I’m not sure what we were expecting but we weren’t expecting a riot of colour and the ringing of children’s laughter through the trees. The village was interesting but probably would have been a little of a let-down if it weren’t for the festive, family fun atmosphere.

The view from my study window was just too beautiful today and I took my camera out for a play in the sunlight. The flickr slideshow is below, there are around 50 shots you can full screen it for your own virtual hanami experience. I hope you enjoy it.

Apologies for the blur and the poor exposure, it was raining heavily the night we went so I had to use my itty bitty pentax to capture the evening.

That the cough was clearing up this weekend was excellent as the time had come for us to make our trip to Kyoto – finally! ‘Twas a lovely weekend coinciding (deliberately) with the opening of the lantern festival which is essentially a chance to experience Kyoto’s old town (the Gion district) in flickering light which hides electricity wires and other such things which, in daylight, take away from the olde worlde experience. It was truly magical.

All that means that, with Sapporo in there too, there is an enormous backlog of photos to edit and post! Essentially, I’m writing this little post to break the back of it so that it feels less overwhelming and to give a pre-warning that I might just be doing photo posts with very little commentary but it is all coming! I know the pics are all you want to see anyway hehe!

So, here is a taste of the first blossoms at the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Enjoy, more on the way.

Superman and I rarely make much of New Years Eve but since we were here in Japan we decided to join in the local tradition of heading to a shrine (that’s shrine as in Shinto, not temple as in Buddhist) for the turning of the year. Atsuta Jinja is one of the most sacred Shinto sites in Japan, where the goddess Amaterasu dwells in the form of an ancient sword and it also happens to be a 20 minute train ride from our house so, at about 10:30 that night we bundled ourselves up warmly (long coat, scarf, gloves, hat, double socks – the works!) and headed off. At our little station there wasn’t much of a buzz but when we switched to the Meijo line it was clear that we would have no issue finding where we were going we could just follow the crowd! As apathetic as we’d been told most Japanese were about this tradition it didn’t feel that way!

We got off the train at Jingu Nisshi station and emerged at ground level via exit 2, joining the crowds making their way along the outside of the temple grounds stopping to have something to eat from the now familiar red, yellow and white stalls of festival food lining the route. There were a lot more sweets this time, though, and (after we had finished inside) Sups had a chocolate dipped banana (which also came in blue and a rather suggestive pink chocolate dip) and I tried and fell I love with a new delicacy – toffee strawberries, like toffee apples but a lighter toffee and a perfectly ripe strawberry inside. 

Upon entering the grounds we realised that our goal to get to the might be a little optimistic – the line was an enormous python of a people, filling the 8 metre-wide path to the Shrine itself and moving in ripples (of which Superman had a view and said it looked fantastic) every 15 minutes or so. So for about 40 minutes on New Years Eve the very green picture was my view! Nevertheless it was actually quite pleasant because it was both warm and their was a friendly camaraderie as everyone waited patiently and exchanged updates on the time with each other – even we foreigners. “Ni hon!!” a woman said excitedly to me, grinning madly. “Hai! Ni hon!” I agreed and we shared a giggle. As midnight arrived we had probably a full minute of scattered cheers and ripples of well-wishing as the variously set phones and watches determined when it was midnight!

Only a minute or so after midnight there was another ripple of movement and our group was let through to the shrine-proper – we had timed it perfectly!!

Once through the main gate we made a prayer and tossed a handful of coins at the temple steps and then joined more queues at stalls opposite the shrine building and purchased some omamori (or prayer amulets) for luck, health and drive  as well as a New Year arrow to drive away any bad luck demons for the year. Apparently we should bring them back next New Year to have the old year’s luck burned and get some new ones. We didn’t join the Japanese in paying 200yen to shake a fortune scroll out of a hexagonal box (since we wouldn’t have been able to read it anyway) but it seemed to me that this was the most popular part of the whole night.

When we got home, we hung the omamori on the side of the stairs where we will pass it everyday (the amulet for my drive kept falling down – I’m trying not to read anything into it lol!) and we turned the Yule tree into a New Years tree by inserting the New Year Arrow into it – I think it works… kinda lol! Note the wooden tablet with the cow and calf on it – this relates to the next Chinese year being the Year of the Ox but in an oddly diluted way which confuses me – in Celtic animal lore the Bull and the Cow have very different symbolisms and I doubt it is different here. Nevertheless the whole concept is obviously contorted since everyone insists the animal year has changed despite the Chinese astrological year not changing till later next month. Just another thing to add to my list of things I don’t understand in Japan lol!

Apologies for the lack of quality and quantity of shots but I was shivering so much from the cold that most of my shots turned out too blurry to make out what they were (not to mention I hadn’t charged the camera so the IS turned itself off and the colour cast it picked up was mostly green lol) – these are the good ones! I hope that the new header photo makes up for it. believe it or not that was taken at high speed on the Shinkansen a couple of weekends ago on our way up to Tokyo for the afternoon – it’s quite view of the great mountain, don’t you think?

My best wishes to everyone for a happy, peaceful and satisfying 2009!

One of the things I am really enjoying about living in Japan is re-discovering my love of and respect for the seasons, which had faltered somewhat due to various stressors and, frankly, living in Sydney which doesn’t really have them. The seasons are celebrated here with gusto! Throughout the year there are various religious festivals (matsuris) both national and local, usually based at a particular shrine or temple where the Kami in question is reverenced. Seasonal festivals, like Natsu (Summer) Matsuri which we celebrated in Gifu, are some of the biggest.

The map featured, from Japan Guide.com, forecasts the turning of the leaves all over Japan and are available at websites for the Japanese not just for western tourists looking for views. People will plan holidays or onsen weekends around soaking in the beauty of the turning of the leaves or man’s attempts at controlling the snow and communities around the country will celebrate their local (usually rice) harvest.  Similar maps are available in Spring for the Hanami or cherry blossom viewing which is a HUGE celebration.

Melbourne, where I grew up, has its seasons but they are pretty much ignored beyond whether to bring a brolly or a coat (and boy do we know how to read a forecast).  The joke, of course, is four seasons in one day but it’s really only true if you consider that getting a little cool and a little rain on a Summer day constitutes winter-like. As I understand it, the local indigenous population consider that Melbourne has six seasons and I can kind of see that (and wish I could find out more but it’s really, really hard.) The only hint of seasonal celebrations that come to the general awareness of the Australian populous are Easter and Yule though, of course, in their Christian form and they are actually at the time of Harvest and mid-Summer in the Sthn Hemisphere anyway. (Yes, I know that the non-Christian elements are still hugely strong within those festivals but that doesn’t mean those of us who are Caucasian and not “of the book” can celebrate openly – calling it Yule, for example, is only acceptable if it’s assumed I’m using the German term lol.)

The cynical (or those offended by the fact that I’ve just revealed I don’t hold Judeo-Christian views ) will remind me how commercial the festivals seem – Hanami particularly with companies competing for the best spots and it being very much “the thing” to do rather than being focused on which Kami is being celebrated. They will point out that the change of the seasons for most people just means new flavours of drinks and snacks in the konbini or changing wardrobes. Well to that I say: Shenanigans!

First of all, if they know that Summer is being celebrated then they know which Kami is being celebrated and frankly it’s kinda hard to miss. Secondly, those new flavours are seasonal flavours (watermelon kitkat in Summer and apple breath mints in Autumn, how much more harvesty can you get than apples!) being aware of the earth in your every day life is an acknowledgement of the Kami (however you want to define them, I find the similarities to Platonic Forms extraordinary) that effect it. Changing your clothes to warmer ones because its cold is a reverence to the seasons at the most basic level and possibly more so when there’s little need to change clothes beyond your coat with heating available indoors.  But that’s me getting all kitchen-witchy on you so from a more traditionally western “religious” oogity-boogity framework I say: look at the excitement on the faces of the people in their Yukatas on the way to the fireworks. Listen to the laughter and awed “Sugoi!” at the art form that is man’s attempt at mastery over fire. The smile elicited by the sheer beauty of a cherry blossom or the colour of a leaf. That is real emotion, whatever the affectations of the day to please your boss or your boyfriend, and that is the essence of all this – opening yourself to the rhythms of the earth. Even if they only do it once a season, they come together and allow themselves to be effected by the extraordinary beauty and power of this planet which, no matter how much we learn, can still shake us off its back with a good earthquake.

Whether the Japanese population flocking (and boy do they flock) to the many matsuris and enjoying the food and carnival atmosphere are intellectually cognizant of exactly what is being celebrated doesn’t really matter to me (though frankly I think most of them are).  It does a heathen girl good to be able to look ahead to at least a whole year in which she can celebrate by simply joining in with an entire nation!

The fireworks were, of course, beautiful and went for about three hours all up AND no silly music, popular or otherwise, to bare with as there usually is in Australia. It was simply tens of thousands of people happily celebrating the beauty of light and fire.

At 3pm we met some of our new friends/Superman’s colleagues at the Golden Clock in Nagoya Station to take the 45min train trip to Gifu Eki. From there we joined the long queue sauntering through the heat for about 10mins to the bus terminal to get into the blissful airconditioning of the buses instead of walking for 45mins in the heat.

As I was previewing this picture I noticed the man in the yukata and his partner are looking at the camera (she is making the ubiquitous “V” symbol) This is something I have noticed a lot when uploading photos here, I rarely take pictures OF people exactly but blow me down if the Japanese aren’t as aware of a camera as a cat! Now, you may say “Hey, I saw the pic of your camera in a previous post and it’s pretty hard to miss.” Sure, I’ll give you that – but here’s the same shot with my zoom lens set at 50mm equivalent (that’s human eye equivalent)…

I call that Eagle-eyed!

Natsu Matsuri (Summer festival) is an excuse for the girls who wish to do so to dress up in their light, cotton Yukatas. I am told that they can be cooler than dressing up in modern clothes but it depends how heavy your obi is and how tightly you tie it around your waist – mostly, though it is a full dress-up occasion and comfort has little to do with it!

The Yukata fun is not just for the girls!

I’d suggest that mostly the men did it to impress the girl they were taking to the event (lots of couples there being sweetly romantic) but it’s entirely possible that they simply wanted to. Japanese men LOVE to dress themselves up and primp away at least as much as the girls, if not more!

So, the bus took us through Gifu to the banks of the river (I think it’s called the Nagara.)  I’m not sure if the 200 yen we paid as we jumped off the bus was fare for the bus or an entrance fee but it was a pittance to pay for either!

This was the view from our spot – you can see the crowds across the river just beyond the bridge which was the prime spot in front of which the fireworks were fired and the low lying ones danced. To get those spots you had to be very, very early but we were happy being less crowded and saw plenty.

From the hills off camera to the right of the shot above, Gifu Castle watched over the scene. It was a loong way off (my zoom was at max for this shot) but I couldn’t help wondering what the fireworks must have been like from there!

Of course a festival isn’t a festival without sharing food – so we made our way back up to the road where there were lots of food stalls with delicious things-on-sticks!

The fireworks began about 45 minutes before sundown with some fireworks which didn’t so much sparkle as explode in multi-coloured smoke. They were few and far between and unfortunately those I managed to catch were badly exposed either one way or the other, as I fiddled with my settings trying to access the long-ago archived photography folder of my brain, in the fading light.

As the sparkling ones began, the dusk light made for some delicate colours, almost pastels…

At one stage, everything went pink and I turned to find the sky had gone all sentimental…

(this photo has been cropped to remove some head-silhouettes along the bottom but not colour-processed in any way – it was truly breathtaking)

At last, the sun set over Gifu…

And the show began!

This was my first chance to play with my camera and I was excited to take some fireworks shots but, as we were going with friends and I didn’t want to be too anti-social, I didn’t want to bring a tripod which is really essential for good fireworks shots. Nevertheless the handheld, and therefore faster (yet still too slow for the hand) shutter speed, made for some interesting effects not entirely un-pretty…

Zoom was fun too…

And this one was even a little eerie…

The audience was mostly silent but would ooh and ah and swell with “Sugoi!” (Amazing!) at the big fluffy ones which produced the most light but my favourites were some I hadn’t seen before which exploded in the shape of flowers…

and, my very favourite, butterflies…

or perhaps they were magnificent birds dancing for the joy of Summer…

Afterwards, the crowd made its way to the stone steps in the wall to  climb up from the grass. No amount of Pentax built-in Image Stabilization was going to make up for the jostling as I took this dreadful shot but I had to get it. Obviously we were already up by the time I took it, some 45 minutes after the fireworks ended – imagine how huge this pool of people was at the beginning!

Everyone was actually very patient and calm – we were just pushed together. I can’t imagine being given safety permission to hold an event with such a bottle neck of an exit in Australia!

The walk back to the station was leisurely in the warm (still 28 degrees) evening and had something of a community feel to it as we streamed through Gifu’s streets. The convenience stores en route were having what must be one of their biggest nights of the year as we all piled in to buy drinks and use their “facilities.” An hour and a bit later we were on the train and an hour after that enjoying cool, cool showers before collapsing happily into bed feeling it was worth breaking the vow not to leave the house till Autumn!