one of the legitimate means of transportation. I've taken them a bunch of times, and this was the first one on this trip (possibly the only one - I don't think I have anything else I'm going to that's up a mountain).     Once my ropeway trip was done, I hiked to the castle. Iwakuni-jÅ is a re-built castle (most Japanese castles are re-built - very few original castles left), and I first passed the old stone foundation of the original castle. When they re-built it, they decided to put it in a more picturesque location. That made it a better tourist attraction and it also left what little remained of the original structure undisturbed. The castle now has a museum with a surprisingly extensive sword collection and some exhibits on the Kikkawa family whose castle it was in the Sengoku Period (mid-to-late 16th century). The castle itself looks very nice, and the view from the top of the turret is stunning.     I came down from the castle and went to the snake museum and the two shrines in the park. One was KikkÅ-jinja that venerates members of the Kikkawa family, and the other is Shirayamahime-jinja that venerates a goddess who is embodied in the mountain the castle is built on. Then it was mandarin orange ice cream before I headed back to Osaka. I didn't have very long in Iwakuni because it's so far from Osaka, but I knew that going in, and for all that it was short, this was a much more entertaining day than a wet, soggy day in rainy Osaka! Tomorrow I plan to go to NARA, that place with all the deer. Do they still serve deer poo ice cream in Nara? Tomorrow I'll find out!   |
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