tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38343174788256516262024-03-14T10:05:24.279+00:00Noi6 Around-the-WorldNoi6 means "the 6 of us" in Romanian. <p>We are five, you are the sixth one. </p><p>We thank you for joining us in our trip around the world...</p>Mihaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228641687542213372noreply@blogger.comBlogger296125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-70005829829274818562022-05-07T15:43:00.093+01:002022-09-11T19:32:25.381+01:00The Road to 500<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is hard to tell when I first learned about UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Probably at some point before our trip around the world, and then, as we decided our destinations, it was a secondary factor in our decision making process. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>Our trip didn’t really have a theme. Probably the best way to describe what we wanted is to go back over and over to </span><a href="https://noi6.blogspot.com/2010/07/slice-of-world.html" target="_blank">Maria’s first post</a><span>. But at some point it turned out that our interests and UNESCO’s mission overlapped significantly. As we tried to discover various countries, learn about their most special features and visit famous and unique cultural and natural sites we invariably ended at one or another World Heritage Site.</span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For those of you who need a refresher, 50 years ago the General Conference of UNESCO adopted a “Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, a unique international treaty linking for the first time the concepts of nature conservation and preservation of cultural properties - recognizing the way people interact with nature, and the fundamental need to preserve the balance between the two.”</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1978, <a href="https://noi6.blogspot.com/2010/12/galapagos-1.html" target="_blank">Galapagos Islands</a> became the first of the first 12 sites inscribed on the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org" target="_blank">World Heritage list</a>. In 2012 there were 936 monuments and now, in 2022, there are 1154.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During our round the world trip we missed a couple sites in ways in which I cannot explain, like the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1239" target="_blank">Berlin Modernism Housing Estates</a> or the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/89" target="_blank">Old Historic Cairo</a>. By far the hardest to explain miss was the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/804" target="_blank">Barcelona Music House</a>, we were in line for the tickets and we still didn't know we had to get in, our sister bought tickets for herself and her family and the lady closed the ticket counter for lunch in front of us. But, nonetheless we visited <a href="https://noi6.blogspot.com/search/label/World%20Heritage" target="_blank">75 world heritage</a> sites on our trip. They included the most amazing sites you all heard about and some just as good that you never knew that exist. And at some point in the following years it really made sense to start planning a trip from the UNESCO list. We did it first in Portugal in June 2015, and again in Japan when we returned in 2015 and so on.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fast forward nine years later, I mentioned to Ileana Ruxandra that some time before our trip I saw a web site about some people who traveled to a lot of places, I had a very vague recollection and it was a pity that I lost track of the whole story. One day I decided to search for it and after a few hours I found what I was looking for and discovered that it evolved into a much larger group, a great website and a fantastic phone application: most traveled people (MTP: The Extreme Travel Club <a href="https://mtp.travel"><span style="color: #dca10d;">https://mtp.travel</span></a> )! The MTP Apps: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mtp-the-extreme-travel-club/id1463245184" target="_blank">iPhone and iPad</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mosttraveledpeople.android.app" target="_blank">Google</a></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>“MTP challenges its members to expand their horizons, by dividing the land area of Earth into 1013 distinct regions, including countries, states, territories, islands and enclaves. We also track … all UNESCO World Heritage Sites. For many, adding to their MTP totals and turning their personal map from red to green is their life’s work. No one in history has ever completed the list!” They have an annual meeting and vote on what is an MTP place. More importantly they also keep track of all the world heritage sites and sub-sites in a much easier way than even UNESCO or Wikipedia. Registering and checking boxes, I got to a little over 150 but digging deeper I learned that we didn't quite reach the formal boundaries so we had to eliminate</span><span> </span><span><a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1099" target="_blank">Mapungubwe</a> or <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/950" target="_blank">Ambohimanga</a>. </span><span>Some sites are represented by one building and some have multiple subsites distributed over a large area or even across countries or continents. It is a dynamic list, a couple of sites had to be delisted as they were destroyed, but the list is slowly expanding through a very elaborate system. Countries sign up to the UNESCO charter, propose sites on </span><a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/" target="_blank">World Heritage Tentative Lists</a><span> and after they meet some of the criteria and the local government does a lot of protection work, would be voted for and listed. We could visit a place that is interesting or famous and many years later learn that it has become a World Heritage Site. </span><span>So this is how I got to see my 149th site, we visited Madrid in 1990 and again in 2020, but it was only last week that I learned that in 2021 UNESCO listed </span><a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1618" target="_blank">Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro</a><span>! </span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1k2a720-NCSss1AgZWi7idBw4RcHp5zG0Loywkezqa3Vxaori37DZZVc9x_MaTp0-0xeiHFRxB77_P4TdL7huPCsXd8YFjHKtZ8emk7FlF-yZanLxD1ORMavGFeOZshqkPUnupDD8wVS8geKE9UqYdoyV_EBfHnygjXx1i9clhMoJD1vf5ch3dyRK/s3088/IMG_9532.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2316" data-original-width="3088" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1k2a720-NCSss1AgZWi7idBw4RcHp5zG0Loywkezqa3Vxaori37DZZVc9x_MaTp0-0xeiHFRxB77_P4TdL7huPCsXd8YFjHKtZ8emk7FlF-yZanLxD1ORMavGFeOZshqkPUnupDD8wVS8geKE9UqYdoyV_EBfHnygjXx1i9clhMoJD1vf5ch3dyRK/w400-h300/IMG_9532.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvBuzXZJQWSO6rk2Dk_YAJcJ2Ml7A-p9b05-t4Ed5c6BpIszWFnMHNji4qsinGf1Boj5DTWaYUgyJkt663H0a2XYwnGbK1ZnayIhgTO-VEoh1gLfuVMeawy9O32xa6lrnGcZ_HcoBKu7Xfvi9DYFiND7GU0rRuns8KNnM_hKw_b0_sfiuQUeYLIgbZ/s4032/IMG_6593.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvBuzXZJQWSO6rk2Dk_YAJcJ2Ml7A-p9b05-t4Ed5c6BpIszWFnMHNji4qsinGf1Boj5DTWaYUgyJkt663H0a2XYwnGbK1ZnayIhgTO-VEoh1gLfuVMeawy9O32xa6lrnGcZ_HcoBKu7Xfvi9DYFiND7GU0rRuns8KNnM_hKw_b0_sfiuQUeYLIgbZ/w400-h300/IMG_6593.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, it is not about lists and counts, but this is a really big world and the more we see the more we realize how much we haven't seen or learned about. It can be quite depressing to really understand the enormity of it all and how little we can actually do, see or learn. It is also liberating to accept that we cannot do it all, that each and every trip, site, day or even moment is valuable in itself and we don't have to worry about the whole of it.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But it is both fascinating and pragmatic to use the whole knowledge of the world and the consensus of a bunch of experts to get some direction of what is really special and worth visiting on this planet. This happens to be the stuff we really care about (and museums!), not some fancy hotel, bar or restaurant, not some private island or a fun filled cruise or an amusement park. </span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was looking again and again at "the list". There are 1000 more and we'll never see them all, and some might not even be worth seeing, but we can die trying. At this pace it would take many lifetimes, but can we aim for about 500? That could be realistic if we are really determined and organized and aim to see 10-15 a year over the next 30 years!</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not surprisingly, Ileana Ruxandra is just as interested as me in this topic. She went further to discover the World Heritage Site for World Heritage Travellers at <a href="https://www.worldheritagesite.org">https://www.worldheritagesite.org</a> started by a lady in Netherlands who dedicates her life to visiting all the sites and offering a platform for advice to fellow travelers. Together with MTP we now have all we need.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So starting in May 2022 the "race" is on! Follow me at <span style="color: #dca10d;"><a href="https://mtp.travel/users/47765">https://mtp.travel/users/47765</a> </span>We'll update here as we can the next 351 world heritage sites that we visit and if it happens, the ones we revisit or complete (some of these listing have multiple sites and they could all be meaningful).</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ready?</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><div><br /></div>Mihaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228641687542213372noreply@blogger.com0Home42.291824299999988 -76.76514449999999113.981590463821142 -111.92139449999999 70.60205813617884 -41.608894499999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-72167854196670803732021-10-18T02:00:00.002+01:002022-01-01T19:05:49.518+00:0010 Years Later<p>Ten years ago we left on our trip around the world. One week ago, our oldest daughter got married. The two events are somehow similar as they each capped a very intense two and a half year period of intense preparation, multiple questions, tremendous growth and some stress. And similarly the major event is just the beginning of an extraordinary journey. For Maria and Derek it will be a whole life. For us, 10 year ago, it was for a short, defined time of fifteen months or less “however long we enjoy ourselves.” </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWX8YQn-ExJkLEJPjVWAjcuFwU7f384LvyXLRMSlqzJJRJwz3pazZC_Aw3d7Qvc8Ana6O85Uq9m2em2WVxCxyjMKSMxb8d7ORoX3MR-Bo_VXSTVPRzx5LgYxMQw-4r8KfzlJUSwm9HTq8/s1440/iPhone+iPhoneIMG_0079-Enhanced.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWX8YQn-ExJkLEJPjVWAjcuFwU7f384LvyXLRMSlqzJJRJwz3pazZC_Aw3d7Qvc8Ana6O85Uq9m2em2WVxCxyjMKSMxb8d7ORoX3MR-Bo_VXSTVPRzx5LgYxMQw-4r8KfzlJUSwm9HTq8/w640-h480/iPhone+iPhoneIMG_0079-Enhanced.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Every day, once or several times, we remember something from our trip, we refer to it somehow, we think of a place or a person or some lesson we learned. Without question it is the one unique, fantastic thing that we did and we still have not met anyone else who did something similar. Our children, now adults, might not know exactly how this trip shaped their life and cannot compare with what would have been without it but can certainly give it some credit for what and where they are in their young adult life.<p></p><p>We still traveled, not as much and certainly not since the beginning of the pandemic. Still we can appreciate from our home how the world has changed in the past 10 years. We enjoy staying put and we long to travel and this contradiction is fine with us because we have this trip to remember. </p><p>We never wrote a book and never made a film. We never watched the whole footage that we took, only bits and pieces. At times we reread some of our blogposts to refresh some details, sometimes we have to search for the exact name of a place. There are probably some pictures that we’ve not seen yet, so this anniversary is a good time to look back and go through some of those memories all over again.</p><p>Check for the 10th Anniversary Photos on <a href="https://noi6.myportfolio.com">https://noi6.myportfolio.com</a> </p>Mihaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228641687542213372noreply@blogger.com0Elmira, NY, USA42.0897965 -76.807733813.779562663821153 -111.9639838 70.400030336178844 -41.651483799999994tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-42400486411218309262019-05-29T20:03:00.000+01:002019-05-29T20:03:27.913+01:00Big Bend National Park<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The ranger at the Visitor Center suggests that, for one day in Big Bend National Park, we should drive to Canyon Santa Elena and visit all the view points or trails that stem from the road. Though we entered the park last night, and slept at the Chisos Mountain Lodge, we received our map and visitor guide, The Paisano, this morning, after buying our National Park Pass. To get to the Canyon we have to climb out of the Chisos Basin and then take the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive (named after the first superintendent, who, knowing the area so well, laid down the route to connect the most spectacular geological features of the west side of the park). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The National Park Service was established in 1916 “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife…and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations”. The park was authorized by Congress in 1935 and established in 1944. The name comes from Rio Grande, who, though cutting in time through timeless rocks, followed the path of the least resistance, and makes a big bend in its course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We stop at the Tuff Canyon, which is a deeper than the average dry wash, the bed of an intermitent river. Its walls are made of gray volcanic ash and its bottom by cooled lava. In a cranny, we see the green eye of water, a sign that from time to time it rains in the Chihuahuan Desert. And if we don’t believe that one, the multitude of flowers is another one. The roads are rimmed in bluebonnet or the Big Bend Lupine. The cacti are ready to bloom. The creosote bushes are awashed in yellow. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Calendula</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZijbCyTKUZvRS2NkyA8ANM8_2ac1PP6jfPREUdanMx10ediwYkrOoHbWODDutrOti29hGp1ymWwhpJ-NFdsBvalXCK9EiO8n-0Ahg2A0Ae6x6yxDAHsyMfYExwGT3E45E0Zuo58m0Y0/s1600/03+BBNP+022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ZijbCyTKUZvRS2NkyA8ANM8_2ac1PP6jfPREUdanMx10ediwYkrOoHbWODDutrOti29hGp1ymWwhpJ-NFdsBvalXCK9EiO8n-0Ahg2A0Ae6x6yxDAHsyMfYExwGT3E45E0Zuo58m0Y0/s640/03+BBNP+022.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The creosote flowers smell nice, but the cream made from the plant smells like tarr.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We pass Cerro Castellan, or the Castolon Peak. Highlighted through the errosion of its surroundings, the peak reveals millions of years of volcanic activity. Stacked in its height are several layers of lava flows, volcanic tuffs and gravel and clay from the periods of erosion between erruptions. And nature continues to shape it and showcases it in its ephemeral flower fabric.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5_vPY9ZI3VHYS5dNXkrrEzGYfXiPXgcZYzyoA9jYsM3ozoAe3KONAH857dSweiHt4hZk14G9hkJtnhFo27mUu96zHokX-BlvxLSmyQumBF5pD1jOhtkBK4Hqp4GFlsyNnArQgNwdxX-4/s1600/03+BBNP+013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5_vPY9ZI3VHYS5dNXkrrEzGYfXiPXgcZYzyoA9jYsM3ozoAe3KONAH857dSweiHt4hZk14G9hkJtnhFo27mUu96zHokX-BlvxLSmyQumBF5pD1jOhtkBK4Hqp4GFlsyNnArQgNwdxX-4/s640/03+BBNP+013.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Secret. (Detail of the above picture)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We arrive at the Canyon, two walls of red rock, separated by a greenish, cloudy water. Men decided that it should also separate two countries. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS6q14sU-ClrW29Rv91uN3lQ_0NZJ4yaEauXJCoINY8i7JZkY4b0jo61VZXGWVaVtQQsNGGB0yYeKf8L5PQ-sVAuLbvKuOpx-cAqQlWBxf9ikHPJwTiGpqhN4ZqmQpVttjRcN7LqSBdk/s1600/03+BBNP+017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrS6q14sU-ClrW29Rv91uN3lQ_0NZJ4yaEauXJCoINY8i7JZkY4b0jo61VZXGWVaVtQQsNGGB0yYeKf8L5PQ-sVAuLbvKuOpx-cAqQlWBxf9ikHPJwTiGpqhN4ZqmQpVttjRcN7LqSBdk/s640/03+BBNP+017.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Canyon seen from the vista point.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We cross the Terlingua creek, now a trickling stream (but after distant rainfall, can flash flood the area and block people in the canyon) and take the uphill trail into the canyon, marveling at the vistas, plants and birds. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilME8IbPSBN16JUYvPXLRkOCGWrjsFl23DzchyphenhypheniBfBYp1okYSL6oPtyV1AyElqm4CQ1Iu2tCvxsqjIW_pNiSuc6ZjBbfAQrbgatLJMv6-7kCZsvjwB-aXmJGapUGj6rl_xoLReeaZ_l3w/s1600/03+BBNP+010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilME8IbPSBN16JUYvPXLRkOCGWrjsFl23DzchyphenhypheniBfBYp1okYSL6oPtyV1AyElqm4CQ1Iu2tCvxsqjIW_pNiSuc6ZjBbfAQrbgatLJMv6-7kCZsvjwB-aXmJGapUGj6rl_xoLReeaZ_l3w/s640/03+BBNP+010.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was cold inside the canyon, the butterfly could not fly.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After the initial climb, the trail peters slowly to the water level, from cacti and sotol, to cattails and grasses. We’re towered by 1500 ft of limestone on both sides. From here we could walk through water (if it would be a low level) or take a canoe, but not today. Upstream there was a rock slide that made some rapids. In 1852, the white men of the Boundary Survey were trying to put the place on a topographical map, and so they pushed an unmaned boat through the canyon only to see broken planks and splinters at the canyon mouth. The first to go through the canyon, to live and tell, and their deed to be entrusted to the printed memory of their peers, were a team of surveyors and Texas Rangers in 1882. They portaged their boat around the slide, but once in the gorge, there was no escape, but forward. Nowadays with modern equipment and techniques river runners can negotiate the rapids.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On our way back we stop in Castolon Historic District, where there is a store “La Harmonia”. Until 1959 part of the building used to be a post office. Outside of it are big machines that tell a story of fickle fortune. In 1922 a businessman started planting high-dollar comercial crop on these river-bottom fields, cotton. To boost his harvest he brought steam and gasoline irrigation pumps. In 1923 to increase the value of his cotton, he started “ginning” it, that is to separate the seed from the fiber. The machine occupied a two story building. By 1942 the mounting costs and falling prices put an end to the “La Harmonia” cotton venture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We also stop at the Mule Ears View Point. There is a spring down a 2 mile trail, but we choose not to go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To see the Lower Burro Mesa Pouroff we take a 3 mile side road and then a 0.5 mile flat trail, between flowering bushes and spectacular geology to get to a box canyon with a high, dry waterfall. I can’t imagine how it would look with a thundering torrent, but what is left after countless ones, is beautiful. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yucca flowers</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0xIlCIcU8KIQfrH6rKetWHrMGLAWtk72Fxc1RNPMMcXdbN7XeDsAZdLuly09ozab4sjp0rRB1W8v9wVUNbZc6Acgh_IuiMn7uVpaI9FhbUk9Hrd9upkH3az1Jo6ZdgD9_FBDviELJMJk/s1600/03+BBNP+037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0xIlCIcU8KIQfrH6rKetWHrMGLAWtk72Fxc1RNPMMcXdbN7XeDsAZdLuly09ozab4sjp0rRB1W8v9wVUNbZc6Acgh_IuiMn7uVpaI9FhbUk9Hrd9upkH3az1Jo6ZdgD9_FBDviELJMJk/s640/03+BBNP+037.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHK5wIh5TJqq3yMv07fir-28XxuhbszWTPAYAVSJStF8hZBMHLGi2wrnptnz6ulpJwSbtlgzfNil8DT-ja_zLurqK18CF_joOePF9bCW1xJWk-7arwCz6ahl71JwcmeNFTk_Kzzk21v0Y/s1600/03+BBNP+038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHK5wIh5TJqq3yMv07fir-28XxuhbszWTPAYAVSJStF8hZBMHLGi2wrnptnz6ulpJwSbtlgzfNil8DT-ja_zLurqK18CF_joOePF9bCW1xJWk-7arwCz6ahl71JwcmeNFTk_Kzzk21v0Y/s640/03+BBNP+038.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the eye of the rock, a human's hand set these stones...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sotol Vista overlooks in a distance Mexico, Rio Grande and Santa Elena Canyon, which looks like a small gap. There are many white flowers, probably a wild flax, and sotol, a spear-like plant, a member of the lily family, that likes the cooler, northern terrain, midway between desert and mountain. For thousands of years people who lived in the area would roast its heart for food, and use the leaf fibers for ropes and sandals.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Canyon is seen on the horizon line, ⅔ left with ⅓ right, as a small dip.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiIa1X6xUspFseQURy4BBUt8FJlYGJKuJVjN78g90tDZ0zjqUJK-yuvMJoCr9-87Mc-GL8agSxAxYvV4bNHfJh1d3MQRqmj9a4wj8Gddxi7BXeImxFKOHBj0Dvs4i-gNu_mAcYfpoJjpw/s1600/03+BBNP+014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiIa1X6xUspFseQURy4BBUt8FJlYGJKuJVjN78g90tDZ0zjqUJK-yuvMJoCr9-87Mc-GL8agSxAxYvV4bNHfJh1d3MQRqmj9a4wj8Gddxi7BXeImxFKOHBj0Dvs4i-gNu_mAcYfpoJjpw/s640/03+BBNP+014.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sotol leaves, but around the lodge.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We stop again in the middle of nowhere to photograph the flowers and the Chisos mountains. The whole mountain range is included in the park, and is the only one in USA to be contained in the boundary of a national park. But what makes them special is that being mountains, they are islands of long gone times, when the world was not so warm, and not so dry, and birds, insects and plants, living relics of the last ice age, used to live on a wider range. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Though we’ve seen plenty of different birds, only a few were still enough to be captured in a picture. The place is a heaven for bird watching and for myrmecologists (I love this word, I had to put it here!, ), for people who study ants. For each of them, they have 81 choices.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtWmGei33eNW3J_dq9oFplih813jw__DBYMHrqDDQZjwOeghGRh1RZJJk4Df9p4zwjZkyFTqVSu9fG2yJIUqZ0GNhekxZp29rqAX3LivngL4m0_7O-C2cN6Azb4ShssqEE6e9q-PWbxN4/s1600/03+BBNP+023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtWmGei33eNW3J_dq9oFplih813jw__DBYMHrqDDQZjwOeghGRh1RZJJk4Df9p4zwjZkyFTqVSu9fG2yJIUqZ0GNhekxZp29rqAX3LivngL4m0_7O-C2cN6Azb4ShssqEE6e9q-PWbxN4/s640/03+BBNP+023.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pyrrhuloxia, or the desert cardinal</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP2tH5DcHlFXdxe_dxVDcZHZX5NhkgJZfMJFiUcNgzmZxMhLPNwrYv4f6tO1dlq-szp1NpOWv9RjEn5t59yO7UFcrP7K9Yb2PbSOGBLVBuuN2gm-dc5gLp3ZTB99Q49THxR0lU1YMTtVo/s1600/03+BBNP+019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP2tH5DcHlFXdxe_dxVDcZHZX5NhkgJZfMJFiUcNgzmZxMhLPNwrYv4f6tO1dlq-szp1NpOWv9RjEn5t59yO7UFcrP7K9Yb2PbSOGBLVBuuN2gm-dc5gLp3ZTB99Q49THxR0lU1YMTtVo/s640/03+BBNP+019.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blue bird</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit75AWWM1MHYmtyWy1XcJEAgUhKR5spMMigpe0c8sHg8SBev6kywFaDkF3r8rHkh_RBXSeHrT22yevvFxfp1UIijc4wlH92ad-4siDJhxcnFwLswB5VIW2XQyoC0cL3-PJAGmh4iU64Yg/s1600/03+BBNP+007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit75AWWM1MHYmtyWy1XcJEAgUhKR5spMMigpe0c8sHg8SBev6kywFaDkF3r8rHkh_RBXSeHrT22yevvFxfp1UIijc4wlH92ad-4siDJhxcnFwLswB5VIW2XQyoC0cL3-PJAGmh4iU64Yg/s640/03+BBNP+007.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've included the picture of the peregrine falcon statue, because in this park is protected during nesting time through closing trails.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Same subject, but in the afternoon.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The mountains are volcanic in origin. If you look at the shapes of the peaks you can imagine how they were formed. The flat, angular blocks like Casa Grande, are stratified layers of lava and ash — remnants of flows from nearby volcanoes. Rounded ones, like Ward Mountain, were subterranean domes of magma, that became prominent as erosion exposed them. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Casa Grande is above "Ileana" in the signature and Ward Mts. on the right, with the red leaves bush.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Chisos…why are they called Chisos? The TSHA (Texas State Historical Association) presents several possibilities, each fancier than the other: one says that “chisos” means ghost, the ghost of the Apache chief Alstate, who hid in the mountains for some time; another says that “chisos” is the plural of “chis”, coming from the Castilian word “chischás”, “clash of arms”, because some reported hearing battle sounds at night, and they presumed the ghosts of Spanish soldiers returned to fight again; a third story says that it is a corruption of the Spanish hechizos, “bewitchments, enchantments”. In a way they are related. But the Association concludes in a prozaic way: they were named after the Chisos Indians, that used to live around here! Ok, ok, and they? Why they were called like this? Maybe that was their own name, or the others gave them that name, but for sure this is how the Spanish conserved it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Back to the lodge we enjoy a ribeye steak and the views from the Window in the sunset color. Later on, before the moonrise we take some more pictures of Orion.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orion was above, but I thought you would like better this picture...