NEWS OF TRAVEL JAPAN

Kyoto is the most popular city for foreign sight-seeing travelers in Japan. But yet, the recent rapid increase in the number of visitors is gradually transforming the traditional townscape into a different aspect. The traditional townscape and atmosphere of Kyoto had been made by a lot of old houses,”machiya”s, temples and shrines, but many machiyas are being replaced by new hotels or new condominiums. It depends on the cause of increasing number of visitors, but on the contrary it is a cause of the disappointment for visitors who hoped to come into contact with the traditional atmosphere in the city. So then I recommend that visitors who want to know an aspect of the citizens’ lives should visit machiyas. You can know an unknown world of interest. Now, I will introduce a machiya which is open for viewing it in the center of the city. A machiya of a Japanese traditional folding fans Onishi-tune-shorten is a Japanese traditional folding fan merchant. The house is the typical machiy...

Following the cherry blossom viewing of last week, my wife and I visited Hikone Castle for cherry blossom viewing. Hikone Castle is approximately 75 kilometers north-east of Daigo-ji Temple , Kyoto, so the climate in Hikone is nearly the same as Kyoto. If the weather in April had been normal, we could have gone cherry blossom viewing there this week. But yet, the weather of the previous week was so cold that the cherry blossom viewing in Hikone Castle was sufficiently joyful. The weather in April in Japan is fickle every year, so good weather on a holiday enables people to be overwhelmed in the love of cherry blossom viewing. Hikone Castle The cherry blossoms in Hikone Castle are beautiful. The roofs, the white walls and the stone walls of the castle as well as the moats add change and harmony to the cherry blossoms. The view from the top floor of the main tower caputures calm Hikone towns and Biwa-ko Lake in the distance. Hikone towns have pretty low buildings, the...

The most popular place for cherry blossom viewing in Japan is certainly Kyoto, and the most popular spot for cherry blossom viewing in Kyoto is surely Daigo-ji Temple. In Daigo-ji Temple there are a lot of cherry trees, especially weeping cherry blossoms are popular. When they are in full bloom a countless number of visitors close in and fill up the wide grounds. It goes without saying the beauty of cherry blossoms, moreover, magnificent wooden buildings of the old temple add rhythms and harmonies to the beauty of the cherry blossoms. This temple was built by a disciple of Kukai in 874 and there are a lot of buildings and Buddhist statues of national or significant treasures. And this is one of the world heritage sites. So visitors can enjoy seeing cherry blossoms and Buddhist buildings and looking at a lot of treasures, and, of course, they can pray. “Joucho” during cherry blossom viewing After strolling around the grounds my wife and I had lunch at a restaurant in th...

Osaka Castle and its main tower , which were built by Hideyoshi, fell in two battles by the force of Tokugawa in 1615. It means the complete end of the warring states period and the transition to a long period in peace, the Tokugawa era. And the Tokugawa Bakufu built a new Osaka Castle with its main tower on the site of the old Osaka Castle. We can see the heritage in the castle which has some turrets, which are called “yagura” in Japanese. These were built for guard against an enemy, so the structure of a turret was strong but simple, almost an empty box. A foreign woman asked me whether it was a warehouse. I answered, “this was a turret, a house for a battle. In here were a lot of samurais and weapons during a battle. However in peace time, this would have been a warehouse as you point out.” A lot of foreign travelers saw the insides of the turrets, but to enjoy them it is necessary to imagine a battle-scene of that time. The death agony of the fall We can look at two big...