Ken@Japan

I've  been fatigued down recently. Literally, it’s “the more hectic my days, the weaker my health”. However, I've never given up thanks to a strong belief embedded in my heart. Today, I’d like to share how your belief works in you, especially when you are in a great danger. I’m a writer/photographer but simultaneously working in a chemical-manufacturing company. Recently, the company decided to send some of the employees to overseas countries for one year in order to nurture their English proficiency, and you know what, their “globalism eyes”. My colleague in the same office was chosen to join the program and I believe it will be beneficial to his career path. However, during the one year he’s absent, the other colleague and I should take care of his current works; namely, his workload is added on top of our conventional works. With the new work in addition to my current work, I’ve just come to be in charge of sales in 70% of the countries in this planet to sel...

We are in a  rainy season from June to early July every year. For some days, sometimes a week, it keeps raining. The rain makes us feel uncomfortable because of its humidity, but it’s very important to the harvest in autumn simultaneously; no rain in this season ends up no harvest in autumn. The rice farming starts in the middle of this rainy season (and in some shrines, there are some festivals celebrating the young rice). Generally, June is a start for our foods (of course, there are some exceptions based on the type of food). Besides those agricultural/seasonal meaning, the rainy season in June has attracted people, especially Haiku (Japanese poem) poets. Many poets raised topics which may remind us of rain in June and one of them is  Hydrangea. Hydrangea is a native kind of flower in Japan and it blooms mainly in June, so the flower makes us feel that the rainy season has come. However, the most interesting characteristic of the flower is its coloring. O...

The third shrine of the twenty-two is a shrine complex called "Kamo-sha （賀茂社）", comprised of Kamo Wake-ikaduchi Jinja Shrine （賀茂別雷神社）  and Kamo Mioya Jinja Shrine　（賀茂御祖神社）. Although the two shrines are different currently, they are considered collectively as one body in the emperor's twenty-two favorite shrine list.  The both shrines are located in Kyoto. In Kyoto dialect, north is called "Kami (上:up)" and south is "Shimo (下:down)", so popularly Kamo Wake-ikaduchi Jinja shrine is called "Kami-gamo jinja shrine"(上賀茂神社） as it is located in the north of Kyoto and Kamo mioya jinja shrine is called "Shimo-gamo jinja shrine"（下賀茂神社） in the south. The name "Kamo" comes from a  local clan "Kamo-shi"　（賀茂氏）, who had influence on the politics in an ancient time.  Kamo Wake-ikaduchi Jinja Shrine （賀茂別雷神社） As the north guardian of Kyoto Imperial Palace. Please refer to  my previous blog on Heian Jingu Shrine （平安神宮）...

When I was in a graduate school, I took a seminar by a British professor who specialized in economics. Since I wasn't that interested in the field at that time, I am afraid I cannot recall what I studied there, but what I remember clearly was about the professor's absolutism in his career. He followed what his hero, a Nobel-prized scholar in economics, had taken, completely in the same manner as his hero had done. He went to the same school as his hero's and earned PhD, then approached to the same publisher where his hero published the first book. In the same manner, he published his first book from the publisher. Of course his research was not a mimic of the hero’s but he wanted to have the same environment in life. He strongly believed that the footsteps left by respectful pioneers would work for us whatever we would like to do. The consequence was very vivid; he was relatively young to be called professor in the school and the school faculty...

I'm sorry, my dear brother. It was all my fault. I shouldn't have done this on you... I swear I will never let this happen again.. My dear brother, please forgive me and don't destroy my people in this city again.."   The Emperor Kanmu Retrieved on June 19, 2012 from wikipedia The emperor Kanmu (桓武天皇:737-806 AD, the 50th emperor of Japan) are being enshrined in the Heian-Jingu Shrine.  The shrine building was built for the exhibition in 1895 AD as a miniature of the ancient imperial palace (five-eighth in size) . Kanmu was the emperor who decided to move and settle in Kyoto for the first time in history and it had been the imperial capital city since then until Tokyo was appointed as the official capital city of Ja...

Rice (Retrieved from Wikipedia on June 18, 2012)  If you come to Japan, you will see the white cooked rice in restaurants all over the Japan. The famous Japanese food "Sushi" is also made of flesh raw fish and vinegared rice. Even in the general households, rice has been their main food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In history, rice firming came from Korea to Japan as its local people immigrated into the land of Japan. In Yayoi era　(the third century BC to the third century AD), the cultivation expanded and it became the main grain to Japanese. Rice has a very important/symbolic meaning in the belief of Japan's traditional religion; Shintoism. In the religious myth, the supreme goddes of the sun (Amaterasu) cultivates rice in her farm in heaven and sent her grandson whose name means "greatly shiny rice" down to the land of Japan to govern the country (so it is said that the emperors in history are decendents of the goddes). Even at present, the m...