</td></tr>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-58177504186245980672019-05-22T20:03:00.000+01:002019-05-22T20:05:19.789+01:00Texas, From Right To Left<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Monday, Feb. 18, 2019</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">At the crack of the dawn, or better say when the dawns were thinking if they should crack, we were in the car driving. I know what I’m talking about, even if you don’t believe me, because there were clouds of flocks of starlings, perched on the wires that were holding the traffic lights, all facing the same way, not knowing what to do, the light would change and they would start flying, and then re-perch, not enough light far away from the traffic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Next stop: San Antonio’s Missions, a World Heritage Monument from 2015. Established by the Catholics during the 17th and 18th century, the four missions and Alamo represent (beside a form of evangelization and colonization, through the interchange between the local hunter-gatherers, the missionaries and the colonists) the birth of a new people, settled and with a new religion, with elements from both sides. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We're getting closer to San Antonio</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We start with “San Jose and San Miguel de Aguayo” established in 1720. In a rectangular courtyard dotted with round stone ovens, surrounded by the defense wall in which there are rooms for the Indians to live, there is a church that has Spanish architectural elements with indigenous natural designs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From the flyer that is part of the ticket for a National Park we find out that the Spanish explorers were lured by tales of riches. When these faded, they concentrated more on spreading the Catholic faith. The Franciscan missions, financed by the Crown, were converting the Indians (and offered them sanctuary from their enemies), and helped push the empire northward. But the military support was close to nonexistent and so the Franciscans trained the Indians to defend their communities and to cultivate the land. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These missions flourished between 1747-1775 and then, because of the effects of European diseases, acculturation and intermarriage in 1824 they were secularized.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From volunteer George we find out that he worked extensively in the past 18 years at these sites and he imparted in a very short and comprehensible way what was important about this one. In the beginning people built the granary, where they deposited the crops and also held services for seven years. During that time they built the chapel, which was convenient for at most 50 people, but not for the other 360. These ones were listening to the service through the Rosa's Window. Now about who made the window, and why it is called that way. The flyer says that a Spanish sculptor Pedro Huizar made it as a symbol of his love for Rosa, a young woman who died while crossing the ocean. But George said not to believe it, because, we have no way to know who sculpted it, and why. The window has rococo fronds and lots of pomegranate (the seed of this fruit symbolizes the spread of the new faith and the inner unity of countless converts). It took them seven more years to build the church.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We also learned that the church’s altar still has two of its original sculptures, those in the lower register. It is painted blue and the whole place is simple and peaceful. At the entrance of the church, on both sides there are two small rooms, one for the priest and the other for cleaning supplies, but they both have beautifully sculpted wooden doors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Behind the church there is a water mill, a mix of original (the lower, working part) and reconstruction (the top part). Around 1800 the missions started to fall apart, whoever needed something for construction, they would just fetch it from here. Rena Maverick Green raised money and the first purchase toward preservation of the space was for the granary’s doors (now an exhibit). During the years the place followed the ups and downs of the times, until they were rescued by UNESCO.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5xYPUo8pLgsZgRPiBiExA3xw1Qjd3BUJ99OQ5Jb0xQ1mnz35_NjNAIbDXTEueyS8fE4aYzmXakDduf_uqoDu_IKSN5OxM1wPX0c5-VaGTMtgxhZe5qNgEGZqCatH2hjqNhilIY2xJvFE/s1600/San+Ant-Big+Bend+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5xYPUo8pLgsZgRPiBiExA3xw1Qjd3BUJ99OQ5Jb0xQ1mnz35_NjNAIbDXTEueyS8fE4aYzmXakDduf_uqoDu_IKSN5OxM1wPX0c5-VaGTMtgxhZe5qNgEGZqCatH2hjqNhilIY2xJvFE/s640/San+Ant-Big+Bend+004.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the bolts that embellished the granary's doors</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Then we drive to the Concepcion Mission. It used to look like San Jose, with a wall and everything, but humans and times allowed only for the church to survive. It also has a side chapel in which an original fresco still adorns the wall: a curtain with tassels that used to frame a painting of St. Matthew (now disappeared).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The sanctuary has three paintings on its cream walls: the Virgin as she will look on Judgment Day, St. Francisc praying and Santa Maria de Guadelupe. What was interesting about the chapel of St. Michael was the holy water vessel that in time it has become part of the wall, and about the chapel of St. Gabriel was that above the door it was a painted design that was scratched in a grid of squares, design that was enlarged and painted on the opposite wall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I would have liked to visit the archbishop’s house, where George told me that on the ceiling there was a painting with Jesus having amerindian features, but we have no more time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Later in the day we’re passing the Seminole Canyon Park. Humans that earned their living hunting mammoths left their traces in form of pictographs. Humans that earn a life as archeologists believe that they are one of oldest in North America. There are also people who want to share their knowledge and the privilege of seeing these pictographs, and so they volunteer to conduct tours, but not on Mondays or Tuesdays. Seeing that today is Monday, we stop before the bridge that crosses the canyon’s river and enjoy the view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After a very long drive we enter the Big Bend Park. Something that looks like a very small wild boar crosses our path and disappeares into the thicket. It is a javelin or a peccary. We drive a long way between hills and valleys, faintly painted by the dusk light and arrive when it is already dark. I can’t wait to see them, so we take advantage of the full moon and take a short walk after we checked in. Later, we have no problem falling asleep.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It looks like a shell....</td></tr>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-10928457262870302382019-04-06T16:27:00.001+01:002019-04-06T16:27:23.277+01:00Galveston<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Another vacation! Hurray! This one starts in Houston and ends in San Diego. Mihai flew from Philadelphia earlier in the day and I flew from Romania, through Munchen, arriving at 4 pm.</div>
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Houston is just the starting point. It’s where we made a reservation for a Mazda, zoom zoom, like in the commercial, only to find that Hertz didn’t have one. Because we are Gold Members (a perk of making a new account) we could choose any car we wanted from the Gold lane. That proved to be difficult because they only had huge trucks, a Toyota Camri and some Hyundai. We picked the Toyota, black as a raven, and named her Morena. And so we drove in rush hour toward Galveston, the place that came very close to be my first home in USA.</div>
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Many years ago, when Mihai wanted to become a psychiatrist, he interviewed here among fifteen other places. He liked it, but he liked best St. Louis. And since then he wanted to share with me this special place. </div>
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For starters it’s humid and it’s cloudy, but we have a hotel with a corner of sea view, and it’s quiet. Of course the pool is under reconstruction, a recurring theme wherever we travel.</div>
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A new day dawns very early for someone who has a jet lag from Romania. We head towards Galveston Island State Park. The ranger asks what we want to do, we have no plans, what is it for us to do for a few hours? The trails are a little bit muddy, he sais, you could drive here, or here, climb into a tower, see some birds, and then, visit the beach side. Good enough for us, only the trails are really muddy or truly flooded. Doesn’t matter, we’re here and we enjoy ourselves.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb5mDRdIbPHYPvWEzpRbgpq2BZI-cOLUiZdHbaDVMw7T5mCMcbPW8bf15ewUESAdmaKEkmhx0OvThrtc3vjqKN_8eQu2wPq3bgZkj5kl4CmB33zjDBrvWpzSeXahf94iTSjuTOS-gUT64/s1600/Galveston+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb5mDRdIbPHYPvWEzpRbgpq2BZI-cOLUiZdHbaDVMw7T5mCMcbPW8bf15ewUESAdmaKEkmhx0OvThrtc3vjqKN_8eQu2wPq3bgZkj5kl4CmB33zjDBrvWpzSeXahf94iTSjuTOS-gUT64/s640/Galveston+006.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb3cSMCRU1gJVGBWuKYTnhst3zSkR4_jmFkzjja1y5yEvC2QUlRADbzRrhz4rXtAITgX54JloUZcQUq066y6RSir17xjxqDbsVeo8XASjwSnLsjylDyEfCUOeEKxR0pJFI3FFBRqo21MU/s1600/Galveston+008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1064" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb3cSMCRU1gJVGBWuKYTnhst3zSkR4_jmFkzjja1y5yEvC2QUlRADbzRrhz4rXtAITgX54JloUZcQUq066y6RSir17xjxqDbsVeo8XASjwSnLsjylDyEfCUOeEKxR0pJFI3FFBRqo21MU/s640/Galveston+008.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBNPjBKTG7wlwu7hM8KEkMW9JSDNPwfwWaWiyWRH5gLAZaMKQhFu1YrPVgw9Zc0oZoIWnoTbUggBujYQVuWQEwvUqBY15m6oXK9q5X031VaLnw5uQmSV3zbYNPFtLx_ka2ckKTZcElm28/s1600/Galveston+010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1064" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBNPjBKTG7wlwu7hM8KEkMW9JSDNPwfwWaWiyWRH5gLAZaMKQhFu1YrPVgw9Zc0oZoIWnoTbUggBujYQVuWQEwvUqBY15m6oXK9q5X031VaLnw5uQmSV3zbYNPFtLx_ka2ckKTZcElm28/s640/Galveston+010.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blue heron</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZ_UAwcaawWJhFoCjDH5YlKPuG0ZysMrjKQWJtamdDOJF3Vuvi-q6iyzjlocw1AmWYFqJSn8Jp1rDgeyvcMHQeCuiku5VOEvpORHPrKLZsXZAj3gDksbAEmVn5z0eMldtB1lsF8IXBwg/s1600/Galveston+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZ_UAwcaawWJhFoCjDH5YlKPuG0ZysMrjKQWJtamdDOJF3Vuvi-q6iyzjlocw1AmWYFqJSn8Jp1rDgeyvcMHQeCuiku5VOEvpORHPrKLZsXZAj3gDksbAEmVn5z0eMldtB1lsF8IXBwg/s640/Galveston+003.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm looking at the pellets thrown by crabs while making their hiding holes.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sand pellets thrown by crabs.</td></tr>
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After we take pictures of everything and more that interests us, we head by car toward the beach side, but somehow we take the wrong right turn and find ourselves into a cul de sac that has five houses for sale, and another two are in the process of being refurbished. Business that bad? Are we interested? No. Moving on. We take a nap at the hotel.</div>
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Later on we want to visit the old Galveston. We start walking by the Opera House where the valets are wearing dress coat, while the entering public is in sneakers. It was built in a time when things were going well, Galveston was a bustling port, several times bigger than Houston. It weathered several hurricanes and different signs show how high the water was. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMqhJBn4KuMbw9jX1f6AsRnKLX47Rls2ydw2Xvtjk2XTs2bC_jRLJij0AqmlFMUUDShfrUKBEJJ7swE9wHckGKqNihFp9C1qxEek8XaLihLXbNYBfZTQ1qk6ThV6iKBn2yJjwZbtYcEV8/s1600/Galveston+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMqhJBn4KuMbw9jX1f6AsRnKLX47Rls2ydw2Xvtjk2XTs2bC_jRLJij0AqmlFMUUDShfrUKBEJJ7swE9wHckGKqNihFp9C1qxEek8XaLihLXbNYBfZTQ1qk6ThV6iKBn2yJjwZbtYcEV8/s640/Galveston+004.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opera House</td></tr>
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And then we turn aimlessly on streets, finding shelter from rain into antiquities shops, or furniture ones, or selling paintings ones, almost every building has a shop. What seemed to be a feeble rain proves to be a steady one, resolving us to visit by car. Realising that we’ve seen everything that could interest us we stop at a food store, stock up for the next several days and return to the hotel.</div>
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We can’t leave without visiting the beach and so we cross the street, climb down the stairs to some red granite boulders barely covered with sand. Further on is more, resembling a real beach, but it is windy, we are tired so we call it a day.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clouds shaped as flying birds.</td></tr>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-46122024037185388312019-01-19T21:04:00.000+00:002019-01-19T21:07:17.487+00:00Reverse Cultural Shock<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue";">Last day in Japan starts early, packing all our belongings, leaving them in the apartment ready to go and heading toward Kiyomizu Dera. Being part of the “must see” either for tourists or for locals means one thing: hordes of people. It’s 8:45 and the place is packed. Policemen survey some steps and are vehemently forbidding people to take their picture. I wonder: is it because the sun is at such height in the sky that we don’t see the steps and could have an accident? We’ll find out later that somewhere in the temple there was a service and the picture would upset it.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Later in the afternoon when we were aloud to take the picture.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Kiyomizu Dera is the last WHS that we are going to visit here. “The Pure Water” temple was built in 778 AD on the site of the Otowa Waterfall. What sets it apart from the other ones is the wooden stage that juts from the main hall, 43 ft (13 m) above the hillside below, stage that enables the visitors to have a wonderful view of the blooming cherries in the spring and changing color maples in the fall. Made entirely from wood (no metal nails) like the temple (closed for some reason), the stage is covered with people moving in a brownian motion. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tassel of the bell that one rings after saying the prayer.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our faces for the size</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As any space, it is finite, and when we had our fill, we exit toward the waterfall, whose waters are divided in three streams, each with its benefits: one for longevity, one for success in school and one for a fortunate love life. To drink from all of them is considered greedy… </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the end of the garden there is a carp with its tail sticking out from the lake, mudding the water. It seemed to wave good-bye. Yes, we’re leaving.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Still we have to walk toward the apartment and as we have a little bit more time we window-shop. Here they sell ogi, or folded fans, their history going back to 794, when they appeared from the collaboration of a priestess of the Mieido hall (part of the Jishu sect of Buddhism) with the other monks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And in other stores they sell mochi, or a sweet made with mochi, the best sweet thing ever! Mochi is made from a short variety of rice, that goes through soaking, drying, roasting, milling, again soaking and pounding, only to be shaped on plates highly heated, to be sprayed and then packed. It is usually eaten around New Year, when it transforms itself in the most dangerous sweet thing ever. People die every year in Japan, because they don’t chew it well enough, so it sticks in their throat and can’t breath anymore. Why do they eat it? It’s tradition: when kami came on earth, people would offer them the produce of their labor. They can come whenever they like, but around the New Year the Japanese people prepare themselves to be visited by kami. So they clean and cook food for several days (that is because it is considered rude to cook and make noise in the kitchen while a kami may visit you). And the food is mochi, that can be heated quietly. It can be made just itself or with some filling. They sell beautiful boxes with samplers: green tea, apricot, chestnut, mango, chocolate, adzuki beans, etc.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFBT7O1SJso_tpQa0Zvml5PbbG-0lcu0Zue8ZGzHfHMVg1YOKoBk2XbeOSQhy328wTQVo4xQ64IsJvLFEVXWovXw33IQlYPHRYPesl670DxFGRksqGTvKgxeDFARTasbFeHVJPZpLIlQU/s1600/Japan+18+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFBT7O1SJso_tpQa0Zvml5PbbG-0lcu0Zue8ZGzHfHMVg1YOKoBk2XbeOSQhy328wTQVo4xQ64IsJvLFEVXWovXw33IQlYPHRYPesl670DxFGRksqGTvKgxeDFARTasbFeHVJPZpLIlQU/s640/Japan+18+001.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mochi samples, mmmmm...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EpolOyi_Y1PCd10Rt1hkYKY_TtjLV3xXXWOqkMgnF5NIHIM5ll85iUIgtwMF9WPLhGPsVHtYTpLjXI0nk1xxiM-6r5Y8ddfwucbuX8_4SXDFZ0GXpt-VdrIm2pqouk11gHOxLUveMjY/s1600/Japan+18+013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EpolOyi_Y1PCd10Rt1hkYKY_TtjLV3xXXWOqkMgnF5NIHIM5ll85iUIgtwMF9WPLhGPsVHtYTpLjXI0nk1xxiM-6r5Y8ddfwucbuX8_4SXDFZ0GXpt-VdrIm2pqouk11gHOxLUveMjY/s640/Japan+18+013.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boxes with mochi</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is time. We have to leave. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-t2SqPtjaVHMp6mdPZjrNpygsO9CO_4UgqO6hQ5De1LQdUWbaWYbQpG2u1P5vrv81YRqWnXYGqHINpjR8QszBurwo-If9CxhUhEpvLy27FFCws-0miyBucNZtIeUEViByUfbdPxIphkI/s1600/Japan+18+011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-t2SqPtjaVHMp6mdPZjrNpygsO9CO_4UgqO6hQ5De1LQdUWbaWYbQpG2u1P5vrv81YRqWnXYGqHINpjR8QszBurwo-If9CxhUhEpvLy27FFCws-0miyBucNZtIeUEViByUfbdPxIphkI/s640/Japan+18+011.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sign on the sidewalk</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq7qkJPs5pgxoctUcXYnLDB_ShHhoN6VjKnO7T2wHHCXv9HGuDBKdE3-gjvBZFnrDdTjQrvzT3n1ITwn0oCygYf7NNs3moHKb3n2x986iRpvXFEtGQJnggTr-0Yhzo9GSbzw1UMifdPTk/s1600/Japan+18+014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq7qkJPs5pgxoctUcXYnLDB_ShHhoN6VjKnO7T2wHHCXv9HGuDBKdE3-gjvBZFnrDdTjQrvzT3n1ITwn0oCygYf7NNs3moHKb3n2x986iRpvXFEtGQJnggTr-0Yhzo9GSbzw1UMifdPTk/s640/Japan+18+014.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We take our bags, then a metro to get to the train that will take us to Osaka, but we don’t know which one so we ask a nice employee. Under a deluge of questions from another stressed foreigner and from us, she tells us that she doesn’t want to be there, but patiently gives us our answers in English. We manage to arrive where we are supposed to be, but we can’t exit because we don’t have enough money on one of the cards. The watchman points to a machine to put more money on the card. We don’t want, we want to pay just the difference. He helps us. We would like to recuperate the money from the IC cards. We can’t, we are in a train station, not metro, and he bows.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgln6BtfbMLt5uXQXCbWg58Q9lnMcGSMXmJllYLdX-EC2cSRKvegH3KjdSCdkqZN63V_njIcTcz8Csl2PDJZJtzHuFsIps1i5aPfb5XfCxtNbHyKncOwHy2vXPD_OI_VtzBACKVTGUeay8/s1600/Japan+18+018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgln6BtfbMLt5uXQXCbWg58Q9lnMcGSMXmJllYLdX-EC2cSRKvegH3KjdSCdkqZN63V_njIcTcz8Csl2PDJZJtzHuFsIps1i5aPfb5XfCxtNbHyKncOwHy2vXPD_OI_VtzBACKVTGUeay8/s640/Japan+18+018.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Symbol of the Expo '70, the Tower of Sun, build by Taro Okamoto, on our way to the airport.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">They announce the embarkment to our plane, Daydream, the biggest Japanese airplane, a giant. Though there are plenty of people, more businessmen than travelers, in a few minutes everyone is in their seats. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_uob8zeGPG7oSD7J8EtlFDEN1_hdzP6OoSzghtlM10lYE4a8ogjKa15RAsAcD9w9A3Rgqt9EtteL-ipo70P5agNQjV_bzYRFotI75wsYI3NXmU52NbpR2bq7r_7GdDTokH-mqmjbR_JM/s1600/Japan+18+021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_uob8zeGPG7oSD7J8EtlFDEN1_hdzP6OoSzghtlM10lYE4a8ogjKa15RAsAcD9w9A3Rgqt9EtteL-ipo70P5agNQjV_bzYRFotI75wsYI3NXmU52NbpR2bq7r_7GdDTokH-mqmjbR_JM/s640/Japan+18+021.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivtCGPkGrjYb8crhbBqO6VJ3o8aziAKOhIfSgS5s5I6TM4pnB8PncqIdmk788QzT2aipDb2DKIunSIALDrLfv0DNKVhEeY6eWRDPCwe1FQLLj_CRl9BmzVedVrxho9NS6xNxjluHC0hkw/s1600/Japan+18+022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivtCGPkGrjYb8crhbBqO6VJ3o8aziAKOhIfSgS5s5I6TM4pnB8PncqIdmk788QzT2aipDb2DKIunSIALDrLfv0DNKVhEeY6eWRDPCwe1FQLLj_CRl9BmzVedVrxho9NS6xNxjluHC0hkw/s640/Japan+18+022.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And in a short time we arrive in Tokyo. In the airport we stroll around, race cars, eat the last persimons, take in as much as we can. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgohPDO1O71V5XA0D5MY_1Z6Nh-D7opFpEwOj9PIb2GgZqTvxz_tNmXAvbOAyR4lAdbEYby_y5M6XWiC1_s0pygGofrgJvuJhQWTbDmqNj0zyHnVtJbhPk28XpUYZAvfQEw_S5Q0s8xj1g/s1600/Japan+18+026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="1600" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgohPDO1O71V5XA0D5MY_1Z6Nh-D7opFpEwOj9PIb2GgZqTvxz_tNmXAvbOAyR4lAdbEYby_y5M6XWiC1_s0pygGofrgJvuJhQWTbDmqNj0zyHnVtJbhPk28XpUYZAvfQEw_S5Q0s8xj1g/s640/Japan+18+026.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcB11IO2VzY6NsLYyq30_8HZj6ENxxL2h0niGI71irJmb3taAzhUk60mr9ThHtZrnPS5jNbYSYt_vS2eUah5X_xWQU9kpwtOcWC05VnrYz3kCAmQpoWUuaZOPj6tkSvAVOyZCGeURy3s4/s1600/Japan+18+028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcB11IO2VzY6NsLYyq30_8HZj6ENxxL2h0niGI71irJmb3taAzhUk60mr9ThHtZrnPS5jNbYSYt_vS2eUah5X_xWQU9kpwtOcWC05VnrYz3kCAmQpoWUuaZOPj6tkSvAVOyZCGeURy3s4/s640/Japan+18+028.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBBwRN_-UptC5WeglvlmGoKOev1DU192A4R14ll3NsPR77LRuHuJzatu4s3LqkN8InXFpgn851p3YdjBk7nhRWZFokyB8jQ8UP5Hg2Q4r8uwhGN6GgsT34aJsPqjvsgeBY4U2YpgQgHZE/s1600/Japan+18+029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBBwRN_-UptC5WeglvlmGoKOev1DU192A4R14ll3NsPR77LRuHuJzatu4s3LqkN8InXFpgn851p3YdjBk7nhRWZFokyB8jQ8UP5Hg2Q4r8uwhGN6GgsT34aJsPqjvsgeBY4U2YpgQgHZE/s640/Japan+18+029.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4lEkxb7gg-f-fUhF_c3XYHyIUH00YNTFdEhP-L4Qx1fJHzsGgico1jNjrldqT1hDO02QdOP1JMtYW9hiqZJd3-m3zcVzt_5jLsZ9piR8kjHsrINsKqtPfMCRFY8pZq-qfI7yBFOURGZ4/s1600/Japan+18+030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4lEkxb7gg-f-fUhF_c3XYHyIUH00YNTFdEhP-L4Qx1fJHzsGgico1jNjrldqT1hDO02QdOP1JMtYW9hiqZJd3-m3zcVzt_5jLsZ9piR8kjHsrINsKqtPfMCRFY8pZq-qfI7yBFOURGZ4/s640/Japan+18+030.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The whole airport is in style</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt785mmzL-3qPKd_lWTNP3BJDICaYzHXcf1qGLqCxUPIG5Fy8I_P_ryeIV8WwSefMgVNNWl9gWlBgTXDBCH_5TaSIe4LbFe0sHqTRzypz9EZi-JNB_9UCF8lF5TVaH2Z7R3zMlanbO-r4/s1600/Japan+18+027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt785mmzL-3qPKd_lWTNP3BJDICaYzHXcf1qGLqCxUPIG5Fy8I_P_ryeIV8WwSefMgVNNWl9gWlBgTXDBCH_5TaSIe4LbFe0sHqTRzypz9EZi-JNB_9UCF8lF5TVaH2Z7R3zMlanbO-r4/s640/Japan+18+027.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We board another plane, they have two gates one for ABC seats, the other for GHI. Five movies later we arrive in Canada.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Suddenly we feel like we are decompressing. We are grateful that we have a space of our own, that we have room to breath, but there is so much wasted space, everything is big and ugly, cars are huge, including our van! We spend the night into a hotel: the bed is too soft and narrow, why can’t we sleep on the tatami?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">With one eye we smile and with the other we cry: we’re happy to be away from something that we already miss dearly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sayonara! Good bye Japan! Maybe we will come again, in the spring time, to see the blooming cherries!</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-48024819969143734712019-01-05T16:18:00.001+00:002019-01-05T16:18:08.172+00:00Noi6 Around-the-World: The Theme<a href="https://noi6.blogspot.com/2010/06/tema.html?spref=bl">Noi6 Around-the-World: The Theme</a>: Translated from English by Ileana Ruxandra 10 years later: For the past few weeks I searched on the internet trying to find families who went, or are or will be on a trip around the world. Mihai is...Mihaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228641687542213372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-73031641595397174502019-01-05T16:10:00.001+00:002019-01-05T16:10:15.019+00:00Noi6 Around-the-World: The Bait<a href="https://noi6.blogspot.com/2010/06/momeala-11-iunie-2010.html?spref=bl">Noi6 Around-the-World: The Bait</a>: 10 years later, translated from Romanian: Mihai says to write, because we will forget and I’m sure he is right. For a long time I was somehow numb, yeah we took the decision to go a...Mihaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228641687542213372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-89705938011835953702019-01-05T15:33:00.001+00:002019-01-05T15:33:37.277+00:00Noi6 Around-the-World: Beginnings<a href="https://noi6.blogspot.com/2010/06/inceputuri.html?spref=bl">Noi6 Around-the-World: Beginnings</a>: translated from Romanian, 10 years later: Sir Ernest Shackleton … he tried to cross Antarctica going through South Pole in 1914. The ship was claimed by ice and for a year and a hal...Mihaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228641687542213372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-32444330084131952922018-07-09T16:43:00.000+01:002018-07-09T16:43:25.296+01:00Nara's Deer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">October 28, 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We decide to visit Nara, again, because Ioan did not feed the deer four years ago. Good enough reason? Oh, yeah.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtUcESMz6WR2PbdEdUjjvws70Y5EbQ6s0_GS8LwNqNv9_VSLxKuh4Dzr1KqQrvjPcuEhiOzo6mDxkwh4YjvdFylZ4TKmjF3XqlXCI1EBDIrsb4E_EByVhBGmqCNICc93qEQUZIqo69Kso/s1600/Japan+17+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtUcESMz6WR2PbdEdUjjvws70Y5EbQ6s0_GS8LwNqNv9_VSLxKuh4Dzr1KqQrvjPcuEhiOzo6mDxkwh4YjvdFylZ4TKmjF3XqlXCI1EBDIrsb4E_EByVhBGmqCNICc93qEQUZIqo69Kso/s640/Japan+17+001.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyWIn7hJC6mhGeHeQjQC8I3X9Lt7L_NUJe2uDe2oANRPj7TE8SCX7AJRtGqiJUj65HoHLd7XU0dR0fGfgoROpZjlgeVKRtxqA5SYctlbfrfI4wScY60ZyJThASgb-pyveObnXAwIBc9RM/s1600/Japan+17+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyWIn7hJC6mhGeHeQjQC8I3X9Lt7L_NUJe2uDe2oANRPj7TE8SCX7AJRtGqiJUj65HoHLd7XU0dR0fGfgoROpZjlgeVKRtxqA5SYctlbfrfI4wScY60ZyJThASgb-pyveObnXAwIBc9RM/s640/Japan+17+004.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After a perfect transit between several trains, we arrive in Nara. Walking toward the Today-ji temple we discover that there is a special exhibition with things that were deposited 1300 years ago that belonged to an emperor. Spontaneously we decide to see it, despite a triple folded on itself line.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0WjM1I6X_PhNwv0PRpQDE5ricjSA0LETFMNLVa01tkmsnXsgjXSjFpR3qclMFADgv4LC8iXAa0wV4XNOb8t5huLU6zvd3LvFYnRW7Hn6rmXtxct6_a8y1Z_l9ieUyLmd44Qu4iM0HQ2g/s1600/Japan+17+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0WjM1I6X_PhNwv0PRpQDE5ricjSA0LETFMNLVa01tkmsnXsgjXSjFpR3qclMFADgv4LC8iXAa0wV4XNOb8t5huLU6zvd3LvFYnRW7Hn6rmXtxct6_a8y1Z_l9ieUyLmd44Qu4iM0HQ2g/s640/Japan+17+006.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> It takes so little to make an event of proportion if the objects are beautiful: a white bronze mirror, its back covered with mother of pearl and precious stones, a silver spoon and its box, a lute and so forth. There were so many people, all waiting patiently to have their turn in viewing the objects. A man had extensive handwritten notes that he would consult from time to time, and note some more. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3CRIuNxU0IBcIEGZnQUuohyN89ABz85_04K_sgQh78ChQ6NHlPNmSuWv5W1jN5hdiaY6AmdJq-DFxA6J5wdrA9ra1NULXNgO-Whs4YpADAnFTrZXTLn56KnItAk0O76smxTyFKqfmZY4/s1600/Japan+17+012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3CRIuNxU0IBcIEGZnQUuohyN89ABz85_04K_sgQh78ChQ6NHlPNmSuWv5W1jN5hdiaY6AmdJq-DFxA6J5wdrA9ra1NULXNgO-Whs4YpADAnFTrZXTLn56KnItAk0O76smxTyFKqfmZY4/s640/Japan+17+012.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We were not allowed to take pictures, so we took picks of theirs: "the lute"</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Copper or silver needles were a votive offering, to improve one’s craftsmanship, flutes made of stone to look exactly like the normal ones, from bamboo, a measuring stick beautifully decorated with flowers, birds and celestial figures, a ball of string…in a way they were everyday objects, some could say not fit for an exhibition, but they talked so much about those who brought them and those who made them, about their love for a well done job. After seeing twenty objects in about an hour, we could relax with tea, but we chose something else.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJflJNFiIT4AB3XO27F_sHPSVZKZrH7ixr-G3IRaf2zYBOItDMG-p-4JSdft7yoof-ZvQlY9_d6jrY8KGQI55hy6ekOavxhEJxpqilImj9HhbXqmUj2_nyr6zoVnh0FzZ1GnHbtpqrNFU/s1600/Japan+17+014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJflJNFiIT4AB3XO27F_sHPSVZKZrH7ixr-G3IRaf2zYBOItDMG-p-4JSdft7yoof-ZvQlY9_d6jrY8KGQI55hy6ekOavxhEJxpqilImj9HhbXqmUj2_nyr6zoVnh0FzZ1GnHbtpqrNFU/s640/Japan+17+014.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There are two gardens in the vicinity of the temple, each with a partial view of it. One is free for the foreigners, Yoshikien, the other one, Isuien, asks 1100 yen per person (this one has also a museum, but we forgot to visit it). I could not differentiate between the two of them. They both had a moss garden, </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw1B2T1OOMf9_uvIrU2fRsElXImcYyCk0rJ258tZFtv2fUeoMxmiHZn9RPZ89d5H_xN_Q9vLcegq7ddGBVv8G4XAbySN2zEa-lnuemC-vrReh3lfRZc9sLozTrnWOKHQZCxZJNzayImyU/s1600/Japan+17+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw1B2T1OOMf9_uvIrU2fRsElXImcYyCk0rJ258tZFtv2fUeoMxmiHZn9RPZ89d5H_xN_Q9vLcegq7ddGBVv8G4XAbySN2zEa-lnuemC-vrReh3lfRZc9sLozTrnWOKHQZCxZJNzayImyU/s640/Japan+17+003.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAoFeuLkF7eP4e6897l4j6BoyKEBnRZ9maiggClQIZiXgooOwcEJSZNgiRrumalYqxzewaiDYB_2V-MjEdat_svfn3CJfmR_fFt2oFWaCEmWnnvIpyalzm9S0kWsCpoYA9K5ZfahABd4k/s1600/Japan+17+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAoFeuLkF7eP4e6897l4j6BoyKEBnRZ9maiggClQIZiXgooOwcEJSZNgiRrumalYqxzewaiDYB_2V-MjEdat_svfn3CJfmR_fFt2oFWaCEmWnnvIpyalzm9S0kWsCpoYA9K5ZfahABd4k/s640/Japan+17+002.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We enjoy the space and quietness. We could stay more, but it is almost the end of the day and we want to visit the Today-ji temple.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBcYWniOyMyadeeFSxjfzmAXpQpPesbbAIHy9lSfaHHO0zzH8ClXmQyAAM4FfoU3yUWi-u-TXjCP17hgCaZO9VLKJZVNhPvYKjIZHXwZEBeC2sffls2THOHDTlp210zpXljmQ6Dle1jNE/s1600/Japan+17+015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBcYWniOyMyadeeFSxjfzmAXpQpPesbbAIHy9lSfaHHO0zzH8ClXmQyAAM4FfoU3yUWi-u-TXjCP17hgCaZO9VLKJZVNhPvYKjIZHXwZEBeC2sffls2THOHDTlp210zpXljmQ6Dle1jNE/s640/Japan+17+015.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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We have left it for the end of the day especially, to skip the crowds. We have more room to take pictures, read the labels, we don’t have to go with the flow. We know this is the largest wooden structure, but we find out that what we see was reconstructed in 1700’s only two-thirds of the original.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQAwxKAE2S_5jXnfV8XK_RlBGix_rHe-haoO6PIFLh6XJas4UkCGxg-P9SrjSUFkHw1KlAuenlQG1OpwDbqkCkdHjghDBFpfYYTIVsLbvGxjKQ4YFosii8byIKVZYg_m7RXvkM0cJ9Uk/s1600/Japan+17+022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEQAwxKAE2S_5jXnfV8XK_RlBGix_rHe-haoO6PIFLh6XJas4UkCGxg-P9SrjSUFkHw1KlAuenlQG1OpwDbqkCkdHjghDBFpfYYTIVsLbvGxjKQ4YFosii8byIKVZYg_m7RXvkM0cJ9Uk/s640/Japan+17+022.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8AbYD7k5fj3OIm9qcYyus275Js3Fs7ATHM7S36nyVjnJiTSJoQOf2ZQCWOs1aRQRwkJpfvbf4soDWRLty11OSHndSLa10g3o-1pJhi1pGjbGZDxHl8D0r2peget7umLlVNkpW9C5qFDE/s1600/Japan+17+023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8AbYD7k5fj3OIm9qcYyus275Js3Fs7ATHM7S36nyVjnJiTSJoQOf2ZQCWOs1aRQRwkJpfvbf4soDWRLty11OSHndSLa10g3o-1pJhi1pGjbGZDxHl8D0r2peget7umLlVNkpW9C5qFDE/s640/Japan+17+023.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuEacec7FoNoJ-npNdmu18klW5Mxqd56vg68NWWabqZ8njtclNmp5QMrJX7VwaJxH9zuiUtmfOc4ykcOZLURTXPGN05juU23c8qHJVDpKIRAOcc7vWki5BaZwandebBSj9XMTm7-6H3CY/s1600/Japan+17+034.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuEacec7FoNoJ-npNdmu18klW5Mxqd56vg68NWWabqZ8njtclNmp5QMrJX7VwaJxH9zuiUtmfOc4ykcOZLURTXPGN05juU23c8qHJVDpKIRAOcc7vWki5BaZwandebBSj9XMTm7-6H3CY/s640/Japan+17+034.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2W-n4st59CNOWSiaxqbeg2X6maP_A03wLXxmEFn-a91nzLIjaiT0xFG-FWkYXJgOiaVLfe0mMDqhUNFGvRUttYdMw1Y7ZZ1vwHT7_qZBcXOLJycUooQc6gKJGoQRTWi7j-Y0bnZkV8n0/s1600/Japan+17+033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2W-n4st59CNOWSiaxqbeg2X6maP_A03wLXxmEFn-a91nzLIjaiT0xFG-FWkYXJgOiaVLfe0mMDqhUNFGvRUttYdMw1Y7ZZ1vwHT7_qZBcXOLJycUooQc6gKJGoQRTWi7j-Y0bnZkV8n0/s640/Japan+17+033.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is how the original structure looked, flanked by two seven stories pagodas (not existing anymore)</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6HPQzucuelyl-ZooEEsswdm8q9HtN6B7s69AvhPkBfxlL-WIxvokA4rDmv1t9M__sbsnIBMsQ0fOwrK4Mhk3RkX_Ta0tBU90qiglHuvC4S2ghEQMBP8QGboNwr8I8rPrVAyjomXdOSUs/s1600/Japan+17+026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="1600" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6HPQzucuelyl-ZooEEsswdm8q9HtN6B7s69AvhPkBfxlL-WIxvokA4rDmv1t9M__sbsnIBMsQ0fOwrK4Mhk3RkX_Ta0tBU90qiglHuvC4S2ghEQMBP8QGboNwr8I8rPrVAyjomXdOSUs/s640/Japan+17+026.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Behind and on the left of the Buddha there is another statue, and on its left there is a metal column, on which sits a butterfly.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizmcgSzG9Qb_fWqLRHlbXzx2C_Gvg6EpTqzAdFQhU8hokslzkmmf9sFcjO67baTh6XpstOta6GWZqNdT23tCAzXMiqZ3VwPOPGJjgoScOd1ivgFaIzx4YKRqqxXppGEwxvmfYgx32LfUo/s1600/Japan+17+028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizmcgSzG9Qb_fWqLRHlbXzx2C_Gvg6EpTqzAdFQhU8hokslzkmmf9sFcjO67baTh6XpstOta6GWZqNdT23tCAzXMiqZ3VwPOPGJjgoScOd1ivgFaIzx4YKRqqxXppGEwxvmfYgx32LfUo/s640/Japan+17+028.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A "little" butterfly, bigger tha a human head.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkptJ75fqQVuwnZggsZuxT5rY9fmHwt147NJLQUIhWfcSRHnPkUK4TEQArTm5OEACcikJ47G2Vsngr1cPhr60qr948KtPeFJXmJEEuGOSlQ9ILP4Knx9A7bzwfwqWSduYpkpR4bYiDQE/s1600/Japan+17+029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkptJ75fqQVuwnZggsZuxT5rY9fmHwt147NJLQUIhWfcSRHnPkUK4TEQArTm5OEACcikJ47G2Vsngr1cPhr60qr948KtPeFJXmJEEuGOSlQ9ILP4Knx9A7bzwfwqWSduYpkpR4bYiDQE/s640/Japan+17+029.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NbE0xZo_6E1gThs7EELsSrNsmKIAH1VmXdfrfIRmnHrEJaXq6whJwFZkdL459AgmVcw74hbl57Gp4wEmClAYn2aEgNMuzIGTlW2tiag9fsKHDvTkx9Z2cZmHj2DKuP0Ia6-SPM6JS8A/s1600/Japan+17+030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NbE0xZo_6E1gThs7EELsSrNsmKIAH1VmXdfrfIRmnHrEJaXq6whJwFZkdL459AgmVcw74hbl57Gp4wEmClAYn2aEgNMuzIGTlW2tiag9fsKHDvTkx9Z2cZmHj2DKuP0Ia6-SPM6JS8A/s640/Japan+17+030.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A character that fits for the humankind salvation.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCoMrYS96ClQDVD20AaaL99vHPeKqwyOzV4NrUzCf2O8Vuc4njWGL78G9ATDIAXNVyoeKXcUlNLiAxiEdAfU0kDeDBV5WDUlgyvvoedszjyT2n3RDMGxJLkxoWCXD3VlCgQP82gxr4-z0/s1600/Japan+17+031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCoMrYS96ClQDVD20AaaL99vHPeKqwyOzV4NrUzCf2O8Vuc4njWGL78G9ATDIAXNVyoeKXcUlNLiAxiEdAfU0kDeDBV5WDUlgyvvoedszjyT2n3RDMGxJLkxoWCXD3VlCgQP82gxr4-z0/s640/Japan+17+031.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of the wood joint of the above statue</td></tr>
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It was build to contain the Vairocana Buddha (“Buddha that shines throughout the world like the sun” or the embodiment of the buddhist concept of “Emptiness”; the massive size and brilliance of the statue serve as a reminder that all conditioned existence is empty and without a permanent identity).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrsWkiVJlw64fNt_qU2UcaG55duUjjyuQ9r4Z2wpSWKjdZk9HoD5jmTuviOTTei0CUMLXTJ5_2yewEaLTzOZ794qI92GnaUghpFv_c32C8fNSxz0IWGnXGWMbJs623Hb_ar3wxFgUCCI/s1600/Japan+17+024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrsWkiVJlw64fNt_qU2UcaG55duUjjyuQ9r4Z2wpSWKjdZk9HoD5jmTuviOTTei0CUMLXTJ5_2yewEaLTzOZ794qI92GnaUghpFv_c32C8fNSxz0IWGnXGWMbJs623Hb_ar3wxFgUCCI/s640/Japan+17+024.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The central candles are taller than a man.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBbA-7W_QarvNw13bqtzvWwDeYmAV5egli_zJangxkAYqI4tl-wv2Sdi5UjxXuOxejd98bGH_LqGJCaUorpaxEvx4EjRFAY-nYoF1h3wuHv0zUeFsWlKEw6-cCn6y5B-I1AMEwx0Eg1eY/s1600/Japan+17+025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBbA-7W_QarvNw13bqtzvWwDeYmAV5egli_zJangxkAYqI4tl-wv2Sdi5UjxXuOxejd98bGH_LqGJCaUorpaxEvx4EjRFAY-nYoF1h3wuHv0zUeFsWlKEw6-cCn6y5B-I1AMEwx0Eg1eY/s640/Japan+17+025.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Build around 750 AD from cast bronze that was plated with gold, Daibutsu (another name, it means Great Buddha) is seated on a pedestal covered with 6 ft. lotus petals identically engraved with the Lotus-Matrix World-System.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh06is6weRJbUEgfLQVP-Rzlaa88l3xvoZWV1ga4VsgDNIYMIrDm6usD5c1b_ujHXiEAYbRCRqK8KGMmBaGpJ-xTwm29IwqqYeOjZ22ja9TzyDhmCFjg-QpD7PlJsBdJEwGra4FnGNQQu0/s1600/Japan+17+032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh06is6weRJbUEgfLQVP-Rzlaa88l3xvoZWV1ga4VsgDNIYMIrDm6usD5c1b_ujHXiEAYbRCRqK8KGMmBaGpJ-xTwm29IwqqYeOjZ22ja9TzyDhmCFjg-QpD7PlJsBdJEwGra4FnGNQQu0/s640/Japan+17+032.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here are visible the lotus petals, behind the red banister, under his right hand and left knee.</td></tr>
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The top half has the Tathāgata (Buddha, the one who is beyond all transitory phenomena) expounding the Dharma (for Buddhism, the cosmic law and order), flanked on each side by eleven Bodhisattvas (a term that defines those who moved by compassion want and work toward Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient being). In the lower half there are twenty-six lines with Buddha images and palaces and under them seven lotus petals, one turned upward, containing a Sakyamuni triad (Buddha and his agents in this world, Manju-wisdom and Fugen-practice). In short, this is the pictorial representation of the religious world viewed by the man Sidharta Gautama Buddha when, after six years of austerities, he became a Buddha of unbounded expanse.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFjcPDxIjftqdiKxKnLh57xGCzOqZTtLej0nxrPk6U4SbZLf2SFsoZfdr4CYbTCuzlbj0qhyphenhyphen8Xh8gBasPmSqUb3jUMax0qNyj0dADL_qvP32-zSONlqa2SE3wGUr6vj3xhN3vBUeWEcXw/s1600/Japan+17+027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFjcPDxIjftqdiKxKnLh57xGCzOqZTtLej0nxrPk6U4SbZLf2SFsoZfdr4CYbTCuzlbj0qhyphenhyphen8Xh8gBasPmSqUb3jUMax0qNyj0dADL_qvP32-zSONlqa2SE3wGUr6vj3xhN3vBUeWEcXw/s640/Japan+17+027.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And of course Ioan wants to be enlighten, again, and that means he wants to go through a space that is said to be as big as Daibutsu’s nostril. And because Mihai was not ready to take his picture, Ioan goes twice (does it mean he is twice or exponentially enlightened?)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEfHouzZu186cx8hqTYboB0n7xHTRttiNCxSBVrk38ef_8boasfJ1PppUONQTPHIcPTzgQeQ63zNVxpbkUoLj77S4SRhn-c4Kp8N09WQVRuFO9N7rQs0xTjsBwu0N3tuRQdW3LJBZpp5E/s1600/Japan+17+035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEfHouzZu186cx8hqTYboB0n7xHTRttiNCxSBVrk38ef_8boasfJ1PppUONQTPHIcPTzgQeQ63zNVxpbkUoLj77S4SRhn-c4Kp8N09WQVRuFO9N7rQs0xTjsBwu0N3tuRQdW3LJBZpp5E/s640/Japan+17+035.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Finally it is deer time! There are a thousand and some deer around Nara, considered to be messengers of the gods (like the fox, Inari). They are well behaved, no kicking and bucking, strolling gently between people and approaching only those with crackers. These are especially made for them, containing only healthy stuff for the respectable deer that they are. Ioan is so kind and shares his crackers with us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We say good bye and return home. Are you ready to say good bye?</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-47606458160128365962018-05-11T16:55:00.002+01:002018-05-13T13:33:59.871+01:00Four more, a Forest and Friends<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">October 27, 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Google challenges us: we have managed to transport ourselves by subway and buses, but can we take a bus without a number and no recognizable signs? Proud to say: Yes, we can, and even have seats.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We start with the best: Ryoan-ji. It is early in the morning, so there are just a few people admiring its rock garden: fifteen dark grey, odd-shaped rocks in a sea of white gravel. They say it resembles a tiger crossing a mountain stream with its cub. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But what I like is the wall made of clay boiled in oil. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYOS705cb1jHpjV3Yge-xAHMqh7Xl3z6eXKa1ev-1sfqt5BLNbm4cPQuVESgXNZAzpDWOHwakNzCyuwnrz2NKb5kQ5vVSBou51IdxIXOhE-PTXA3kiizp1vAKzun_30WwDnwf4RV6y2Wg/s1600/Japan+14+039.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYOS705cb1jHpjV3Yge-xAHMqh7Xl3z6eXKa1ev-1sfqt5BLNbm4cPQuVESgXNZAzpDWOHwakNzCyuwnrz2NKb5kQ5vVSBou51IdxIXOhE-PTXA3kiizp1vAKzun_30WwDnwf4RV6y2Wg/s640/Japan+14+039.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The tea room, which opens to the rock garden, has painted fusuma all over. It is called Zoroku (six-zo), Tortoise, with six standing for head, tail and four legs. The tortoise is a symbol of the guardian god of the North, and that explains the drawings on the sliding doors. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a wash basin for the tea room on which it’s written “I learn only to be contended”. We exit through another garden, in which there are trees like in Dr. Seuss’s Lorax and persimmons, which I have to be content only to look at.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A taxi takes us to the Kinkaku-ji temple, the Golden Pavilion, another World Heritage Site. Before entering the main garden, there is a moss one, in which different types of moss delineate islands around trees. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We learn that the Pavilion, with its three floors each a different style, is a shariden, containing the relics of Buddha. Maybe that is the explanation of the organized mob that surrounds the peaceful pond. We have to stay in line to take unhindered pictures. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is a little better on the garden path, quieter, more personal space, but the behavior stays, we’re all trigger happy: carp fountain, check, beautiful view, check, people working in the garden, check, check, check…</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ninna-ji, WHS, has a quiet beauty. A succession of linked buildings hems the gardens. We enjoy the painted fusuma (sliding doors) and an exhibition of treasures, including sutras brought from China by Kōbō Daishi (the founder of the Shingon Esoteric Buddhism). This is the only temple where they were using a leaf-blower, instead of a bamboo rake and it felt so un-Japanese.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Tenryū-ji, WHS, is unchanged. The hummingbird moths (named because they hover like their name-sake and because they are aproximately the same size) are still fluttering around flowering bushes and Japanese gentiane. We just stroll happily enjoying the surroundings, there is not much room in our heads for the information that makes so special this place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We head home through the bamboo forest. It is a photo opportunity for everyone, tourist and locals alike. The tall bamboos fight for light-rights somewhere above us, leaving just a green-gray penumbra to filter onto us. The wind rushes, leaves rustle, trunks crackle dry and move in unison.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ItYmYOnDl66AFLllE3PbXgrrUnqFi1EPFXuPeQgwGBF19mF4d40HC7mYtBx_NDRUnjaXu_ZNKyMCRMv_TOa597HAopdGRNZyW5sFkqDsRpzaIYzOupeh_GbSFyG6UTv3m1lpa3-nYzA/s1600/Japan+14+005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ItYmYOnDl66AFLllE3PbXgrrUnqFi1EPFXuPeQgwGBF19mF4d40HC7mYtBx_NDRUnjaXu_ZNKyMCRMv_TOa597HAopdGRNZyW5sFkqDsRpzaIYzOupeh_GbSFyG6UTv3m1lpa3-nYzA/s640/Japan+14+005.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Do you remember <a href="https://noi6.blogspot.com/2016/09/shirakawago_18.html#more" target="_blank">Yūka</a>? We’ve met in a train station after we visited Shirakawa-go. We’ve kept messaging forth and back and tonight we are going to visit her. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Exiting the train station there is an exhibition of materials for kimonos.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On the table the bentos reveal a true feast. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mum is edible, a little bit on the hot side.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We exchange information about our past experiences, future plans. We learn that there is more in a Japanese name than the sound that it makes, how it is written can express different things: Laura ( a Romanian name that comes from the Latin “laurel” that was used to make wreaths for the champions) means “beautiful Romania”. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3olo0iH7CtukR4UJc9YqUH6TrFy32KL2el_9Y2tbF8brJmykQBKc5As81GnuLiruVLjJi3ZYaoYoVqF0KKymZSL-ye3OoU-TOFNR1puAOGLBgJB9wt7amC7_IvFvfcev4MNFXQHGmLZU/s1600/Japan+14+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3olo0iH7CtukR4UJc9YqUH6TrFy32KL2el_9Y2tbF8brJmykQBKc5As81GnuLiruVLjJi3ZYaoYoVqF0KKymZSL-ye3OoU-TOFNR1puAOGLBgJB9wt7amC7_IvFvfcev4MNFXQHGmLZU/s640/Japan+14+001.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We have a wonderful evening!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two suns in a clouded sky? No, two yens floating on a mirroring water.</td></tr>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan35.0116363 135.7680293999999334.595911799999996 135.12258239999994 35.4273608 136.41347639999992tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-57156278800079323652018-03-16T20:21:00.000+00:002018-03-16T20:21:34.748+00:00Twelve and Counting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">October 26, 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Today is going to be a long and full day. If yesterday we saw three temples, today we’re going to double that number.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYbkpbz82BFVzgFDfqZqgggwce0jJUMUXNfNuhhj8n_t-cnRyRNONSbbUAvVqUlCLO4L0N1VA7CRnnVb02P7ERP6LpRXtEyD0SGDrlFI9pSo6yisEOz4AUNK57Pb8e0A0_-2P_q58FJFs/s1600/Japan+13+036.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYbkpbz82BFVzgFDfqZqgggwce0jJUMUXNfNuhhj8n_t-cnRyRNONSbbUAvVqUlCLO4L0N1VA7CRnnVb02P7ERP6LpRXtEyD0SGDrlFI9pSo6yisEOz4AUNK57Pb8e0A0_-2P_q58FJFs/s640/Japan+13+036.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Chion-in, founded by Honen, greets us with his Sanmon, a huge entrance gate, where we are supposed to part with hatred, greed and foolishness. The trunks that uphold it were already old 400 years ago when they were used to built it. They are so thick, we seem ants next to them. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0zFLlRjOH3WdtS7Fe5ci42qCr-JHL7WTZ54Fjb95PIo0QKthl9i-pb2s4voZRnQ2h0LQ8bJoU64URagDipMWlaXEhTAmlK5M-Fv10XoSdV7w8mL1uLekllHUY2hxmCYLch4GlWsgPdSo/s1600/Japan+13+037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0zFLlRjOH3WdtS7Fe5ci42qCr-JHL7WTZ54Fjb95PIo0QKthl9i-pb2s4voZRnQ2h0LQ8bJoU64URagDipMWlaXEhTAmlK5M-Fv10XoSdV7w8mL1uLekllHUY2hxmCYLch4GlWsgPdSo/s640/Japan+13+037.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We climb a long flight of stairs and we look around a modern building, trying to find the main hall. Eventually it dawns on us that it is IN the modern building, as they do improvements on it, and that is why they have those tiles inscribed, to be put on the roof. Would you like your prayers to imbue the rain water and fly on the wind? </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLV3iNczVpBsR0O7L7elV0LuuZwEVjydNQ1i-1OOQic1JLCTkE9opaiQ6Bvb9d_YSvvlKEEN8JUdxTsreZBG2vfG4QWCAF1kV74joodZ5IRFRvRFNxqM2K8hz24bF59v7NNX7koBv_Z3w/s1600/Japan+13+038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLV3iNczVpBsR0O7L7elV0LuuZwEVjydNQ1i-1OOQic1JLCTkE9opaiQ6Bvb9d_YSvvlKEEN8JUdxTsreZBG2vfG4QWCAF1kV74joodZ5IRFRvRFNxqM2K8hz24bF59v7NNX7koBv_Z3w/s640/Japan+13+038.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As we enter it we find there is a service, a priest drums and chants and people sit. We don’t want to intrude, so we go to see the garden and the massive bell that requires 25 men to sound it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Short break for a quick lesson in Japanese Buddhism: as I told you before, Buddhism came in waves, took root and branched. One of the branches is called esoteric, and this one has two schools. Sometime in the 9th century there was <a href="http://noi6.blogspot.com/2017/01/miyajima.html" target="_blank">Kōbō Daishi</a> who traveled to China to study Buddhism. When he returned to Japan he found out that the monk Saichō had already gained favor from the emperor for the Tendai School. Still, he persevered and he is considered now the founder of Shingon or the True Word Esoteric Buddhism. Saichō asked Kōbō to give him the introductory initiation in the Shingon school. Kōbō did, and when time came he gave also the second initiation, but because Saichō did not finish the required studies, he refused to give the third one, which would have made him master of the esoteric Buddhism. And since then all the followers, on Tendai and Shingon sides are still sore. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In the 12th century, the Buddhism came to be almost an aristocratic religion. “Enlightenment” was viewed as eliminating one’s attachments through understanding the scriptures from an academic standpoint and engaging in austere practices, so Buddhism had no connection to the common people. Honen, a monk in the Tendai sect, went back to the scriptures and read again Buddha’s vows. Number eighteen pulled hard on the strings of his heart: salvation could be attained by simply chanting “Namu Amida Butsu”, the name of Buddha. It had great appeal to all the people who felt excluded from worshipping Buddha because of the numerous rules. And that is how Jōdo Shū or Pure Land came to be in Japan. And the place where he taught was right here, at Chion-in. His disciple built later the temple, It became the head temple of the Pure Land Buddhism in the Tokugawa era, each shogun improving and enlarging it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From Chion-in we go just a little bit North, to visit Shoren-in, a Tendai sect and a Monzeki temple (meaning: the head priest was part of the imperial family). We pass five enormous camphor trees and enter through the Kachoden, a drawing room with portraits on the walls and paintings on the fusuma (sliding doors), to admire the garden with the pond. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On the tatami there is a red carpeted place on which I enjoy macha (green tea) with a cookie. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After we visit other important parts of the temple, we stroll the garden, and Ioan rings the bell. It resonates long and low.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Nanzen-ji greets us with it San-mon, that is so huge, that could be a temple in itself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Behind the gate is the Hatto, a large lecture hall in which the public cannot enter. We visit the Hojo, a rock garden, its rocks are said to resemble tigers and cubs crossing through water. Though we look very attentive, we can’t imagine them, but we can see tigers and leopards on the fusuma, painted over gold leaf. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On the temple’s grounds there is an aqueduct built during the Meiji period (end of 19th century) to transport water and goods between Kyoto and Lake Biwa. It seems so out of place and so European, yet people here love it and consider it worthy for the wedding pictures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From here we walk on the Philosopher’s Walk, a cherry tree lined street and stop to visit Eikan-do, a temple named after one of its monks. It is said that one frosty morning, while he was walking and chanting a prayer to Buddha, the main Buddhist image of the temple came to join him. Eikan stopped, wondering if he was dreaming. It is then when Amitabha looked back over his left shoulder and said “Eikan, you are late”. That is why the monk ordered a statue of the Buddha with its head turned, to remind us to be good one with each other, to wait for each other, to call those who did not come yet. What is special for me here is a room in which there are beautiful paintings, through their simplicity and ease, of Buddha and bodhisattvas, all praying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Honen-in: we have visited it first time in 2011, and it was too beautiful to pass it. Now it had a new roof over the entrance gate, but the fountain was still dripping water from the tip of a real leaf. It has a moss garden.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Returning to the Philosopher’s way we buy roasted chestnuts and enjoy them on our way to Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion. It was built as a place of solitude and rest for an artistic shogun, who intended to cover it in silver foil, like the Golden Pavilion, only war got in the way. But sometimes the intention is just enough. Its sand garden represents Mt. Fuji and the sea with waves. We walk the grounds and remember our first visit and the students who were floating one yen coins on water.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Happy and tired, we take the bus, dine out and count: three temples the first day, three the second, plus six today, that makes twelve…What will tomorrow bring?</span><br />
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-73110006271008804002018-01-19T09:30:00.000+00:002018-04-07T14:06:04.250+01:00Penguins of Syracuse<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: 17pt;">We first lost our passports. I found them after about 40 minutes, it is not so hard to check all the possible places were they could have been put, starting when we returned from our last international trip. Which was fresh on our mind, because it was then that a dead 1500 year old monk split my head open and my coworkers reminded it me of it all day. "Have a great vacation but watch your head." I knew we must have had the passports on arrival and eventually we found them. Later that day I had a freaky accident playing table tennis and the injuries made me feel in a daze. I kept misplacing and losing many more things. Great start - all the bad luck was wasted. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: 17pt;">This morning we left half an hour late, the car was frozen including the inside of the windshield. The temperature is 10F (minus 12)." Windows are overrated!" I decided and I took off while Ileana Ruxandra was scraping the ice from inside. It only took 95 minutes to get to the airport. It was a gorgeous ride, clouds of vapors were raising from the lake and the hills were covered in snow. The icicles on some bushes looked like diamonds and the empty trees in the Montezuma wildlife reserve were a eery dead forest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: 17pt;">We had time, it was 9.37 - the kids kissed us goodbye and took off, Ioan driving. We went to print our boarding passes. We got an unusual error "you will miss your connection, do you want to look for alternative flights?" There are no alternative flights. We fly from Syracuse to Bariloche. We would have had more than 2 hours to connect in JFK but our plane was rescheduled because of a "rest break". Now it was supposed to depart at 1.20 and our boarding time for next one was 2.25. We would have still made it, except that we would have to change terminals at JFK and another pass through security would make it impossible. We decided not to check any luggage. Passing through security took a very a long time and as he took apart all our belongings the guy told us about where he went in South America. Later, brainstorming with the gate agents while waiting and looking for alternatives, one suggested: "Tell them to give you a ride in their Porsche!" Seeing my face he explained "they do that for their valued customers." Yeah, this would be on the tarmac, behind security. And then he said "watch this!" With the flick of his index he changed the sign, our plane would leave at 12.50! As we still have to wait and CNN goes on and on about Trump, I did not want to read more of "Fire and Fury in the White House". Ileana Ruxandra helped me choose another book on my kindle: a travel guide to Patagonia. Lady Florence Dixie in 1878 says on page two: "we only took one servant with us, knowing that English servants inevitably prove a nuisance and hindrance in expeditions of the kind, when a great deal of "roughing it" has to be gone through, as they have an unpleasant knack of falling ill at inopportune moments." We feel for her and congratulate ourselves, we left all our English servants home. Up in the plane waiting to take off, in the snow we see four plastic waving penguins. Maybe we'll see some real ones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: 17pt;">We left at 1.05 and landed at 2.10. On the plane we asked Leah, the flight attendant, if there is anything she can help us with and she explained that we'd have to take the shuttle bus to the airtrain and then... I cut her off. Porsche? She had no idea. She moved us in the 5th row and wished us luck. We deplaned fast and ran in front of everyone. No sign for airtran, just a shuttle bus. No gate agent to ask for the Porsche. We get first on the bus, the driver is half asleep, "get off at the first stop", but he wouldn't leave until the bus was full. We get out first and run up in terminal 2. Terminal 2?!? Security says there is no airtrain, get back on the bus. Two people say this, but the bus people send us back inside. Another gate agent points to the exit, cross the street get out toward the parking lot you'll find the airtrain. Courtesy ride? Never heard of. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: 17pt;">It's a circular track and from terminal 2 to 7 you can go both ways. I asked three people which is the shortest and since they agreed, we get the first train. It's too slow but as we approached the terminal I saw our plane at gate number 5. By 2.50 we got to our stop. With the tickets in hand we ran down the stairs and the long corridors, got inside the terminal and straight toward the big crowd waiting at security. I spot an agent: "please help us!" She moves and takes us to cut to the front of the line and the security person who checks the boarding passes and the passports is also helpful: "please relax, you'll make it. Take a deep breath people have had heart attacks here, it's not worth it!" The machine doesn't want to read my boarding pass. When it did we all cheer. Then we ask nicely a few more people to let us go first, load several trays with our stuff and pass security by 3 pm! Up the escalator running, no TVs for the gates, but I go for number 5 and in the empty hallways a lady comes toward us. She is from Aerolineas Argentina and she came to look for us. Six staff and security wait at the gate, we run toward them and some cheer like in an episode of the "Amazing Race". As one of them reissues our boarding passes we get to share our story and they are all amazed. "Your luggage will not make it." "That's fine" I say "we have no luggage" "wow, that's smart!" Everybody else is already on the plane., set in their seats, belts on. As we ran through the last empty corridor I yell "next time they have to pay us more!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: 17pt;">We used 60,000 Delta miles and $11.20 to buy these particular economy tickets to Bariloche, it would have been many thousands dollars. Since these were sign up bonus for the Delta American Express card, they were free. The first Delta purchase gave us $50 back. So we earned $38.80 to get through this. Ten hours later we land in Buenos Aires. It is 3.50 am and the temperature is 70F (20 degrees Celsius).</span></div>
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Mihaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06228641687542213372noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-20868827748482864052017-07-17T22:32:00.001+01:002017-07-17T22:32:44.000+01:00Old Temples<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Sunday October 25, 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Breakfast, Ioan takes his test and then we leave for Biyodo-in, a World Heritage Site. We change the train and we sit in the new one, waiting for the scheduled time to leave. A young man, while entering the wagon, juggles his many possessions and his iPad cover slips in the space between the train and station. Immediately he deposits his phone and iPad on a chair, but takes his backpack and runs to get an attendant. The other people are calm, there is nothing wrong with leaving your things behind. We, foreigners, are more concerned about his things and start calling him. He bows and makes signs that he will return, not to worry… No one is interested in stealing a phone and an iPad just sitting there…This is the second time in Japan when I think this is a safe country. The first time was when I saw a pigeon sleeping on the rail of the bridge in the middle of the traffic. The attendant comes armed with a mighty claw, but he is not able to grasp the cover. Our young man collects his possessions and waits for our train to leave, so he can have his cover back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a line to enter the temple grounds, and after we enter another line and people are just sitting idle. Curious…We visit the garden, observe the heavily scaffolded cherry trees, the lake that reflects the Phoenix Pavilion, everything ordered, clean, how it should be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> The flyer says that the temple was built by the Regent in 1052, by rebuilding the villa of Michinaga, his father. And in 1053 he built the Phoenix Hall in the image of the Palace in Jodo, depicted in the Buddhist scriptures, to host the Amitabha Tathagata. The garden is also in the Jodo style of “borrowed landscape” having waves of sand, a flat bridge and arched bridge. There are some cultural artifacts that come from the Heian Period, including the temple bell, a painting, a pair of phoenix statues and 52 bodies of Unchu Kuyo Bosatsu (Buddhist Saints) riding the clouds and playing a variety of musical instruments. 26 of them are on display at the Hoshokan, the museum, and the others are in the Pavilion surrounding Amitabha Tathagata. Unfortunately for us we can’t see the latter ones, as the tickets for the Pavilion are offered later in the day, when we plan to be somewhere else (and that explains why all those people were idle, they we’re waiting for their scheduled visit).</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqjhpWd37r_ZEhPElkAbGbQ7LRjQNQhoQQSKOFTY9iinASx1G8nm1rdcVgGOM7R-qlr5uzzL-G-sw6Hrn56srEB9VA3JSP90Y6MyAkptPEF6cFumaXl1WjAXYcH3R8f005jJ9wOkzlQw/s1600/Japan+12+009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcqjhpWd37r_ZEhPElkAbGbQ7LRjQNQhoQQSKOFTY9iinASx1G8nm1rdcVgGOM7R-qlr5uzzL-G-sw6Hrn56srEB9VA3JSP90Y6MyAkptPEF6cFumaXl1WjAXYcH3R8f005jJ9wOkzlQw/s640/Japan+12+009.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is how a phoenix looks like!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The museum is a modern building that offers, beside the exhibit in itself, numerous screens and computers on which we can see almost everything that could interest us from the Biyodo-in Temple. We watch the building of new western doors of the Pavilion that had to replace the real ones while they were restored. They have a unique structure, a frame on which boards are attached from both sides, fixed with iron nails that sink below the wood surface and after that lacquered with vermillon (this one really red, and not orange).The left door is painted to depict the sea and the setting sun, with the sea dyed the colors of the horizon and the right one, a Buddhist temple in the mountain and outside of it, a woman who prays toward the sunset. (you can see them <a href="https://3dprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/3dp_agfa_byoudouin_new_door.jpg" target="_blank">here</a>)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_gu_Y0yoLGJbmwilKLAP42hyphenhyphenxcbGv32MZXAlO-ckhAmgBFkbsym8OasBMsA5nF1iMrFvvC50vw1zXu0Uobt6Dz1J-jQkv-5kP96PVm9Onx4uPJNulGtX0DqbGvB9uyrbYgFmf9N__iA/s1600/Japan+12+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_gu_Y0yoLGJbmwilKLAP42hyphenhyphenxcbGv32MZXAlO-ckhAmgBFkbsym8OasBMsA5nF1iMrFvvC50vw1zXu0Uobt6Dz1J-jQkv-5kP96PVm9Onx4uPJNulGtX0DqbGvB9uyrbYgFmf9N__iA/s640/Japan+12+006.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Next, we’re trying to find Ujigami-jinja, believed to be the oldest standing shrine in Japan, that was designed to be the guardian shrine of the Byodō-in and, evidently, a World Heritage Site. We pass many tea-shops, all selling the famous roasted tea, and mochi (a sweet), and ice-cream made from tea. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRvkaZNqsT1HxgMU-J4BmySUzW1jI-ntg_swneqiUCpTfGjIfo0DPgoDaH03_7mb_BrzWrj1isqTMqih8y1vUgB62p-fRRJkKsmBqWA677Nxidz2j_JAzMpHjp0iuwnzPW-vcK2uJU1o/s1600/Japan+12+011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRvkaZNqsT1HxgMU-J4BmySUzW1jI-ntg_swneqiUCpTfGjIfo0DPgoDaH03_7mb_BrzWrj1isqTMqih8y1vUgB62p-fRRJkKsmBqWA677Nxidz2j_JAzMpHjp0iuwnzPW-vcK2uJU1o/s640/Japan+12+011.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The pictures show how mochi with green tea and sweet bean paste is made.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Different kinds of tea, including coarse and barley tea.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGQT3dHRLQVcUaY9RUCc1G_a0zKUzASJJMeOFZ5VZhT0XQ0w-RQE7VQOAgE2xyac2G803cUZSQI-ibNWbqMMM-qOwC0U9lG13T8HkZHZdwxlS0aUapclMRe6U1iFKyv-wF54mRfJNomTA/s1600/Japan+12+015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGQT3dHRLQVcUaY9RUCc1G_a0zKUzASJJMeOFZ5VZhT0XQ0w-RQE7VQOAgE2xyac2G803cUZSQI-ibNWbqMMM-qOwC0U9lG13T8HkZHZdwxlS0aUapclMRe6U1iFKyv-wF54mRfJNomTA/s640/Japan+12+015.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not unusual to walk your dog in a pram.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> The shrine is similar with many others, but it has explanations for the use of the sand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The town of Uji stayed on the national and international tourist map because of the Tale of Genji, a literary masterpiece written in 10th century by a lady, Murasaki-Shikibu. The last ten chapters (of 54) are taking place in Uji and in time, the places that she talks about came to preserved because of her writing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> And I think that because of that, other things came to be important, like the bridge. For me it is a simple bridge, but I find out from the plaque that this is a reconstruction using the highest quality materials like Japanese cypress and attention was paid that the Giboshi, ornamental knobs with a shape like an onion that protect the structural posts from the rain water, will look exactly like the ones made in 1636. The oldest record of the Giboshi bridge is a drawing in the History of the Ishiyama Temple from the 14th century.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXioqTcOgH8UR6nMgGqz-QrkYiucC-zIbPhsPW5tqM_CC0z_cO6WKCJqgGhkRqZZ2GYi25ImLr1NMTDsZBoWO-CiDZZMp7thrA_adnrOKOAjvaDcVqgBWzhSgoeK6NdbtOSXEto8wws58/s1600/Japan+12+034.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXioqTcOgH8UR6nMgGqz-QrkYiucC-zIbPhsPW5tqM_CC0z_cO6WKCJqgGhkRqZZ2GYi25ImLr1NMTDsZBoWO-CiDZZMp7thrA_adnrOKOAjvaDcVqgBWzhSgoeK6NdbtOSXEto8wws58/s640/Japan+12+034.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now you can find the image of the bridge on the manholes.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Last thing on our to-do list for today is Daigoji, several subway and 19 bus stations away. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-6GN6J6-Hzim63nrq_BFjblIr-an4lsQJDXd4yJqMZIVNSrrMB3H5WkpKNU5TV7lAvzx7z5NVtFWE9FwNM0BG-NgXPTvppww2ySrPIFVDd5POXfKywDJjklTZ3dwqqqfELhxrhAtgGQ/s1600/Japan+12+021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-6GN6J6-Hzim63nrq_BFjblIr-an4lsQJDXd4yJqMZIVNSrrMB3H5WkpKNU5TV7lAvzx7z5NVtFWE9FwNM0BG-NgXPTvppww2ySrPIFVDd5POXfKywDJjklTZ3dwqqqfELhxrhAtgGQ/s640/Japan+12+021.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A World Heritage Site, it was built by Shobo, a Buddhist monk in 874. When he climbed the sacred mountain Kasatori (or Daigo), the local god appeared in the guise of an old man with white hair and gave him the mountain and a spring water. As a way of thanks, Shobo carved two statues of Kannon and dedicated them to the top of the mountain. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkRER9GwAHg0mZ2h9EmdPhnkvUtz2vmxPYG4vRTXRb1znfPKXl3_yhuucWEj0vcZ9FED_-WNoGCFIjUZCEXXZ1lnOoi5PIymmZXgl2naxbrVWcaMZkhyphenhyphenPcapgySUOaEN52KX3x3zRWes/s1600/Japan+12+025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkRER9GwAHg0mZ2h9EmdPhnkvUtz2vmxPYG4vRTXRb1znfPKXl3_yhuucWEj0vcZ9FED_-WNoGCFIjUZCEXXZ1lnOoi5PIymmZXgl2naxbrVWcaMZkhyphenhyphenPcapgySUOaEN52KX3x3zRWes/s640/Japan+12+025.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In time the whole mountain became covered in temples and halls, some burned, some were reconstructed, some survived, like the Goju-no-to (five storey pagoda) from 936. It was built for the repose of the Emperor Daigo’s soul.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfKZAzC6vAwpWOIhG-G5980t4D6eH1yOoHsxpzBR14m5rne9hlzvfMCLWfMSuM_aKNaqbbLM3lC2mDV9CZAntH-Taqe-YXdZcojcIRuWqFe4jJi7DKsag2mTWANAh9B1HUyR33IHuUbmc/s1600/Japan+12+028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1069" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfKZAzC6vAwpWOIhG-G5980t4D6eH1yOoHsxpzBR14m5rne9hlzvfMCLWfMSuM_aKNaqbbLM3lC2mDV9CZAntH-Taqe-YXdZcojcIRuWqFe4jJi7DKsag2mTWANAh9B1HUyR33IHuUbmc/s640/Japan+12+028.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDHrA1SA9Z-VGEGm0qjgQpF29EWbLPKl01unGcG11OvapNC8Hg92Vg95JtinJFDR4toKGH5osD3RIZamiFWSH8qEQq0AUs5txATyRN57JkTcirTEAM79_SDRDyiO21S-gqS5N9BDPzgPw/s1600/Japan+12+029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDHrA1SA9Z-VGEGm0qjgQpF29EWbLPKl01unGcG11OvapNC8Hg92Vg95JtinJFDR4toKGH5osD3RIZamiFWSH8qEQq0AUs5txATyRN57JkTcirTEAM79_SDRDyiO21S-gqS5N9BDPzgPw/s640/Japan+12+029.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is where they pray for many things, including world peace.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8R_aIKetANzgYcPC-yHjmRhh2UbMmIgvC5YfAWRT-T1OzbHfC2Rr0XkApC0hct_16bh-pB86EFepaNRZkl1RV_do0oIrOIh-EeF1phOWfiFokLlh1Lzml-rC9VDhm2Gdpnpi04TlktNc/s1600/Japan+12+030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8R_aIKetANzgYcPC-yHjmRhh2UbMmIgvC5YfAWRT-T1OzbHfC2Rr0XkApC0hct_16bh-pB86EFepaNRZkl1RV_do0oIrOIh-EeF1phOWfiFokLlh1Lzml-rC9VDhm2Gdpnpi04TlktNc/s640/Japan+12+030.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The inside of the praying hall from above.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Part of the temple is the Sanboin, that was built in 1115, and reconstructed by Toyotomi Hideoshi in 1598. It is a pavilion with its walls covered in cherry paintings or from the Aoi Matsuri (Hollyhock Festival, one of the three main festivals in Kyoto) with an interior garden. The forced perspective is at home, giant bonsai trees, erupting atop a moss covered island from a sea of parallel waves of gravel, connected with wooden bridges. We’ll just stay here and take it all in.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">See you next time!</span><br />
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-85358250389971955402017-02-18T21:51:00.000+00:002017-02-18T21:51:31.487+00:00Red Gates and Grey Turtles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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What is so special about Kyoto?</div>
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The old capital is imbued with history and lore...</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It still has many pre-war buildings as it was not heavilly bombed during the second world war...</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">People are encouraged and rewarded to wear the traditional kimono (the buses and the temples offer a reduced rate)...</span></div>
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It has a harmonious mix of old and new ...<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It has gardens and temples….lots and lots of gardens and temples...</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So I am going to ask again: are you ready?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here it goes…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">October 24, 2015</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To visit the city we take advantage of the ICOCA card. Wiki says that the name comes from IC Operating Card and it is also a play in Kansai dialect on a standard Japanese question “Shall we go? Iko ka?”. There are several other forms of pay for the local train fare, but this one will help us in the end to get to the Osaka Airport. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our first stop for today is Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. To get there we walk uphill on the commercial street where the vendors are arranging the visually and smell-enticing, outside part of their store, by preparing the food.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHzft0YwcFc/WKcfbCFZj8I/AAAAAAAAUMM/gREn745YpEUr6c0WpIiy8Kos97VDS4eCwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B11%2B001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHzft0YwcFc/WKcfbCFZj8I/AAAAAAAAUMM/gREn745YpEUr6c0WpIiy8Kos97VDS4eCwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B11%2B001.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The balls on the stick are stuck in hay around a grill and the seller turns them one by one, to be baked uniformly. The green ones have green tea. Before selling them he puts a sticky syrop. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The shrine was founded when the god Inari was enshrined on Mountain Inari in February, 711 by the Hata clan, as the god of rice and sake. In time the role of agriculture diminished and so Inari was enrolled to ensure prosperity in business enterprises. This is the main shrine of all the Inari shrines all over Japan (more than 40,000). In 2011 the shrine had the 1300 anniversary and all the buildings were restored and we were there to see it, only we did not know what a special event it was. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amulets. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Behind the main shrine, along the path to the inner shrine are a large number of torī (pronounced toree, gates) called Senbon Torī (thousand gates - but there are more than 5000 winding through the hills). They were donated by people praying for good fortune, and in a way they are the physical manifestation of the hopes of ordinary people, with the strength of prayer reflected in the bright red color (they call it vermillion, but it is orange). In some place it is written that seeing so many red gates arrises the urge to pass through the vermilion tunnel, and emerge in a world where hopes and aspirations may come true. I don’t know about that, but there is no other way to walk. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the beginning there are huge ones....</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2fyOml5i2vc7RvZf0d-ldZXCbLpgQOPyWNSTvIGimTIpRXxxvdxrRPnuCzgqTMJ768ornYwQttos50b7dOnMCp4ikDN6-WM4pCUxoSapqXL7_Sne7LUlobNZ4sfNSg4xeHHRyJEEXXgg/s1600/Japan+11+005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2fyOml5i2vc7RvZf0d-ldZXCbLpgQOPyWNSTvIGimTIpRXxxvdxrRPnuCzgqTMJ768ornYwQttos50b7dOnMCp4ikDN6-WM4pCUxoSapqXL7_Sne7LUlobNZ4sfNSg4xeHHRyJEEXXgg/s640/Japan+11+005.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...then they become human size.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There are many people, especially Chinese (it is a good year for them to travel to Japan, the yuan buys more yen), many tourists, but also pilgrims. On the side there are from time to time shrines and as everywhere else in Japan they stop, face the shrine, say their prayer, bow two times, throw some coins in the provided box, pull the bell, clap twice, bow again and move on. Between all there are a few people who are working: a man climbs the mountain with a metal frame backpack full of cans of soda. Others are replacing an old torī, being careful to balance the new one over its base. A little bit farther away a man paints black the sculpted name of the donor and the date on the torī’s pillars. After passing so many orange gates with their black writings this one seems naked. Some have a faded color, the luster gone, the base rotten, pillars split on the sides. Ioan notices that even the new gates have split pillars and we wonder if this just happens or is it human induced. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Following the way we arrive at a conglomeration of small stone shrines, huddled in a tiny valley, each with their own red aproned Kenzoku. These are the invisible messengers of gods with an outward appearance of a fox. Sometimes they are holding in their mouth a key (to the granaries, to the riches), or a peach or a scroll. People call them Byakko-san (white/transparent fox) and worship it. Though the vast majority of their statues have a natural, detached pose, there is one who has a playful and practical one:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The dragon guards the purifying water from the bad spirits.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtCcRm4He8W5yDYzngCI1BZfc-gWovvHt5CuV053pElvY3BQvj2rbs2YsQ1uPUx7q3FYka6F2SjbzWgGGJoaB5-RYlEuoDBabFoelPR9AS_Vyx2esOgLV6zvSyy5WX9R0g2p1YZw7XWQ/s1600/Japan+11+016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJtCcRm4He8W5yDYzngCI1BZfc-gWovvHt5CuV053pElvY3BQvj2rbs2YsQ1uPUx7q3FYka6F2SjbzWgGGJoaB5-RYlEuoDBabFoelPR9AS_Vyx2esOgLV6zvSyy5WX9R0g2p1YZw7XWQ/s640/Japan+11+016.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This one is serious, he already mangled a few, look at its bloody slaber...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Close to the top there is another shrine, in front of rock fingers. </span>Here everything is surrounded by small torī, stacked one on top of the other, tied with string.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">In that bamboo stick curtain there are prayers weaved through. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> Across it, a tea shop that sells besides the experience of having tea on the tatami, with one cookie and the view, all religion-related things and other things too. Would you like a soda?</span></div>
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We arrive at the top of the mountain and through the haze we can see the city.<br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We have a snack while enjoying the view and we go downward, it is a different feeling. Another small temple, guarded by dragons, a world taken from the stories.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Eventually we arrive where we started and we exit. The sun illuminates the Honden (the main building of the shrine) and we take a last picture of it with the gate that was donated by Toyotomi Hideoshi (the one that fought with Ieyasu Tokugawa and lost his life and everything else, including the Himeji Castle; read “Shogun” by James Clavel). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While waiting for our train I look around. A group of women dressed in kimono talk animated. The barrier goes down, they stop quite close to it, face it quietly, the train passes, and while the barrier lifts they resume their talking and start crossing the tracks. For them its daily life, for me its the awe of witnessing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We go back home, Ioan has to work for his Calculus test for tomorrow. After lunch and a nap, the two of us take bus number 4, 31 stations, toward the Kamo Shrines. The term refers to two shrines, Kamigamo and Shimogamo (7th century and 6th century). Their role is to protect Kyoto from evil influences. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is what I understand from the Japanese religions: in the very first centuries (after Christ) they believed that all things (from animals to weather phenomena to buildings, even spoken words) are animate and alive. At some point that animate and alive crystalized into Kami. Kami are of two minds: respect them and they can be loving and nurturing, or disregard them and they can cause disharmony and destruction. They also have to do their job in order to keep the people happy. Being invisible they can move freely and visit their places of worship, keeping the people on their toes. Kami, being part of nature, have positive and negative qualities, good and evil characteristics and are considered exemplary of what humanity should strive for. And that is why some of them are considered ancestors of entire clans, or an ancestor, manifesting the qualities and virtues of a Kami while alive, is enshrined as one after death. There is no Kami greater than other one, no holiest place, no dogma, but a collection of rituals and methods intended to regulate the relations between people and spirits. And that is the “Way of the Gods”, Shinto. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Buddhism came in waves from Korea, from China, each time a different form, Zen, Pure Land, transforming itself once here. The two religions grew together until the Meiji Restoration (1860’s when the power was restored from the shogun to the emperor) when they were separated. That is also the time when the everything that was related with the Imperial House (read Shinto from religion point of view) became exalted. The second world war left the emperor defeated and humanized (until then he was viewed as god) and the imperially favored shrines lost visibility, including the Kamo Shrines. From then they had to reinvent themselves, they host community markets, old book fairs, a lecture series on religious and historical topics, always bringing people together for social and spiritual purposes. People from the community volunteer in the forest on Earth Day (April 22nd), and flock to the many festivals throughout the year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We arrive at Shimogamo Shrine: white paper lamps and written flags on the road sides, rice bags and sake bottles before entrance, same prayers on wooden plaques or papers, same amulets like clinking balls in bags. What is special about the shinto shrines is that they rebuild the buildings every 21 years. </span></div>
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We take in the metal lamps, the ordered line to bow before the main altar…And then the whole temple falls on the second place as our eyes are attracted by a special family event. It’s a wedding, a she in a white kimono and a he with black kimono and striped hakama (pants), are center stage. The rest of the family waits patiently for the crew to arrange every fold of her kimono to perfection. One elder is tired of the fuss and starts cracking jokes during picture times, breaking the stiff position that he was told to hold. Very politely he is brought back to the form.</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We walk on the grounds and admire the precision and the patience of constructing from cedar shingles the many curves of a shrine roof. Then of the garden, a domesticated zone neighboring the 124,000 square meters of primeval forest.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Kami tree with a rope and paper twists. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beautified trees with wooden skirts and in the background a prayer gate.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To get to the Kamigamo shrine we have to take another bus. This one is bigger, and younger by a century. In a way it makes sense: the ancestor of the Kamo clan (enshrined in Shimogamo) descended on earth close to Mt. Mikage (east of Kyoto) and led the first emperor of Japan (Jimmu, 660 BC) to where his shrine is now. The god’s daughter, while attending her duties on the shrine grounds (purifying herself in the river) saw an arrow, who was actually another god. Saw. Liked. Married. Later she gave birth to Wakeikazuchi, the god of thunder, who is enshrined in the Kamigamo. And that is why it makes sense that the temple of the nephew is younger than the one of his grandfather. What impresses us here is the nature, obedient, water flowing over cemented rounded stones, under red arched bridges and trees stretching selected branches, yet still rebellious, crying red and yellow leaves.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to Kamigamo seen from the front...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HKGq1NRPfhY/WKcfncZXOcI/AAAAAAAAUMQ/YCp63MBEBcUIRX4R7XcjWmSEBSGr-mflQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B11%2B031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HKGq1NRPfhY/WKcfncZXOcI/AAAAAAAAUMQ/YCp63MBEBcUIRX4R7XcjWmSEBSGr-mflQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B11%2B031.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...and from inside the temple.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We leave for home walking alongside the river. There is a green zone hemming it in which people read, dance, one is playing the drums, walk or bike. The path is not always straight, sometimes it branches in wavy dirt paths, next to ducks and herons, under flying egrets and hawks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Though there are regular, sturdy bridges, we cross the river on a man made concrete stepping stone bridge. Children enjoy the afternoon with their families, jumping from a block to a grey concrete turtle, balancing on its back, then becoming adventurous, dipping toes and then whole legs, walking in the cold river. There is no splashing, no running, just quiet talks and happy laughs. One girl looses her balance and takes a bottom dip. Initially she laughs with her friends and gradually, as the cold and embarrassment envelops her, she quiets down, lowers her head and lip, and seeks comfort in her mother’s arms, stretched over the port bebe.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For every seat there is a handle for those who are standing. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"> stop for groceries, cook, eat </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These beauties were very tasty!</td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><br /></span>and spend a wonderful evening one next to each other.<br />
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And that is what happened on the first day in Kyoto .</div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-49979179426745884882017-02-02T22:18:00.001+00:002017-02-02T22:19:09.439+00:00The White Heron of Himeji<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">The morning is different for each of us: Mihai goes to the Prefectural Art Museum of Hiroshima to see “The Dream of Venus” by Dali, Ioan does Calculus, and I am doing domestic things. At 11 we board the train to Himeji and arrive in no time. It takes more time to find an empty locker, all the ones from the train station are taken, but eventually we find plenty in the bus station. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hydrant hidden in the sidewalk.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We walk along the boulevard that takes us to the castle and take in the window shops and the statues. Between them, a guy sells persimmons and we are happy to buy, they are better than the ones from store. </span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D4Kgzf10q-w/WJOON7mN7rI/AAAAAAAAUIM/_EB8ImSV-bgGfFNVjTFfMYyH9jXan_dWgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D4Kgzf10q-w/WJOON7mN7rI/AAAAAAAAUIM/_EB8ImSV-bgGfFNVjTFfMYyH9jXan_dWgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B049.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the end of the avenue there is a huge plaza with multiple crossings. The lights are red, everyone waits patiently, cars and people the same and there is nothing moving as far as I can see. I just blatantly cross the street (because I am tired of their rules, and respecting the rules, of how much I’ve seen and we are not in Kyoto yet, and I think I’ve just entered that wall where nothing can incite a feeling). </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WReDVJ4br3E/WJOOOwCteII/AAAAAAAAUIQ/qLzlPZN1c0g-roTSHRvDFm4UfW-sN7pwACPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B051.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WReDVJ4br3E/WJOOOwCteII/AAAAAAAAUIQ/qLzlPZN1c0g-roTSHRvDFm4UfW-sN7pwACPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B051.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I bet that the guy on the right side is gelous!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Above all, the castle looks serene and free, like a gliding white heron.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GXrVCTr_FpE/WJOOPEi6DQI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/gzwIIG0BjHANXkRvzDbyhv032wFZm6pwwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GXrVCTr_FpE/WJOOPEi6DQI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/gzwIIG0BjHANXkRvzDbyhv032wFZm6pwwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B052.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A blooming cherry in October.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Entering the castle grounds, memories are coming back like everything happened yesterday, it does not seem that four years have passed. Nothing is changed, well, just the people. And the castle re-opened in March 2015. For six years they toiled, dismantling everything, repairing, understanding how it works, rebuilding in the same manner with the original methods (see <a href="http://noi6.blogspot.com/2011/10/himeji-castle.html" target="_blank">Himeji</a>). There was another restoration almost fifty years ago and they found </span>writings about the process of building which they used for this one. They’ve reinforced the foundations to resist in future earthquakes. They've installed water pipes and a spraying system in case of a fire. And they’ve replaced the roof tiles and repaired the walls of the Main Keep.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SzTVAl_l7JE/WJOOWPG16ZI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/ZgcGOG6dRJc5E5aKHjWrSrIjxOlgg7u8wCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SzTVAl_l7JE/WJOOWPG16ZI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/ZgcGOG6dRJc5E5aKHjWrSrIjxOlgg7u8wCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B057.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How the castle grounds used to look: three moats, ordered houses and streets.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QvguuQGkuB4/WJOOWf2CkoI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/mWZAV6v-l9QKRFYMc-DBY0dokJ-K7V0fQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B058.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QvguuQGkuB4/WJOOWf2CkoI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/mWZAV6v-l9QKRFYMc-DBY0dokJ-K7V0fQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B058.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A wooden model of the main keep that was used in the restoration from the '50s.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZAcXPEJDqcKNSxMqqf2hqwXTvgdMWDz-Bfs7wcEycyvUcC4ZHGoEfc6yibdGzNAjVv4pDKqH6aYhNLZKPkUb8R-NmAr3T_IQlB9Sf_VAMZ5z-MPkOvca6XNp0N1AsgRlXIls4xh5Wd1o/s1600/Japan+10+064.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZAcXPEJDqcKNSxMqqf2hqwXTvgdMWDz-Bfs7wcEycyvUcC4ZHGoEfc6yibdGzNAjVv4pDKqH6aYhNLZKPkUb8R-NmAr3T_IQlB9Sf_VAMZ5z-MPkOvca6XNp0N1AsgRlXIls4xh5Wd1o/s640/Japan+10+064.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fish, a water element, would protect the roof and castle from fire.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpU-Yk4eeqpNHwp5Aca5atq8M9hdykFWYyWz0i4JrrqX2OWX_m2KC0Rt-xGQV_2OIsYWxpvVmmDgpVsf0-kRviqQFys_RbtmR5gULBVM2fXmHum-ql90TSbSOBZaRRSHwkB1xfTjEhB1A/s1600/Japan+10+056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpU-Yk4eeqpNHwp5Aca5atq8M9hdykFWYyWz0i4JrrqX2OWX_m2KC0Rt-xGQV_2OIsYWxpvVmmDgpVsf0-kRviqQFys_RbtmR5gULBVM2fXmHum-ql90TSbSOBZaRRSHwkB1xfTjEhB1A/s640/Japan+10+056.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can see a fish at each end of the roof, plus the blooming cherry on the right side.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT1MOhlcThxa6ZuBSjVVM-oiMKSM1oO0eOWzJQYp0y46whgao72mhKGNHTkIcwDJoGrJGWtUOoQ7HzPD9Nw8lKd-3odNmX3M1nTjEoV89e20AimnHG9QLU3CTRflC1q4Vi7JRuxXikyJI/s1600/Japan+10+073.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT1MOhlcThxa6ZuBSjVVM-oiMKSM1oO0eOWzJQYp0y46whgao72mhKGNHTkIcwDJoGrJGWtUOoQ7HzPD9Nw8lKd-3odNmX3M1nTjEoV89e20AimnHG9QLU3CTRflC1q4Vi7JRuxXikyJI/s640/Japan+10+073.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These round tiles that are found at the end of each row of oval roof tiles display the seal of the daimyō, of the lord. When they restored the first time, they found a few installed upside down. Not knowing if it had a special meaning they took care to install them as they have found them. Not know, they all sit as they should be, right side up.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We put our shoes in a bag and carry them for the rest of the visit. With the exception of the size, the castle is the same as the one from <a href="http://noi6.blogspot.com/2016/07/fuji-and-matsumoto.html" target="_blank">Matsumoto</a>, same wooden floors, same hooks on the walls to hold the bows, spears or guns, a different design but same metal ornament to hide the nails, different trees, but the same two poles that center around them five floors of castle and uphold a sixth one. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY2q56Dq-Po0GTQNqTDUGLfaIyAgaUUhD5NoO5yAKSZnHCnECHrwTvclgaYbO7zoIFk2hyphenhyphentlRTG5MNCs5hNilf51NJtSco_nUS27nQdbfCIrQ2Q7CEs5qYBxSsxOYWDPYTV27q6vkY2TE/s1600/Japan+10+068.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY2q56Dq-Po0GTQNqTDUGLfaIyAgaUUhD5NoO5yAKSZnHCnECHrwTvclgaYbO7zoIFk2hyphenhyphentlRTG5MNCs5hNilf51NJtSco_nUS27nQdbfCIrQ2Q7CEs5qYBxSsxOYWDPYTV27q6vkY2TE/s640/Japan+10+068.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For a while everything goes smooth, and at the third level we hit a bottleneck: steep narrow stairs. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5FoJvfC6PEOotPwge5zIyaImEq6RXnoBypEZ-K1hbaT41UT8dqXb-76_ZR1Q6J3f0d07ylDYtOBJyAYMqQo-ldhxqYCf9gMdJOLMSekdMubGspMWms8BRFPsqha1X-HQd80T8cKmKho/s1600/Japan+10+060.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib5FoJvfC6PEOotPwge5zIyaImEq6RXnoBypEZ-K1hbaT41UT8dqXb-76_ZR1Q6J3f0d07ylDYtOBJyAYMqQo-ldhxqYCf9gMdJOLMSekdMubGspMWms8BRFPsqha1X-HQd80T8cKmKho/s640/Japan+10+060.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj13WAO2CldN-1OZU7v-0Ztf7pIyZHONjRgsxFhzk8ZuwnV95wPNUP4mBs6i-NYbzGqBOnH7PM8NQhKLuzpwKf___xZer1AGiymuDaMq_kPgDAY1I3zoxroUNdxhVFIxyy84kvxeBYR154/s1600/Japan+10+066.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj13WAO2CldN-1OZU7v-0Ztf7pIyZHONjRgsxFhzk8ZuwnV95wPNUP4mBs6i-NYbzGqBOnH7PM8NQhKLuzpwKf___xZer1AGiymuDaMq_kPgDAY1I3zoxroUNdxhVFIxyy84kvxeBYR154/s640/Japan+10+066.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the downward equivalent of the upward steep stairs. I like their different styles of descending.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Nothing in the rooms, this is minimalism to the extreme. </span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;">On the sixth floor we have the altar and the all around view. </span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eWEcprl9Hw4/WJOOXTP7RdI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/WlNtVMqn2vkm4UlorC_cs8tUqmXyRgXAwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eWEcprl9Hw4/WJOOXTP7RdI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/WlNtVMqn2vkm4UlorC_cs8tUqmXyRgXAwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B062.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The downward circuit is quick, people think that they have seen everything going up. Not quite! There is mushakakushi, a hiding room, in which a small number of samurai, would wait without a sound, and jump out if their lord needed their presence (watch <i>Kagemusha</i>, by Akiro Kurosawa, they filmed it right here). And in the basement there are the lavatories, large wooden rooms with wooden drains. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knDZ5CiKH6Q/WJOOYkEWDsI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/eqIpF7sa0t8V4UA3It0gB-qqnUhDKCiEACPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B067.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knDZ5CiKH6Q/WJOOYkEWDsI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/eqIpF7sa0t8V4UA3It0gB-qqnUhDKCiEACPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B067.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They did not translate a word <i>Hairanaide kudasai</i>, PLEASE do not enter</td></tr>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qmbIr6BPnuE/WJOOZbrS9GI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/FQcytGebKX00aUUz9y668xAENh3s_3ONgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B070.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qmbIr6BPnuE/WJOOZbrS9GI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/FQcytGebKX00aUUz9y668xAENh3s_3ONgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B070.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We exit the keep and walk between walls and buildings, go through gates each one special, either by design or execution or role. One of them is at the end of a short flight of stairs in L, between high walls. It is so small, I almost have to crawl. There are no wooden doors now, but when they were, they could bolt them and fill quickly the space with rocks and sand, if there was a small sign that they could be breeched. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8z3s3K3njaw/WJOOVqYQGJI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/4wV9hiJqSVQpVdg8DREeW1snBUHjM4FCwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B055.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8z3s3K3njaw/WJOOVqYQGJI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/4wV9hiJqSVQpVdg8DREeW1snBUHjM4FCwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B055.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The gates are reinforced with thick sheets of metal fixed with metal rivets.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BpqofHfqtGU/WJOOa-dK1vI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/R77pEaddmCA241tGjfihNfnz5s6v_B4jgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B075.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BpqofHfqtGU/WJOOa-dK1vI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/R77pEaddmCA241tGjfihNfnz5s6v_B4jgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B075.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nu-no-mon, the Nu gate is the only one with three levels: the gate itself, covered in black iron, the second floor with hidden stone drops, and the tower.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-febOSOb_icY/WJOOZBq8EUI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/5WJVzaz-DlISB_kk2FmdD4F9DEvVT2qVQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B069.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-febOSOb_icY/WJOOZBq8EUI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/5WJVzaz-DlISB_kk2FmdD4F9DEvVT2qVQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B069.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The larger door is a yard tall.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We read those side signs and find out that the walls have a curved design, like a fan, to make them stronger, that they used any kind of stone, hexagonal from the lamps or tomb ones, even a mill stone (though this one has a story: an old widow, who was earning her living selling rice-cakes in the market, hearing that the lord needed stones for building the castle, brought her own hand mill stone, and her generosity inspired many others to bring stones). </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaL-TViIfFBpykf4FkDuviuICwrOgwSt2PT5fr9-Zq5tgE3czZspVepIz_eBd48pUCY5YdUGBNoSLdw_mhIAjp-_19R3rsu-7Iu6AliRnd6NdTSMRv2HY_RC_IRmGj45ylr_NefM1dMCc/s1600/Japan+10+076.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaL-TViIfFBpykf4FkDuviuICwrOgwSt2PT5fr9-Zq5tgE3czZspVepIz_eBd48pUCY5YdUGBNoSLdw_mhIAjp-_19R3rsu-7Iu6AliRnd6NdTSMRv2HY_RC_IRmGj45ylr_NefM1dMCc/s640/Japan+10+076.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rDF8YlC2P6k/WJOOZyXl_WI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/naWkLiC3pFA-UOqn6ZnvHA1V5nUrzA0JwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B072.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rDF8YlC2P6k/WJOOZyXl_WI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/naWkLiC3pFA-UOqn6ZnvHA1V5nUrzA0JwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B072.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We try to peek in the well through the wires: water and some coins, but no Okiku, and no plates. The legend goes that there was a daimyō, a lord, on his death bed. The chief retainer wanted to rule instead of the heir. The heir sended Okiku to work for the chief, so he could find out his plans. The chief liked Okiku and asked her to be his lover. She refused many times. Eventually, trying to coerce her, the chief hid one of the ten treasured plates of the lord and accused Okiku, saying that he would vouch for her if she consents. Her refusal enraged the chief, who slew her and threw her in the well. And so, every night she rose from the well to count the plates to nine and, not finding the tenth one, started shrieking, haunting the chief retainer. The story tells no more about the lord and his heir, I presume the first one died and the other one followed in his place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Outside of the castle grounds around the sides of the large courtyard there is an exhibition of chrysanthemums. Manicured ones or some that resemble bonsai they are the embodiment of many hours of work for the fleeting joy of one October afternoon. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_N-4zHKcDo/WJOOczy0WiI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/mplGp0mn94UMEAlV0nSiM9wCgp45n6MkwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B081.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_N-4zHKcDo/WJOOczy0WiI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/mplGp0mn94UMEAlV0nSiM9wCgp45n6MkwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B081.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Between the yellow of the courtyard and the tree line there is a faint red-brown line: right there are the chrysanthemums.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Then we go to Koko-en, the garden that was built 23 years ago where the samurai housing used to be. Last time when we visited there was a watchman who mimed his out-loud spoken English words: “Hurry-hurry, slooowly-sloooowly” meaning we should hurry because it is closing time, but slowly, so we can savor the beauty. Our memories said we didn’t see it in its entirety, but strolling through its nine different Edo-style gardens we discovered that we did. They are still training the branches of the same tree to grow in a zig-zag manner as four years ago, the ladder is in the same place. And it feels good to be in a quiet place. The revolt and spiritual tiredness from this morning have disappeared. They were healed by the beauty that transcends from the surrounding work of love.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The doors that protect the tea-room have nails that bleed rust from the humid air. The gray lower part is the one kissed by rain.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hand-mowing the grass.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RTUXFeoKBNQ/WJOOfikG9nI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/7AK0Grh6SPoTQK2aW84meuJYOiYId4MkACPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B089.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RTUXFeoKBNQ/WJOOfikG9nI/AAAAAAAAUIQ/7AK0Grh6SPoTQK2aW84meuJYOiYId4MkACPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B089.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The castle seen from the garden.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Physically tired and hungry we hurry up to the train station, buy dinner, find our seats and eat. This is our last train trip. The JR pass will be obsolete tomorrow, past its two weeks term. We arrive in Kyoto and we are flooded with memories from our first stop in our RTW. We enjoy the moment like children, take pictures with the emblematic tower, babbling about what we did and how we went, while waiting in line for the taxi. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At the apartment we follow instructions: open the bicycle locket, take the card, enter the building, then elevator, room 302, push a button on the door to activate the card, THEN we can use it to open the apartment. If we forget it in the room it costs 20,000 yen ($180) to call the manager to open the apartment. If we lose it, its 50,000 ($450). We guard it like the Crown Jewels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The apartment is small, well equipped and compartmentalized and we quickly settle in. There is not much room to move if we are in. We leave Ioan home and we go food-shopping for our first few days in Kyoto, a difficult task since we are tired. I notice that they sell mums for eating. I don’t want to eat ramen anymore so we buy vegetables and udon (it resembles thick spaghetti), plus some sweet wine. Back home: laundry, onsen, blog, etc. Tomorrow we start visiting Kyoto…six days….seventeen UNESCO sites…plus whatever could not make that list…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Are you ready?</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-28004750341822680782017-01-25T15:38:00.000+00:002017-01-25T15:38:26.984+00:00Miyajima<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One of the Three Views of Japan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That’s where we’re going today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s called Itsukujima or Miyajima. <i>The Strict Island</i> or the <i>Island of the Shrines</i>. The Strict, because no death or birth is allowed on the island, to keep it pure. Even today, women close to term and people who will dye imminently go to the mainland. I could not find provisions in case of an accident. For this strictness it reminds me of Delos, Greece. The Shrines, for the so many shrines found here, hidden by the forest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">While Ioan is doing school, Mihai masterminds the transportation there: first train, then a ferry (free for the JR permit). He also buys a picnic. He takes care of us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The iconic torii (gate) appears through the haze, separating the secular from the holy. Made of camphor (the two main pillars) and cedar (the four supporting pillars) trees the gate presents through its shape its affiliation with the Shingon buddism. Reading the flyers we find out that the top rail of the gate is hollowed and contains seven tons of rocks fist size, making the torii to stand under its own weight. I don’t know why they insist to call that color vermillion, when even through my colored lenses is orange all day long.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We leave the streaming flux of tourists for a photographic spot. We manage to avoid the domesticated deers (some had their antlers cut), but not the smell of their urine until we enter the grounds of the temple. Built on stilts, the covered pathways lead in a zig-zag pattern to the shrine (that we can view from afar) and to the iconic view of the torii.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH91YzUPxSXsTn5LscOWCB4IwEnkptaxvIHZiSrvTxofV-mJwlOZVSr6ptec4IFYlckE4PU-sCBPuvmdJZBolnM8IMi7RUrDZ0reUnzbpaLxZePTJDake69L-VevxyuRY4uEzc8l4lSSs/s1600/Japan+10+007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH91YzUPxSXsTn5LscOWCB4IwEnkptaxvIHZiSrvTxofV-mJwlOZVSr6ptec4IFYlckE4PU-sCBPuvmdJZBolnM8IMi7RUrDZ0reUnzbpaLxZePTJDake69L-VevxyuRY4uEzc8l4lSSs/s640/Japan+10+007.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From here we go to the Treasury, a trove of government-designated National Treasures and Important Cultural Objects. The few informations that we have are from the guide book: we should look for some illuminated sutras made in the 12th century. Clearly we can’t appreciate them, for us they resemble squiggly lines, we don't understand the Japanese writing. There is a hand held fan with five black lacquered sticks and white silk on which an emperor wrote something. A painting with some beautiful geisha-s. The sign from the torii, the one that used to be on the old gate, before this gate was built in 1874, approximately 5 ft . No pictures, we weren’t allowed.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A lull in the turist flux</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NyzBXdGnvzc/WIYxqWfJlFI/AAAAAAAAUDo/L-Fgzw3GLLcvwWjDQ5NK9_GHrO6kyH_UwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NyzBXdGnvzc/WIYxqWfJlFI/AAAAAAAAUDo/L-Fgzw3GLLcvwWjDQ5NK9_GHrO6kyH_UwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B008.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cornered by a hungry and picky deer</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We climb Mount Misen, the holy mountain, to get to the Daishō-in Temple, the most important one on the island. From the beginning we feel like we are in a story. Statues of characters that I have seen in Miyazaki’s movies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Then we visit and it reminds us of Tibet: the sutras-wheels (inside are Hannyakyo sutras and if you touch them, they will bring you fortune), the sand mandala (made by Buddhist priests from Tibet). </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a Hall dedicated to the Fudo Myō, either an incarnation or an envoy from the Cosmic Buddha, that has a fierce face, to show his determination to make humans follow Buddhist teachings (the sword and the rope have the same role). It is surrounded by 1000 smaller Fudo images, donated by the worshippers. Every day at 10 am the Goma ritual takes place, burning wooden sticks on which prayers were written. While the boys take their time taking pictures, I observe the monk who patiently stamps the prayers, absorbs the excess of the ink with a towel and puts the finite product in the sale box.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Seven deities of the Good Fortune are enshrined in an octagonal hall that we can reach crossing a tiny bridge over a tiny pond. Following the examples of other visitors, Ioan wants to hit the dragon with a coin. He does not succeed, but he is happy anyway, at least he tried.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We walk toward other shrines between statues of Jizo Bosatsu, undergoing an ascetic training to attain enlightenment, who had vowed not to attain it until all the hells are emptied. They are protecters of the children who have died before their parents. The children need to be protected by Jizo or else the demons will make them pile for ever stones on the side of the River of the Dead, which they can’t cross, because they did not live long enough to accumulate good deeds and they also upset their parents by dying. The Jizo hides them from demons under his robe and lets them hear mantras. The parents in this world take care of the Jizo Bosatsu and clothe them with red bibs and hats.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Kobo Daishi, the founder of the Shingon sect in the 9th century, is enshrined here. Under his shrine, in a dimly lit cave there are the icons of the eighty eight temples on the pilgrimage route on Shikoku Island (a neighboring island, all of them associated with Kobo Daishi). People undertake the journey for various reasons, traveling approximately 1200 km in 30 to 60 days. But if one is really pressed for time, one could come in this cave and receive the same blessings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We make our way to the ropeway to take us to Mt. Misen, the tallest on the island, 535 m above sea level. Technically, it is not, but the aspect and the unusual shaped rocks entitle it to the term. We pass through the Momijidani Park (momiji means maple tree, and they have different species, some of them with tiny leaves) take one of the many carriages to the half-way station Kayatani, and from there, in an aerial tramway, on a cable sustained only by the beginning and the end station, almost to the top of the mountain. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V_Zvh7QiLrw/WIYyBiIfcII/AAAAAAAAUDo/qPI5dXfVk2IfffuUaL7i_ni96B0ypV1AQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B10%2B042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V_Zvh7QiLrw/WIYyBiIfcII/AAAAAAAAUDo/qPI5dXfVk2IfffuUaL7i_ni96B0ypV1AQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B10%2B042.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We can enter only after the windows and the seats are wiped clean.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">To get to the Misen Hondo temple, we still have to walk for half an hour. I almost did not see mamushi, a small, black with a yellow spot behind its ears venomous snake, scared for its life as I was walking and taking in the view. Ioan told me I almost step on it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Misen temple guards the Kiezo no hi, the eternal flame, that was lighted by Kobo Dashi 1200 years ago when he meditated and did Goma ceremony for 100 days. It has never been extinguished.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Pressing on to the observatory, for that famous view, we pass through a tunnel made by a huge rock, by a rock ship, and under it, many Jizo Bosatsu. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Finally, on top, we have the 360 view, a little bit hazy, but still wonderful!</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Did you enjoy our day? Now that the tide is in, let's go back and see everything in the sunset light...</span><br />
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-75263854479450814352016-10-31T17:21:00.000+00:002016-10-31T17:23:40.700+00:00The Spirit of Hiroshima<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">It is silence now…my thoughts are not fighting, but wait…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We wanted to visit Hiroshima, because we couldn’t in 2011. And here we are, walking over the bridge and looking at the dome. It seems small, considering its significance. The ruins of the Product Exhibition Hall on a manicured lawn, surrounded by black iron fence and people taking pictures — somber modern art.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pw9rwkJDGbo/WBdlQJKjQRI/AAAAAAAATtE/sdKZ3eNSg9AchAt9EJA_WIIbSlkjZX4owCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pw9rwkJDGbo/WBdlQJKjQRI/AAAAAAAATtE/sdKZ3eNSg9AchAt9EJA_WIIbSlkjZX4owCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B049.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the foreground: an ailing willow.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We pass a plaque on which it is written: “In order to have the fact known for succeeding generations and to make it a lesson for humankind, the reinforcement work of these ruins was done by the contributions of many people who desire peace within and out of the country. The ruins shall be preserved forever. August 6, 1967 Hiroshima City”. And this is when I brake down and cry, thoughts asking and answering: Why did they have to die? They did not stop! But why such a bomb? It was made possible, but they did not know the effects! But WHY? … If they wouldn’t have died then, many more would have died later, during the Cold War, maybe you would have died too. All these events are still teaching humankind lessons, pray we should learn them!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, structured as a place for prayer for those who perished as a result of the atomic bomb, but also for permanent world peace, includes a Memorial to the Mobilized Students, with a Goddess of Peace and eight doves alighted on the five successive widening tiers, structured around a central pole on which lights are offered to God in memory of the lives that were extinguished.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">People come and bring paper cranes. School children, recite in front of the Children’s Peace Monument, shoulder to shoulder. They seem a fragile shield, protecting Sadako and all those whom she represents. Their voice repeats what others have said and it reverberates in generations to come “This is our cry, this is our prayer: for building peace in the world”. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The box-like structures are full of origami "paintings"</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the bell it is written: "A Thousand Paper Cranes" and "Peace on Earth and in Heavens"</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On October 25th, 1955 Sadako died as a victim of nuclear warfare. While in hospital she learned of the legend granting one wish to the person who folds 1,000 paper cranes. She had the resolve, but she lacked the paper, and so she used anything that was suitable, including the medicine wrappings. It is unclear if she finished or not, some say yes, her father said no. People come and bring paper cranes, making visible their wish and hope for peace.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ovpwXFZ51lo/WBdlSgFHNmI/AAAAAAAATtk/BJVfTHr54jYupr_lyPXCqzLp6ATlBHirQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ovpwXFZ51lo/WBdlSgFHNmI/AAAAAAAATtk/BJVfTHr54jYupr_lyPXCqzLp6ATlBHirQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B057.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YMGBdkh9VMk/WBdlSc_zMZI/AAAAAAAATtg/OEJtvvnHzMwx5VvS62IBKtpbgzzStueCACPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YMGBdkh9VMk/WBdlSc_zMZI/AAAAAAAATtg/OEJtvvnHzMwx5VvS62IBKtpbgzzStueCACPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B056.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We continue toward the museum and pass an eternal flame. Ioan asks “Why does it burn?” Until there are no more nuclear arms…</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d-Ew1nmb79Q/WBdlRFRMWhI/AAAAAAAATtQ/79vl8MDB7NoShGlZU-YXLSXsEKXu6VRzgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d-Ew1nmb79Q/WBdlRFRMWhI/AAAAAAAATtQ/79vl8MDB7NoShGlZU-YXLSXsEKXu6VRzgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B052.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Peace Memorial Museum from across the Pond of Peace</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpEDLw72VX-ytvNluG9AgtabD3Re7rwbMg-y6uCadXYR3FL1VTTt_H_NDUcxIWIM-9BqQGaC6DAGoiELM3GdrBS3DP0ga01d7zxh_rXoSLlJ_ZzzD32QQF6OrYU4aM1AhZaQh59wpzkA/s1600/Japan+9+059.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjpEDLw72VX-ytvNluG9AgtabD3Re7rwbMg-y6uCadXYR3FL1VTTt_H_NDUcxIWIM-9BqQGaC6DAGoiELM3GdrBS3DP0ga01d7zxh_rXoSLlJ_ZzzD32QQF6OrYU4aM1AhZaQh59wpzkA/s640/Japan+9+059.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Flame of Peace</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-893ueNBA6QA/WBdlTT_6RTI/AAAAAAAATtw/NqLO2O0tJnYwSQT8rbMq43CKx-AYCnzHACPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B060.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-893ueNBA6QA/WBdlTT_6RTI/AAAAAAAATtw/NqLO2O0tJnYwSQT8rbMq43CKx-AYCnzHACPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B060.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The dome viewed through the Peace Flame.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uOt7ZCucQK0/WBdlXMkyRII/AAAAAAAATuc/m67-uXi4hKw0_ckpQG5fndiooiIZvw8XwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B071.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uOt7ZCucQK0/WBdlXMkyRII/AAAAAAAATuc/m67-uXi4hKw0_ckpQG5fndiooiIZvw8XwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B071.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The exhibit is impressive, explaining very well not only the scientific process related to the exploding bomb, but the personal effects, bringing to life in our imagination that person.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AsKbpR4EcoU/WBdlT6Sj-DI/AAAAAAAATt0/PtquYEZzoFwC32bC-G-X5KM7VLWhE1ARwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B061.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AsKbpR4EcoU/WBdlT6Sj-DI/AAAAAAAATt0/PtquYEZzoFwC32bC-G-X5KM7VLWhE1ARwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B061.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"War is the work of men. War is distruction of human life. War is death. To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future. To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war. To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace." His Holiness Pope John Paul II . Inscription on a statue in the hall of the museum.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2_hb82lGKO8/WBdlUIfpCSI/AAAAAAAATt4/wGESwqsrnr06AChocVbCH1QrTxyllgqQQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2_hb82lGKO8/WBdlUIfpCSI/AAAAAAAATt4/wGESwqsrnr06AChocVbCH1QrTxyllgqQQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B062.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OdM2JgMcrhc/WBdlVkFw3ZI/AAAAAAAATuM/Ufz0ueOE6i8rwNov-WfJAb04B_Y_nzM9wCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B067.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OdM2JgMcrhc/WBdlVkFw3ZI/AAAAAAAATuM/Ufz0ueOE6i8rwNov-WfJAb04B_Y_nzM9wCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B067.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J6zD5jLAJeA/WBdlU-7XMZI/AAAAAAAATuE/vZhnlBSVh2gxrCY5JD4vt0VbKwnLjF2hgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B065.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J6zD5jLAJeA/WBdlU-7XMZI/AAAAAAAATuE/vZhnlBSVh2gxrCY5JD4vt0VbKwnLjF2hgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B065.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The red ball shows the fireball (280m diameter) at 1 second after the explosion.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7iStn9pUbSg/WBdlUjX7PlI/AAAAAAAATuA/SxMGOuX0pP86D_b4n4mlsk0VZxQTZZnAACPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B064.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7iStn9pUbSg/WBdlUjX7PlI/AAAAAAAATuA/SxMGOuX0pP86D_b4n4mlsk0VZxQTZZnAACPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B064.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJO_DRKFsz-udPVA7z6X-4cMujlswiGF90Q2aD-sZKD855R6Y-V5Qi0YbPhhLgq7y6tmdw1OpHHw5BGpAwU3oFuWz2WyD3f2HuRcbm5Sv5qa4uyjyteIJONB5x9RZld7GP2r9-ReZpDoc/s1600/Japan+9+063.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJO_DRKFsz-udPVA7z6X-4cMujlswiGF90Q2aD-sZKD855R6Y-V5Qi0YbPhhLgq7y6tmdw1OpHHw5BGpAwU3oFuWz2WyD3f2HuRcbm5Sv5qa4uyjyteIJONB5x9RZld7GP2r9-ReZpDoc/s640/Japan+9+063.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Survivors, on the day of explosion</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SuMCDNskGjs/WBdlWHw9jeI/AAAAAAAATuQ/pCaJrxm1azMdTij7pIXczrHDCbbqDaG9wCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B068.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SuMCDNskGjs/WBdlWHw9jeI/AAAAAAAATuQ/pCaJrxm1azMdTij7pIXczrHDCbbqDaG9wCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B068.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Burned out letters, because the dark letters absorbed more heat.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjbyeJcdXBs/WBdlWZelFXI/AAAAAAAATuU/vAiH8QK_3wUd8Ql9HiUsFrs0np66BumVwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B069.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjbyeJcdXBs/WBdlWZelFXI/AAAAAAAATuU/vAiH8QK_3wUd8Ql9HiUsFrs0np66BumVwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B069.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tin sheet picked up by the blast and thrown on the roof of a seven story building.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Esv8h88L674/WBdlW4YRWII/AAAAAAAATuY/rlX1UU0LyO42GAaDaPyUGvOjCPV4UoNKwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B070.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Esv8h88L674/WBdlW4YRWII/AAAAAAAATuY/rlX1UU0LyO42GAaDaPyUGvOjCPV4UoNKwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B070.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The roof of a house about 3,700 m west of the hypocenter was dislodged by the blast, allowing in drops of black rain that driped down and left traces on this white plaster wall. Analysis of this rain revealed that it contained radioactive fallout from the atomic bomb explosion.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DWvPd8Fjrqw/WBdlVexrEuI/AAAAAAAATuI/DVcjCLMhzPEw-N3zQDO24bmmhcsC-2VXgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B9%2B066.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DWvPd8Fjrqw/WBdlVexrEuI/AAAAAAAATuI/DVcjCLMhzPEw-N3zQDO24bmmhcsC-2VXgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B9%2B066.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shinichi Tetsutani (then 3 years and 11 months) loved to ride this tricycle. That morning, he was riding in front of his house when, in a sudden flash, he and his tricycle were badly burned. He died that night. His father felt he was too young to be buried in a lonely grave away from home, and thinking he could still play with his tricycle, he buried Shinichi with the tricycle in the backyard. Forty years later, his father dug up Shinichi's remains and transfered them to the family grave. This helmet and tricycle, after sleeping for 40 years in the backyard with Shinichi, were donated to the Peace Memorial Museum. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sadako's cranes, smaller than a quarter coin.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Hall of Remembrance: a monument for the atomic bomb victims. The glass dome has a frozen clock at 8:15, when the bomb went off. Underground, the round hall has twelve pillars, representing the linkage between the time when Hiroshima was destroyed and the time we are living in. In the middle there is a clock fountain, showing the same hour and offering water to the victims, many whom have died asking for it to quench their thirst. The mural, made with approximately 140 000 tiles, corresponding to the numbers of victims, shows what remained in Hiroshima close to the epicenter. The man who worked there gave me the feeling that he was honored to be there and was mourning all of the victims in the same time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On our way to visit the castle (reconstruction) we walk through a modern city, full of people and tall buildings. We enter one of these, a vertical mall, to find a food court and we are mesmerized by the variety. It is difficult to believe that above our heads are ten floors of brand fashion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The castle gives me the opportunity to learn how it was built and to make peace with the past. While we visit the grounds we are enchanted by a barefoot two year old boy, dressed in kimono, walking happily on the foundation of a disappeared building. Life goes on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We end the day in the forced perspective garden, built especially for the daimyo Shukkei-en: twisted trees, water-pond, islands and bridges, cranes and turtles and an elusive being that was difficult to be photographed, a moth, big enough to be a hummingbird (we thought it was one) Macroglosum stellatarum. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Going back to the apartment I see this plaque:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We have the pieces…it is our choice what we build!</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-35961845376489040222016-10-21T22:35:00.000+01:002016-10-21T22:35:43.613+01:00Yakushima<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">What will this bright and beautiful day bring us? And the ones that come after this one?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A volcano.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And another one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And there…another.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Before leaving for Japan, I was watching Japanese movies, in the hope that my ear will ease up on sounds and I will understand the language. One of them was about a boy who has to come and live in Kagoshima with his mother and grandparents, while his younger brother and father live in Tokyo. In the beginning he is upset because he has to clean up daily the soot from the volcano. In the end, after he makes his peace with his split family, he likes it because the presence of the volcano makes so many things possible, from record sizes for vegetables, to the special taste of a traditional handmade sweet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And this morning we get to see, from the taxi that takes us to the port, Sakura-jima (Cherry Island): a perfect truncated cone of a volcano. The rim is hidden in a white steam coming out of it, but there is nothing else to tell us that it erupted more than 5000 times in the past 60 years. We do not have the time to see if our taste buds will discern a special taste, or to look for record daikon radishes, because we are still traveling toward our true destination: Yakushima, a tiny island south of Japan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mihai buys tickets and each one of them receives three different shaped stamps, applied with reverence by the woman at the cashiers. I did not have time to admire them or even take their picture, so quickly they were collected by the ferryboat personal. We make our hub in the sea-view area, chairs bolted in the floor around low round tables and two tv screens spewing screeching car chase sounds with a young David Hasselhoff at the wheel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I stroll around: living quarters, restrooms with sauna and showers, a theater, a game area, a bar, a gift and food store. On the outside I find a shaded spot to sit and look through the bars at Kaimondake volcano (in the meantime, the ferryboat traveled through the bay and is now in the open waters). I’m thinking “what would it be to put nature behind bars?” and the grim answer is quick to follow “It would be a cage for us”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yakushima appears at our horizon: sunny on the edges, heavy dark clouds around the middle. I don’t understand why it is called “the island where it rains 35 days a month”! We rent a car, go food shopping (we are tired and it takes a long time, on one side because there is no English, and on the other because we can’t recognize the food from other Japanese food stores), find our hotel. From downstairs nothing prepares us: our room is above a pachinko parlor. Weird laughs, mechanical sounds, cries are all vying for our attention. In my mind this is just o glimpse of hell, you want to do something but you can’t because these sounds sidetrack your mind, and if you follow them they lead nowhere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We don’t have time to complain, or even to say that we’re tired, because we are going to walk on Shiratani Unsuikyo trail, and there it will be peaceful and quiet. Maybe I did not have enough stimulus for today, so the drive there takes care of that: hairpin serpentine one after another, one lane, cliff on one side, chasm on the other and a car coming toward us! For probably several good reason the Japanese built this two way road with just one lane and some waiting spots well placed, but that does not make it easier for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The trail is wonderful: streams of water frolicking over smooth boulders, lush greenery, sweaty trunks, a monkey crosses our path as she seems to go to the market, a deer measures our intentions, and an endangered dove thrills our eyes and ears. One of the reasons we are here is the ancient cedars (beside being a World Heritage Monument for its flora ranging from paleoarctic to temperate rainforest). Yaku-sugi are the ones older than 1000 years old. Like patriarchs, twisty and gnarled, mossy and hollowed, they are surrounded by younger ones. Many of them survived because they were not perfect, they were not straight (those who were they were transformed in shingles). They are so big that at our level they seem more like a bark house, if we look up the trunk is lost in leaves and there is no advantage place from where to admire the cedar in all its glory. That leaves it to my imagination, and I can embellish it to my taste: Marvelous!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgUh4N7UQ9cKlZkXUFhcIK4xeVlYi-oikSzlbDaGoIfLvrOdlVHPOOThozBrxWQxATs-yZj9bFtbFJGdbL0bXdlvygmIhckfc56sbK90wzQNpbg-_zkRTL8vwb-sK71lQcxHXK_zq2sHo/s1600/Japan+8+053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgUh4N7UQ9cKlZkXUFhcIK4xeVlYi-oikSzlbDaGoIfLvrOdlVHPOOThozBrxWQxATs-yZj9bFtbFJGdbL0bXdlvygmIhckfc56sbK90wzQNpbg-_zkRTL8vwb-sK71lQcxHXK_zq2sHo/s640/Japan+8+053.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We return to our hotel to find that the pachinko sounds had diversified (probably there are more players) but a Yebisu beer makes things easier. I don’t have the strength to wait until 10 pm when they are supposed to close, so I plug my ears, slip between my sheets on the tatami (I love that sweet pungent smell) and recharge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The next day starts late and we drive around the almost circular island.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We start at Shitogo-Gajumaru, a Banyan Garden, where they have banyan trees and Cinamonium japonicum (it had a cinnamon smell and no taste). </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotzw89J4i7zeowaf_UxD4B1R_Cu-FVsonYDs3DPZaw3im8Yp3MWridneGrzxvP0TOrm1MXtoyVSK1W3fpBgDO6bLSlXWNr0Fgun4K6VL7UvAiOw4cY67zESvGCZupeY4cUCGLL2Cd76o/s1600/Japan+8+054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotzw89J4i7zeowaf_UxD4B1R_Cu-FVsonYDs3DPZaw3im8Yp3MWridneGrzxvP0TOrm1MXtoyVSK1W3fpBgDO6bLSlXWNr0Fgun4K6VL7UvAiOw4cY67zESvGCZupeY4cUCGLL2Cd76o/s640/Japan+8+054.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From one side</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W29nNoRdR1Y/WAp8uFCnSjI/AAAAAAAATpA/xnvFDJ8pIrcKYHFCw5zjLfGfacsGWuvqQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B055.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W29nNoRdR1Y/WAp8uFCnSjI/AAAAAAAATpA/xnvFDJ8pIrcKYHFCw5zjLfGfacsGWuvqQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B055.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the other side</td></tr>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-czhGHHd20kM/WAp8ucQ1kUI/AAAAAAAATpE/ygzsL1NXLkEVYM9XOkb6uuF43sW-1b5OQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-czhGHHd20kM/WAp8ucQ1kUI/AAAAAAAATpE/ygzsL1NXLkEVYM9XOkb6uuF43sW-1b5OQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B056.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Then we stop at Isso Beach for five minutes. Ioan would like to swim and have fun, and we answer like all the parents “Tomorrow, now we have other things to do”. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qw5KXFNpOR0/WAp8vPRtgEI/AAAAAAAATpQ/JG60SCd8uakMw6jC-P2ecboJdP2LEPaNgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B059.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qw5KXFNpOR0/WAp8vPRtgEI/AAAAAAAATpQ/JG60SCd8uakMw6jC-P2ecboJdP2LEPaNgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B059.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just before Isso Beach we stopped for these huge spider webs.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoMrziCVgvr3dDeHlpzOXJEU3zWZW5cK2Y6_1ohSsvCmD3r7GUUOq2LD95qaUdfL-ZHIybpFsA94qnbLaRfqF84giLtT-FxG2o1auA5bWIFOt9y8f6M7N47N8Ci4_twa4Mh2nZlxi47I/s1600/Japan+8+058.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoMrziCVgvr3dDeHlpzOXJEU3zWZW5cK2Y6_1ohSsvCmD3r7GUUOq2LD95qaUdfL-ZHIybpFsA94qnbLaRfqF84giLtT-FxG2o1auA5bWIFOt9y8f6M7N47N8Ci4_twa4Mh2nZlxi47I/s640/Japan+8+058.jpg" width="424" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the weavers.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We drive through several small villages and then enter the Yakushima park. At the entrance there is a big sign, translating in English all the kanji. We did not have the inspiration to take a picture of that, so we drive without knowing what we’re passing. The road is one lane, again, ranging from narrow to extremely narrow, twisting and turning, with poles on the side. If we see something interesting the parking island is already occupied. And so we have a Kruger park feeling when we admire the deer and the hoards of monkeys preening themselves or one another. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ptebAdF_IpA/WAp8vLgZ1xI/AAAAAAAATpU/3UnLXaEOk0Eaao8rFUU68XsMWNYrHOmqQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B060.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ptebAdF_IpA/WAp8vLgZ1xI/AAAAAAAATpU/3UnLXaEOk0Eaao8rFUU68XsMWNYrHOmqQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B060.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pjsgm5zXsKE/WAp8vscWMtI/AAAAAAAATpc/e0dq69FkcoA49bCX3Uzm9LB_cCCzPmvHQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pjsgm5zXsKE/WAp8vscWMtI/AAAAAAAATpc/e0dq69FkcoA49bCX3Uzm9LB_cCCzPmvHQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B062.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After we get out of the forest we stop at the Oko-no-taki falls, a forceful drop of water from 88 m, pounding smooth boulders the size of houses. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jLZStiHruHU/WAp8wLPpBbI/AAAAAAAATpk/hZhJjZExFcMUtrghdMFML9F7Ku0ApFWxwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B064.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jLZStiHruHU/WAp8wLPpBbI/AAAAAAAATpk/hZhJjZExFcMUtrghdMFML9F7Ku0ApFWxwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B064.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lCzAJthRjKc/WAp8v0XZlEI/AAAAAAAATpg/yVNOtQ66BhstTzm8v3dPmU1VOBpmEq2KwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B063.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lCzAJthRjKc/WAp8v0XZlEI/AAAAAAAATpg/yVNOtQ66BhstTzm8v3dPmU1VOBpmEq2KwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B063.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We drive again passing so many things, but we don’t know what they are. </span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ijb_0xfFzGU/WAp8wbr1v1I/AAAAAAAATpo/8v7r5vFEkCw0bY6q3LU6_VSXxGHekPTqwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B065.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ijb_0xfFzGU/WAp8wbr1v1I/AAAAAAAATpo/8v7r5vFEkCw0bY6q3LU6_VSXxGHekPTqwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B065.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eGqROUEeErQ/WAp8wpR6hXI/AAAAAAAATps/uHRHirHn2N8fHDqsxWaYJJoFgeXyEmWpwCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B066.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eGqROUEeErQ/WAp8wpR6hXI/AAAAAAAATps/uHRHirHn2N8fHDqsxWaYJJoFgeXyEmWpwCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B066.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We stop to look at the Toroki-no-taki, a waterfall that flies into the sea. The drop is not much, 6 m, We take a small hike through the forest to get to the viewing point, another reason to look for shy birds and attempts to take their picture. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NZMqiv8zuHw/WAp8upUpLUI/AAAAAAAATpI/WHBXI3SgPiwncsBtcfQ_8Qw2BUO8K4JqgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B8%2B057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NZMqiv8zuHw/WAp8upUpLUI/AAAAAAAATpI/WHBXI3SgPiwncsBtcfQ_8Qw2BUO8K4JqgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B8%2B057.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This one settles the program: we are going to see the other waterfalls! No, not all of them (we could not see all of them in one day), just the ones that are signaled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">and that is how we go to see Ryujin-no-taki </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">and Senpiro-no-taki waterfall</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">and then we go to the UNESCO Museum, where there is a lot of information, but not much to see</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">and then to the Cedar Museum, that has a floor made from thick bricks of wood. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A talking pen makes up for the absence of printed English explanations. Their main exhibit is a 5 ton branch that fell from Jomongi, (the oldest cedar here, estimated at 7200 years old). It is at least one thousand years old, and part of it is supported on a metal frame, part of it is hanging from the ceiling. On the floor there is a white line, showing the circumference of the Jomongi tree. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The boys with the branch and at their feet the white line of the tree</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jomongi tree with the branch still attached</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The rest of the museum is about what makes the cedar special, the high content of resin that makes it fragrant, weather and insect resistant, how young trees have wide tree rings, but old ones have narrow ones, despite receiving plenty of water. The tools that were used to cut them, how they were transported, what they were making from it (everything, including shingles, 2123 shingles used to give you a bag of rice in Tokugawa Ieiasu times).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 2123 shingles and one bag of rice (in its straw container)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of many uses of cedar wood (you can see the narrow rings)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Back home we have two surprises. First one: it is quiet! The pachinko parlor is closed. Second one: we bought fish sausages! We did not have any nasty surprises with food until now. Ioan DID ask his father: do you know what YOU are buying? They are palatable, still, we don’t want to repeat the experience. Some things should stay what they are supposed to be, and that includes sausages!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The night ends with domestic things, like blog and laundry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The morning wakes me up with one shake and a rumble. Pause. Another shake, not much of a </span>rumble<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">, and then nothing. Infuriated (why are you waking me up?), I look up at Mihai: is it an earthquake? Yes. And I go back to sleep, because it stopped. Today is the last day here, we pack up and go to Iesso Beach as we promised to Ioan. It is cloudy and windy, not too cold, still, I don’t feel like getting wet. While the boys are being bitten by the plankton, I find sea-treasures. Aren’t they pretty?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Then we take a ferry (David Hasselhoff is gone, it is Tom Cruise’s turn), a taxi, a train to get to Hiroshima. But that is another story….</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-36754709455893121032016-09-18T00:07:00.000+01:002016-09-18T00:09:46.858+01:00Shirakawago<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">“Ohayō gozaimasu! Good morning! We know you have two places in your tour bus, but we are three, and if someone from your group doesn’t come, could you take us?” We want to go to the historic village of Shirakawa-go and this company has the best schedule for our time frame. Alas, everyone comes, so seconds before departure time, the guide (and the driver!) come to us, apologize because they couldn’t take us, bow and leave. Well, we’ve tried!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From tunnel to tunnel to the next mountain.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We move a hundred yards and stand in line for the limited express bus (the public line). We leave our luggage in a locked box and travel 50 minutes through superb scenery. We’re going to Shirakawa-go because until 1925, when the road was constructed, life stood still between forested mountain valleys. Up to thirty people lived in big houses, parents and their immediate family sleeping in a private room, servants and unmarried sons sharing a floor or two. Since then things changed, UNESCO bestowed upon them the title of World Heritage Site and hoards of tourists descend in droves upon them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">People continue to live here, plant their gardens with vegetables and flowers, reap their rice, but more important, continue to build and maintain their special houses. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drying rice.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Their thatched roof, designed to withstand deep snowdrifts, is so steep that resembles “praying hands” “<i>gassho-zukuri</i>”. There are several interior attic levels that could be used for sericulture (plenty of mulberry trees around to feed the silk-worms). One cannot find a single nail, the whole structure being held together by tightly woven ropes. And preservation against termite and thatch bugs is provided through the smoke of <i>irori</i>, open-hearth fire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These are the pictures from the Wada house, a former residence now museum. They had an impressive lacquer ware collection, that was used for temple ceremonies (it is sad that something that comprises so much work and craftsmanship, not to mention health hazards for the sap collector from which the lacquer is made, resembles from afar a cheap plastic dish).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The altar for the ancestors.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lacquerware and lotus pods with their wholes covered in colored silk (lower left corner).</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ventilation window that you can see at the top of the previous picture.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The other side of the ventilation window.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail of the sliding door of the cupboard from the tatami room.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The garden</td></tr>
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At the upper levels there is an exhibition of everyday tools, dishes and clothes (boots made of woven twisted leaves). For a second I don’t know where I am: is it Japan or my uncle’s farm? The round cast-iron pot that sits over the fire on a tripod, frames for the silk-worms to make their cocoons, wooden spoons… they look so much like anywhere in the world where the person uses nature to subsist.</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We move through the town and enjoy the feeling of being present. On one roof grass has gone to seeds. One house, probably an inn, has a lot of wooden sandals. The ventilation window is sculpted, can you see the turtles moving around the stream? Everywhere water is directed through cemented troughs, sometimes turning a small water-mill, towards ponds or fields.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We climb to an observation point and we have the whole valley at our feet.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shinto altar at the top of the hill.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When we return, we treat ourselves with ice-cream: white—from grind chestnuts, dark brown—roasted tea, mango—orange. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And then … it happens… from one house emerges a grandpa with his 4-5 years old niece and a tiny bicycle with training wheels. The girl turns the wheels twice and rests her feet on the ground. She chatters something, and starts again, and again rests her feet. Grandpa is encouraging her with a smile on his face, the girl concentrates on the task, progressing in her way. Then the door opens once more for a little bit older girl, who clasps a helmet on her head, changes places with her sister and disappears into the crowd in a purposeful manner. So it IS real…people DO live here, though I don’t understand how! No, I don’t have their picture, you’ll have to imagine yourself such brave people who try, in a daily regime, to ignore the ill-mannered tourists and to live a life as close to normality as they can. But you can have the picture of a garage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our time here is close to an end, so we return to the bus station, we don’t want to miss our train because we don’t have room in the bus. And while we wait we take turns visiting the omiyagi, the gift shop, and the toire, the restrooms. Here I am impressed by the simplicity and the beauty of the place, where a detail elevates the practical to elegance.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This design is on the door of each stall. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We return to Takayama, retrieve our luggage, shop hurriedly for our next two meals and catch our train. I try to sleep but the Sandman eludes me: the world framed by my window is so beautiful, houses, fields, city. We have to change the train, our shinkansen comes in eight minutes in a different side of the train station RUN! We’re a sore sight: luggage wobbling on our backs, the pumped up adrenaline getting no response from our depleted muscles and strangled breath, but we make it, we’re the 7th,8th and 9th in line. And we start laughing in a contained western manner, but I’m sure we’re crossing many Japanese lines. Our waiting fellows ignore us, we’re gai-jin (foreigners), with one exception, a woman. She looks at us with a special light in her eyes and smiles. Taking advantage of our secret language I tell the boys (while pretending to look somewhere else) to sober up, because we’re making someone’s day with our show. She approaches us asking where are we from. Romania. Her ex-husband is from Romania and she remembers some words like “bunā ziua” (good day). It sounds so Romanian. She and her daughter are going home, to Kyoto. If we are going there she will be glad to meet with us. In the meantime the train stops in the station, she gives us her card, and we all enter the wagon. On our seats we admire the business card and we pair the name, Yuuka, with her face. I ask Mihai if he has one of our cards, from around the world trip, to reciprocate. Ioan is impressed with the ease which she found the card case in a huge purse. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">At Shin-Osaka we change again the train, the boys play chess, then we all do what we want and can while traveling. At 11 pm we arrive in Kagoshima and walk to our hotel. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There they had two samples of potato wine; we taste, something like watered down brandy, no difference between the two brands. The room is noisy, small, western style, with lilliputian beds. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">We’re too tired to have a reaction, but we travelled 1162 km in eight hours to arrive in the southernmost city of the Kyushu island. Oyasumi nasai! Good night!</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-73886687734633119522016-09-13T18:50:00.000+01:002016-09-13T18:51:52.157+01:00Tateyama Kurope Alpine Route<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I don’t know if it’s because Mihai is eager to start the day, or Ioan and I are really tired … Mihai makes our breakfast, makes the beds, gets all of us out the door. While we wait for the taxi to take us to Ogizawa, a baboon walks nonchalantly on the street. Soon enough we find ourselves in a car with lace on seats. Novelty worn, we swivel our heads to take in the view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">First stop: we buy tickets for the whole trip over the mountains (there is a possibility to buy for each stage, if one wants to spend overnight in one location). We could have chosen to send the luggage separately, to wait for us at the end of the trip for a fee, but even in Japan, I find it difficult to part with my things… better safe than sorry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We take the trolley bus through the Kanden tunnel, that was build when it was decided that Kurobe will have a dam. Then in a malleable human block, we all climb the rest of the 220 steps with the same speed. We emerge in the daylight to this view:</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4aeViKcvxUk/V9fw97luIfI/AAAAAAAATdY/ImoRTW7QgsgcyvcmuY_FSdmpgYii7Y3KQCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B6%2B004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4aeViKcvxUk/V9fw97luIfI/AAAAAAAATdY/ImoRTW7QgsgcyvcmuY_FSdmpgYii7Y3KQCPcB/s640/Japan%2B6%2B004.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We stay here a lot, after all “We are the first Romanians from Watkins Glen to have come here!”. As always I am impressed by the amount of work and the spirit of those who labored to build such thing. If we would have been here yesterday, we could have seen the “plumes”, the water gushing on the other side of the dam, but now they are closed for winter…It doesn’t matter, we have other things to admire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From here we take the cable car to Kurobedaira. We stay in line. A man explains to us how extraordinary is this tramcar, and while he does that in Japanese, we try to extrapolate some of that information from the surrounding pictures. The tramcar is here, and we continue to wait, while an elder lady steadily climbs the stairs; when she is installed comfortably, we are allowed to proceed too. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-15Waw4rOitQ/V9fxABfczrI/AAAAAAAATdY/CEAOApV2Tu8OmJQjTw_zond_KBEFhpUXgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B6%2B012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-15Waw4rOitQ/V9fxABfczrI/AAAAAAAATdY/CEAOApV2Tu8OmJQjTw_zond_KBEFhpUXgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B6%2B012.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This picture tells me so much about the respect they have for the elders!</td></tr>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I4UmY4w1O6I/V9fxAyO3c3I/AAAAAAAATdY/1nGQf1YZwJkMN2ySII8JOEjimhsM3EKJgCPcB/s1600/Japan%2B6%2B013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I4UmY4w1O6I/V9fxAyO3c3I/AAAAAAAATdY/1nGQf1YZwJkMN2ySII8JOEjimhsM3EKJgCPcB/s640/Japan%2B6%2B013.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We don’t stop at Kurobedaira, because it has only an alpine garden, and considering the season (late fall for the altitude of 1800 m) there is not much to see. So we press with the ropeway, just two leaning points and a lot of suspended cable in between, to Daikanbo. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Ioan takes the view in, but continues to try to work on his calculus problems, so he stays close to Mihai, who carries the portable source of internet. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The dam lake seems so small from here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And again a trolley bus, under Tateyama Mountain, to Murodo at 2450 m. There is room only for one until in the middle,with water dripping on the walls, collecting in side trenches it widens so the up-going and down-going trolleys can by-pass each other with timely Japanese precision. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Murodo is a large place with hotels and onsens, with a volcanic lake Mikurigaike, that we walk around it, the blue sky reflecting in its surface. The trail squeezes between this and Midorigaike, a smaller lake where we have access on its beach. There is a pervasive smell of rotten eggs, one of the reasons for which plenty of trails are closed for the tourists. (A few months ago a volcanic gas explosion killed 40 people and they are not taking any chances). At each viewing point there are people eating with their chopsticks from bentos, feeding the body and the soul. We will eat later, after we retrieve our luggage from the locking boxes, on some snowy rocks, while a man was shoveling snow from the path with a huge shovel, putting his whole weigh behind the cart-like handle.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPDHxMaLaHTYL6Jth17hqsdLAvBS4XUAEuODQb7GY3XDblDvTybFAkEofN3H1EXo0ocRU-7S4dV_U5MttH9T7_eEBBHfvVjQ9a73TQcDURDZJQAcu0a-HRQ_EIScSvn_iFO-fL_6jOc0M/s1600/Japan+6+024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPDHxMaLaHTYL6Jth17hqsdLAvBS4XUAEuODQb7GY3XDblDvTybFAkEofN3H1EXo0ocRU-7S4dV_U5MttH9T7_eEBBHfvVjQ9a73TQcDURDZJQAcu0a-HRQ_EIScSvn_iFO-fL_6jOc0M/s640/Japan+6+024.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fumaroles and closed trails that lead to locked up hotels.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the shore of Midorigaike, where some kind of mosquitoes were flying.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can eat whelk on the grill here or some other food prepared with whelk (shell on they are the size of a man's hand)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Everything is recycled here!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">From here we take the bus to go downwards to Bijodaira. We’re first and we pick the best seats, we take videos and pictures and enjoy the whole process. On the road, workers are taking out the short wooden poles that prevent people stepping over the alpine ground, replacing them with tall slender, red and white striped rods that will measure the 4 to 7 meters snow height during wintertime (sometimes the snow is 20 meters high).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At some point the driver stops to show us something, I presume the sea, because he speaks only in Japanese, later to see a cedar with a circumference of 920 cm and a height of 23 meters (it was written on the sign) and in the end, from afar, the Shomyo Falls. When we started downwards there was almost no vegetation, and now we see the trees growing around us, red and yellow deciduous ceding place to green cedars.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At Bijodaira we take the cable car to Tateyama, and from there a train that stops in every station. The train stations are so old, so rusty, so full of charm. They serve the people who live in the country side, where there are so many persimmon-trees, I would love to eat all of their fruits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Imagine our shock to arrive in Toyama in a super modern train station, where everything is spick and span. While I stay in line to make reservations for the train to Takayama (just to find out that the train runs without reservations) Mihai buys some croissants filled with…not nutela …yes, bean paste! These will keep our stomachs from rumbling in discontent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In Takayama we easily find our hostel where we are quickly informed of the rules of the house and after that we are invited to the monthly party (once a month the hostel serves dinner in a buffet-style and socializes with their guests). Soon enough the entry hall is transformed, there is a lot of food, from plain rice, nori (seaweed sheets) to pram, pickled plum, fermented bean and other traditional Japanese choices. We each make our own onigiri (rice wrapped in nori with a filling, doused with soy sauce) and some of us wash it down with mulled wine with cloves and fresh apples. Our party fellows come from Spain, China, Israel and Oregon. We all talk about what we saw, impart our knowledge about those places and ask questions about where we want to go. Kanpai! Cheers!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">To help digestion we take a stroll through the sleepy streets of Takayama, buy some food for the next day and return to our minuscule room, to sleep like logs.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He never sleeps!</td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Today we traveled over and under the Japanese Alps…it was marvelous!</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-53140778734527902792016-07-27T22:26:00.000+01:002016-09-13T18:52:14.261+01:00Fuji and Matsumoto<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">How do we cross the language barrier?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We take the train to Mishima, a city two hours and forty five minutes away from Tokyo and close to the Japanese icon: Mount Fuji. We had a reservation for a car (much cheaper and available, contrasting with anything in Tokyo). We enter the office, and the lady, understanding from our looks and presence what we are looking for, made signs to follow her. The renting part is on the other side of the train station, so she drives us, for five minutes in the 6 seats minivan. We will have to return the car to her office.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The man in charge of renting is a little bit stressed: maybe he understands some English, but he can’t speak. Mihai doesn’t understand Japanese, still, he fills the paperwork. With my limited vocabulary I ask what is the name of the car that has a particular sign (we recognize Nissan, Toyota, Honda, but this one, like a fancy capital D, we don’t know). It seems to be Daihatsu. Cars in Japan are a different species all-together: they are small on the outside, and spacious inside. Some of them look like toys, still they are fully functional.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We drive toward Fuji and we enter the clouds: it is so cold and humid, that when we arrive at the visiting station, first thing we do is to put every piece of clothing on us. We have fun climbing on the crumbling lava path and admire the shape of the trees that still manage to survive at 2400 m (7847 ft.). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We study the map, there are two ways to climb the mountain, and there is a third point, just for the view. OK, we had enough, time to warm ourselves in the omiyagi (the gift store). Candy, postcards, more sweets, key-chains, dolls, little things, that seem inexpensive and have no utility. No thank you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We drive downward, and we feel relieved when we get under the clouds. By the time we are almost to the sea level, Fuji starts clearing up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The region around Mount Fuji includes five lakes on which we could take a cruise, or visit the little towns on their shores, take hikes in the nature, et caetaera. We stop at Mototsu for a break and from a sign we learn that the picture that is on the 5000 yen bill was taken from this lake. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Short detour on a secondary road, we find the place, but there is nowhere to park, and after some more bends, the road moves away from the lake. We return, park next to a service shed, and walk to the spot. Maybe, on a windless day, mount Fuji would reflect in the water. Today, clouds are chasing around like flies. No chance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ioan is fast asleep in the car. What should we do? Let him sleep, he will see it later, or wake him up? There is no time like the present, he can decide if he chooses to sleep or to see Mount Fuji. Yes, definitely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After numerous photo sessions we drive to the view point, where we have a true visual spread of the clouds. They form a blanket that blocks the view of the mortals of what we can see: glorious, perfectly conic, the iconic Mount Fuji! We’re so close, we can touch it (the fact that we are stepping on it does not count). We have a giddy feeling, like we have done something out of ordinary! We step on a concrete stump that holds chains and take picture after picture (how else could we get to the 15,000 pictures in one month?). In our fun we forgot that there are other people who want to do the same, so we are chased away. We don’t want to leave, but we have to arrive to Hakone tonight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Climbing down is a succession of serpentines, giving us the possibility to experience the change of vegetation and view. We don’t know that this is how it is going to be: rush hour, one lane, maximum possible driving speed 40 km/h. We arrive at our Bed&Breakfast tired and hungry. Being a gated community, we look around until we find a parking spot. Then we spend some time in the lobby until the receptionist, with a very serious figure, sorts it out with Booking.com: the hotel wants to charge more than our reservation. In the end we settle for a sum in between. The room is cold for our taste. Under the two large bay windows that make out a whole wall, are two squatty heating elements. They seem to serve a central heating… Well, if we can’t raise the room’s temperature, we have other solutions: a hot soup, some sake (we start to like it) and an onsen will take care of the feeling, plus we have sleeping bags!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Morning comes with different little chores, we pack and then enjoy a breakfast with eight different kind of pastries, two breads, tea, coffee and apple juice with some pulp.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We drive through Hakone, but we can’t see a thing, because the road snakes around wooded hills. We stop at another lake where we enjoy the view with Mount Fuji as a backdrop, until we realize that we will miss our train. Our Americanized mind tells us we have 15 miles, there should be no problem to arrive with time to spare, but the Japanese GPS says one hour. Come on, how come? One lane and works (with cones with happy or sad faces; on Mt.Fuji they were painted in blue with a “snowed” top)…Ten more minutes to the train and we have to fill the tank and, as in Murphy’s laws, the self-serve does not work, the attendants move slowly so they will not break, they serve the customers in the order of arrival. When the person comes to our car, the credit card is not accepted, we have to put bills, one by one, then he carefully opens the tank and pumps. Where are the attendants from Hokkaido? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ioan was not in the army, but his parents were, it must be in his genes, because he executed everything perfectly, unloading the car and running toward the train, even recuperating his flying iPod, while Mihai left the keys and signed the papers with the renting agency. We step in the train while the doors are buzzing: close call!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Though we change the train once, it is no hassle; being on the train is the same with being in the airport or on the airplane, a second home, but no work, only a limited choice of fun. The boys play chess and I write, and while I’m searching for words I observe the different things. For a while it was a puzzle how does the conductor know whom to ask for the tickets, but today I notice: he enters the car, bows to everybody, then he walks to the person who needs to present its ticket, bows again while asking for the ticket, receives it with both hands, verifies that it is for this car and this seat, takes a tiny pencil and checks on a squarish paper that he holds in his left hand (I presume the seat and the station where the person gets off), puts the pencil back, takes something that looks like pliers and punches the ticket, puts the tool back, and presents the ticket to the owner with his right hand, bows again. And so for every new person.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is not the only different thing about trains: we all know that there are toilets, but these ones have wet towelettes for sanitizing the seat, the button for flushing works like a magnet to hold the lid up, and it flushes only when the lid is down. And everywhere, over the toilet paper, water faucet, entrance, it is written in Japanese, Braille and English. In some shinkansens there are smoking rooms, where one enters and smokes by oneself. The door has a window, and you can see that it is occupied by the twirls of smoke that coils on itself with the person’s movement. I don’t know how it “flushes” smoke free for the next person. Add these to no delays and to the opening of the doors exactly where it is written on the platform (either on the concrete or on little metal plates above one’s head it specifies for the trains with so many cars, what car is going to be there) and one has a very pleasant and liberating experience. My childhood memories about trains in Romania are sometimes delays, not knowing if our car is going to be in front or in the back, tall steps difficult to climb for a 3-year old, being lifted and deposited in the train while a mob clamors and pushes to get in, compartments of 8 seats where some people talk, while other read or sleep, and if they want a smoke they go in the hallway where they can open windows, and most of the smoke ends in the compartment. Toilets beside being dirty, with no toilet paper, flushed on the tracks and sometimes that little piece of metal that separated visually the inside from the outside was missing: it was impossible to go! But now we have modern trains, what are they going to write about in the future?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We arrive in Matsumoto: we’re here to visit the castle. Mihai leads us on streets, some modern, some old, until we arrive in the park, and after a bend:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These were real people. When we were leaving, there was a Ninja.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is a real castle, it has seen battle, but it is hard to believe: the wooden shutters are painted laquered black, they seem made of metal. Inside there are open wooden floors, wooden columns shaped with adze (a cutting tool), all polished by the human touch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We climb the steep stairs (their angle varies between 55 and 61 degrees) to a new floor, look through the windows, try to imagine how it would look full of samurai donning a full armor, some shooting arrows through the Yazama (long rectangular windows) and some firing muskets through the Teppozama (square windows). </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We have to carry our shoes in a plastic bag.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mind your head!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a windowless third floor, used for depositing food, weapons and gunpowder, that is the only one that has two stairs for the upper floor. Because it has no windows it is not seen from the outside, and gives the Main Tower the appearance of having five stories instead of six. The fourth floor has fewer pillars, more windows and it has a higher ceiling, making it appearing wider. In the middle, using woven reeds, there is an enclosed space which is believed to be the Lord’s Chamber. From the outside you can’t see a thing inside, but reverse, and you know everything that happens around you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The fifth floor is the “conference room” with windows on every wall, useful for grasping the battle situation. There is also an exhibition of firearms and the paraphernalia that comes with them. Interesting to see how they started from a roughly hewn wooden bed with a metal barrel and how they evolved. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Publicity, the soul of commerce!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The sixth floor is the most populated for several reasons: it’s the top floor, it’s the end and it has a shrine. The legend goes that on the night of January 26, 1618, in a vision, a young vassal on duty, saw a woman dressed in beautiful clothes. Handing him a brocade bag, she said: “If the lord of the castle enshrines me with 500 kg of rice on the 26th night of every month I will protect the castle from enemies and fire”. It is believed that because the bag was deified, the castle survived to be the oldest castle in its original form. We look around, there are two columns, two trees that come from the first floor, holding the structure around themselves.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGYYFznqrLgl6qXPXyOzFolUMc_BpA4HTsLULQRylFNP6S-wLP8Qmqs3vdqdTLe72nMN2YUy3FjdAnfYBQYUhzGDdpTzyNS7-C_QmsV9LuhBclFsB7awjk9TWjlpdrP9MJ3p5NQ0chAsM/s1600/Japan+5+031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGYYFznqrLgl6qXPXyOzFolUMc_BpA4HTsLULQRylFNP6S-wLP8Qmqs3vdqdTLe72nMN2YUy3FjdAnfYBQYUhzGDdpTzyNS7-C_QmsV9LuhBclFsB7awjk9TWjlpdrP9MJ3p5NQ0chAsM/s640/Japan+5+031.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s time to go back and make our way to the staircase. I see an elderly Japanese lady, almost bend in two, letting some people go in front of her. There is a short lull in the human stream and she moves toward the first step, then she sees us, moves back and makes motions inviting us to go in front of her. “Arigatō gozaimashta” and we make our way downward to the first floor, where we visit the moon wing, with vermilion balcony and vaulted ceiling, from where, in peaceful times, one could admire the moon reflected in the moat. We admire the bud shaped window, introduced from China in the 13th century, as a staple of Ch’an (Zen for the Japanese) Buddhist architecture. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And while we leave the grounds it dawns me why the old lady invited us to go in front of her: not because she was old and didn’t want to take our time or did not want to feel pressured, after all, she climbed to the sixth floor by herself…. it was because she was the perfect host, thinking of the enjoyment of her country’s visitor!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We walk back to the train station and pass the daimyō Otemon Ido well, one of the Japan’s 100 remarkable waters. The sign said the same thing in several languages: enjoy the pure water, let’s keep the place clean and orderly. Indeed: a driver is washing his tour bus!</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zyNCS1tzb0U/V5f2J91PxuI/AAAAAAAATQY/VHTzA15GIeMwQRIAt-JdQhGr4VIj3-P6QCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zyNCS1tzb0U/V5f2J91PxuI/AAAAAAAATQY/VHTzA15GIeMwQRIAt-JdQhGr4VIj3-P6QCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B038.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We stop and shop for food (my favorites are rice triangles, wrapped in sea-weed), take the train to Omachi, then a taxi ride for 15 minutes to the land of hotels. Really, there was nothing in the town, beside houses and stores, and suddenly impersonal buildings, with large doors and parking spaces. We know from the guide book that our hotel is from the ‘70s, it is a little bit run down. The first impression says it is more than run down, it looks like it is going in renovation. We leave our shoes in the midst of a slippers sea (are we the only guests?) But the room, oh, the room, we love it instantly: </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">real shoji, high ceiling, large (five tatami) with an adjoining smoking room, with sofas. Actually it is an apartment, there is a hallway where the bedding is stacked up in the closet (the pillows have one side with buckwheat and the other with down) and the bathroom, with toilet separated from the shower/onsen. There is a real onsen in the hotel, the concierge offered us a private event for our family (for a small price), but we declined. We are tired and I can’t explain that what I presume is perfectly normal and accepted in a Japanese family, is not in mine: parental nudity in front of the children. We just stay in our room, eat, do laundry, catch up with things.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">And so, after a very long and beautiful day, we go to sleep in a beautiful room, to prepare ourselves for another beautiful adventure. Oyasumi nasai! Good night!</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-18156284855480020682016-05-05T22:15:00.000+01:002016-05-05T22:15:24.226+01:00Tokyo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Today we start our morning early, but we stay in. I take advantage of Ioan’s school and wash more laundry, and do small things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When we finally emerge from our apartment, we take the subway to Ueno Park. Next to a bus station there is a big map of the park. Though we have an ipad and internet and we could orient ourselves from that, we choose to look at that map. And while we are looking at it, I notice two men, quietly washing its frame, small movements, no drips. If we wouldn’t have stopped to look at the map, I wouldn’t have known that they were there, working. But as we are here, I feel like I am not letting them work. It amazes me, because in my mind I compare it with a similar one in Romania or in USA (not that I have seen or heard of washing the frame of a street map). In Romania, IF someone would do this job, it would be visible from a distance, an obvious fuss, “Look at me, I’m working”. In USA no one would bother, that’s why we have rain, but, still, if they would have to do it, they would use a power washer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">First stop: National Museum of Western Art. We know that the building is on the waiting list of World Heritage Sites. It was build by Le Corbusier in 1951 to house the Matsukata collections.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Kojiro Matsukata (1865-1950) was the son of a politician (who rose to the Prime Minister position during the Meiji Restoration). He studied law at Yale and accumulated a large fortune through shipbuilding. During the First World War he started collecting artwork and he amassed quite a fortune. His business was affected by the downturns of the 1920 and 1930, and he had to sell some of his collections. At that time Japan was imposing 100% tariff on the art imports, and so Matsukata left his collection stored some in London (were they burned in 1939) and some in Paris, in the facilities of Musee Rodin. Second World War came, the property was seized. Eventually, the majority of it was released, but to the Japanese people. And in 1959, in a just finished building, and around it, people could see what was dear to him. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rodin — The Burghers of Callais</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rodin —Gates of Hell and Bourdain — Hercule, the Archer</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here you can take a virtual tour of the <a href="https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/QQFlnvAK9vo8tg?location=35.715683%2C139.7763662%2C1.21%2CAVZ5vKfjsiUJncGol790hQ&projectId=art-project" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">museum</a>. It takes a while to understand how to press the arrows so you can move around the floor, and I could not figure out what am I looking at, but maybe you do, and you could enlighten me too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The museum is wonderful, quiet, very few people inside. There is so much Monet here, some that looks like studies for his famous Water Lilies from L’Orangerie, Paris, and some crisp, fresh, unexpected subjects. Here are some of my favorite picks from the museum:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUI-pnOWsep37YWFFsk0kvsvpK3CBh9XH3PPffC87PUrRSLazZT7YThHbXh7-z6geKkyIbXIMtFYOETz48SEmpSxTAhq4GNurSF8SVpEW07vjSsAgorZa492iM6GjjpwhvwS9IB8M2_og/s1600/Japan+5+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUI-pnOWsep37YWFFsk0kvsvpK3CBh9XH3PPffC87PUrRSLazZT7YThHbXh7-z6geKkyIbXIMtFYOETz48SEmpSxTAhq4GNurSF8SVpEW07vjSsAgorZa492iM6GjjpwhvwS9IB8M2_og/s640/Japan+5+006.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monet — Yellow Irises</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r8clHZTsGdc/Vyof26A7-dI/AAAAAAAATAc/UHyzL1DYE38BtzBNaACGr4bO0_8ayZsCACKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r8clHZTsGdc/Vyof26A7-dI/AAAAAAAATAc/UHyzL1DYE38BtzBNaACGr4bO0_8ayZsCACKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B009.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monet — Peony Garden</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KFWWUmkokQs/Vyof6NaUlhI/AAAAAAAATBI/Bhxnoi9BeS0QocROrE4yAmvMv8XErcWVgCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KFWWUmkokQs/Vyof6NaUlhI/AAAAAAAATBI/Bhxnoi9BeS0QocROrE4yAmvMv8XErcWVgCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B020.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monet — Water lilies</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggL7zeiq1ZgtILIglYBBlkHmbdDZPnLI3c3aSGo22gvTKAitNaG1MoZGXiLGj3XaFN0dVBQm1eQaRUfy1mHMsPn-_SBUGhYJCV-FBl_XHZ4dnOGP1jqk1oWnxgeKALDG_Sar514KTvsUk/s1600/Japan+5+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggL7zeiq1ZgtILIglYBBlkHmbdDZPnLI3c3aSGo22gvTKAitNaG1MoZGXiLGj3XaFN0dVBQm1eQaRUfy1mHMsPn-_SBUGhYJCV-FBl_XHZ4dnOGP1jqk1oWnxgeKALDG_Sar514KTvsUk/s640/Japan+5+003.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monet —Anglers on the bank of the Epte</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WT7-PhFTgaQ/Vyof2pMM8VI/AAAAAAAATAY/P0-Sld0IkVk_nFZJ3pjTQowfaH9bQErqQCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WT7-PhFTgaQ/Vyof2pMM8VI/AAAAAAAATAY/P0-Sld0IkVk_nFZJ3pjTQowfaH9bQErqQCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B008.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Van Gogh — Roses</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgydXkqbxj6Lt-2sYYRQjCGMayA-Km-TwWGN_bAsQUNaxA2rRviSfCkYJ2A3fxYac1c6CgQHtEmCuQIoH6y4DDSZkLvBdMNBNjk6iqXSm5upPLzM6TIoqq6_v5cC9i5BtB8BoAyQzcOuxc/s1600/Japan+5+010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgydXkqbxj6Lt-2sYYRQjCGMayA-Km-TwWGN_bAsQUNaxA2rRviSfCkYJ2A3fxYac1c6CgQHtEmCuQIoH6y4DDSZkLvBdMNBNjk6iqXSm5upPLzM6TIoqq6_v5cC9i5BtB8BoAyQzcOuxc/s640/Japan+5+010.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kees van Dogen — Hall of the Casino</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V7uZX7m0gyM/Vyof3t9I9fI/AAAAAAAATAk/kOv_L4PmOIs8w_FZMLR0c9CJa1yn24q6ACKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V7uZX7m0gyM/Vyof3t9I9fI/AAAAAAAATAk/kOv_L4PmOIs8w_FZMLR0c9CJa1yn24q6ACKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B011.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Jean Dubuffet — Cow with a beautiful tail</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ifup5huPPnE/Vyof1qtv3-I/AAAAAAAATAM/J2_SeWAYOGQ1GT69qF-lBix4fTKI0QK3wCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ifup5huPPnE/Vyof1qtv3-I/AAAAAAAATAM/J2_SeWAYOGQ1GT69qF-lBix4fTKI0QK3wCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B005.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emille Antoine Bourdelle — Dance of the Veil</td></tr>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-18UwG3ptx0k/Vyof55fAnpI/AAAAAAAATBE/HWlFI0vMXZIufspXBrGrtxxMPhPMFw6ywCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-18UwG3ptx0k/Vyof55fAnpI/AAAAAAAATBE/HWlFI0vMXZIufspXBrGrtxxMPhPMFw6ywCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B019.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We leave the museum refreshed, energized by the western, modern beauty that is so accessible to us. We could have stayed longer but we want to visit the National museum. So we walk in the Ueno Park, past a Christian religious service for the homeless. It is so unexpected! In my mind, the Japanese people (who have such an order in their lives, and customs, and rules) don’t have homeless people. