NEWS OF TRAVEL JAPAN

My wife and I planned overnight stay at a syukubo, a pilgrim’s lodging at a temple, before visiting Koya-San. Our intention was simple, we had a fascination with the activities of recent foreign travelers in deep Japan, some of them have stayed in syukubos. There are more than fifty syukubos in Koya-San. For many current Japanese people, of course for us too, syukubos are far from their useful convenient hotels. If we stay at a syukubo at any rate, an extraordinary essence is desirable for our experience. At last we decided to stay at the syukubo of part of the world heritage site of Koya-San, Kongo Sanmai-in. Koya-san( 1 ) At the syukubo Kongo Sanmai-in is on the outskirt of the town. Once we arrived at the gate of Kongo Sanmai-in at 4 o’clock, many worshipers who didn’t seem to be guests had been taking photos there. We didn’t know the place to stay and we were afraid of making a mistake of the place, then we asked a guide man in the small reception room where we should go. He ...

From now I want to write about Koya-san. Here is the north-west place of Koya-san, the entrance gate of Koya-san, and on a gentle hill with many trees. The gate made by two tall stones separates the land into two worlds. One is this world and the other is the sacred world, Koya-san. On outside nearby the gate, The Nyonin-do, the praying house for women, stands quietly, because the house hasn’t been used since the Meiji period. On the contrary till the Edo period the house had been full of many women who had come to pray or had come with worries whether their sons devoting themselves to Koya-san had been healthy or not. Because women had been forbidden to enter inside the gate (of course, now there is no such thing as the prohibition of women entering). As in the picture above, a narrow path along a cliff from The Nyonin-do made a route semi-circled around Koya-san and the length of the route is approximately five kilo meters, it is The Nyonin-michi, the Women’s Pilgrimage Route. On...

“In things and materials are wishes of the sender and the maker.” By no means a belief, some Japanese people think so even without a word. And this idea manifests the beauty of Japanese cuisine or the beauty of many Japanese crafts. Because the core of this idea corresponds to purity, and the purity must be transformed into the beauty. I will try to depict it comprehensively and visibly so as that you can catch the mood of it during your travels in Japan, so I chose the case of how to wrap a gift. In western society when people give a gift to another person, they wrap it in decorative paper with a ribbon. Of course In Japan people do the same as birthday gifts or X’mas gifts as well. However if a gift is for a significant celebration like a marriage, how to wrap a gift turns to the traditional Japanese method rigidly.   The picture above depicts promising gifts from the parents of a groom to the parents of a bride. It’s difficult for you to see it directly, but you can see a...

What was reported to western society regarding Japan for the first time is, as far as I know, “The travels of Marco Polo”. He told his friend what he had experienced and heard from others on his journey to China in the 13th century, and his friend left them out. This book says that Japan was the country of gold. It is said that this book involved much fictions, but in Japan at that time there was place which he talked about. It was Hiraizumi. Hiraizumi is located in Iwate prefecture in the north-east of the Honshu approximately 450Km from Tokyo. Hiraizumi in the 12th century had produced gold and sustained prosperity independently very far from Kyoto which was the capital of Japan at that time. The lords of Hiraizumi for four generations had contributed their assets to Buddhism on the hills of Chuson-ji and one lord built the Golden Hall. It gathered great popularity and its reputation seemed to be transferred to China. You can see it as it was built in 1124 thanks to the big projec...

Gold has fascinated human beings as a beautiful precious metal that never loses its luster. Meanwhile gold is produced in comparatively small quantities. These antithetic characteristics may have given birth to gold leaves. A gold leaf corresponds to gold metal in quality, on the contrary, the gold leaf doesn’t correspond to gold metal in texture. A gold leaf is an indispensable item in Japanese culture. Golden Buddhist statues, golden fusuma ( Japanese sliding screens), golden houses and golden armors( it’s funny). These golden surfaces are made by gold leaves. Kanazawa and Gold leaves Nowadays 99% of gold leaves are produced in Kanazawa which is my home-town. By the way, the name of Kanazawa in Japanese is “a golden marsh”. In that kind of meaning, Kanazawa deserves to be the supreme producing city of gold leaves. Moreover, citizens in Kanazawa are the most numerous ice cream eaters in Japan. In such Kanazawa you can gain amazing experience of eating a soft ice cream covered ...

The capital city of Japan is Tokyo, but until 150years ago it had been Kyoto, and Emperors in those times had lived in the present Kyoto Imperial palace. Sento Imperial Palace is located at the nearly south-east place from the Kyoto Imperial Palace. It was the place where the abdicated Emperors once lived. My wife and I visited there when it was already very hot in the mid-summer morning. As might be expected upon visiting a recent historical heritage site in Japan, there were some foreigners in our visiting touring group. The semi-artistic stillness with nature of Sento Imperial Palace surprised us by the dynamic change from the real world in the mid-town of Kyoto, and it made us feel cool regardless of the high temperature in this mid-summer as well. Sento Imperial Palace has a special atmosphere brewed by a big pond surrounded with a lot of woods coupled with a few houses and bridges. Sento Imperial Palace has a lot of traits of Japanese cultures which have been transforming thr...

Goshuin stamp-books are becoming gradually popular. The above picture is a goshuin stamp-book with which someone used to go around temples and shrines. The word goshuin stamp-books in Japanese comprises of “go”, “shu” and “in” by kanji characters, it means “respectful”, “vermilion” and “stamp”. It is said that the original style of goshuin stamp-books was generated in the twelve century, but the present goshuin stamp-books aren’t the stale repetition of an outworn style. Goshuin stamp-books include so many Japanese styles that it matches your memorial goods of traveling in Japan. It will surrender yourself to a world enclosed by something energetic of Japan when you look at it. A lot of Japanese styles Goshuin stamp-books themselves are a Japanese style and include many elements of Japanese style as well. First of all the paper of goshuin stamp-book is Japanese paper “washi”. Washi presents specific texture to written words.  Second, there are goshuin stamp-books with one ...