A spirit can be divided once required. One of the characteristics of Japan's traditional religion; Shintoism is that gods' spirits can be divided and the divided ones deployed in other places. That is why, there are shrines with the same/similar name in which the same deities are enshrined in Japan. For example, you may see many "Sumiyoshi Jinja Shrine" all over Japan but the enshrined deity is divided from the main shrine "Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine" in Osaka. Ooharano Jinja Shrine （大原野神社）is located far in the west of Kyoto City. From the nearest train station "Japan Railway Mukou-Machi station", you take a bus to get there. The bus firstly goes in a lively downtown and resident places, then goes into a bamboo wood. After those bamboos, you'll be welcomed by literally "green world" made of rice firms, mountains. Especially June is our rainy season, so the rain drops actually make the greenness much greener. A building in the wood...

In a passage in a deep woods, as I walked, the sand went into the air and made my black jeans white. Hundreds of traditional lanterns are at the both ends of the passage. Those lanterns are donations from worshipers of the god who I was supposed to see at the end of this passage. It was a long way but greenness of trees in May blessed me and I got encouraged to keep moving. Kasuga Taisha Shrine has been located in the east in Nara, Japan for more than 1,300 years, when the imperial court settled and established the palace called Heijo-Kyo there in 710 AD. One of the most powerful noble crans; Fujiwara-shi cran established the shrin halfway up in the mountain and invited some powerful deities from other bigger shrines based in Chiba and Nara as their gurdian. Being such a traditional shrine with the long history, Kasuga Taisha Shrine was registered as UNESCO's World Heritage as one of the "cultr...

After the wonderful sea urchin bowl, I rode on the car and drove back to Sapporo, but I dropped by Sumiyoshi shrine in Otaru city. Sumiyoshi's main shrine is based in Osaka but it exisits throughout Japan as its branch. Sumiyoshi shrine in Otaru is one of the branches. Deities enshrined in the whole Sumiyoshi shrines in Japan are regarded as gurdians of ocean, namely the place where Sumiyoshi shrines are located is a coastal area and/or a port site (In some Sumiyoshi areas, there are no ocean/coasts nearby the shrines currently but it means that there used to be oceans nearby. It is because geography might have changed as time went by).  Otaru is a port city where fisheries are its main industry. I arrived at the shrine at 16:00 pm. Usually, shrines are closed around 4-5 o'clock every day and the Sumiyoshi shrine was about to close when I visited (well, the gate to all of the shrines in Japan will be opened even at night so you can visit shrines anytime in a day, but th...

It took me 1.5 hours to go back and forth on the hill road. No water, no foods. I literally underestimated the hiking road. I was fatigued to keep walking, so I decided to drop by a rest house near from the parking lot. It was perfect that the rest house had a restaurant and I drank some glasses of water the waitless served me (In Japan, water is served for foree in most of restaurants), and...... Sea urchin!!! Shakotan is famous for urchin fishing. There have been cultivated urchins in the markets but fishermen drove their boats to the sea and catch them from the sea in Shakotan. Usually, the fishing season starts in June, so I visited Shakotan a bit earlier to have those flesh urchins. However, I found there was a sea urchin bowl in the menu (steamed urchin with cooked rice; you can have an image that beef of a beef bowl is replaced by sea urchins). Yes, this was one of my primary objectives for this little tour. Without hegitation, I ordered the sea urchin bowl. W...

While my heart was stolen by the beautiful blue ocean, I noticed that there was a passage to a hill. The passage leads to a forest around the coast and there were some on hiking. I thought it was safe since some people were walking, so I decided to follow the road. The road to the hill The notice board i t was a fine day and walking actually made me sweaty although it was just at the end of April. I regretted that I didn't bring a towel and a bottle of water; sweat got into my eye socket and I couldn't keep eyes wide opened but I didn't have a towel to wipe off my sweat. The sweat made me lose water in my body but I didn't have water to drink. Though the scenes from the road was actually beatuful, I was about to lose concentration to enjoy those natural beauties. There was an introductory notice indicating a strange rock on the ocean. The notice board said that walkers can see a rock which looks a standing woman if they go further on the road...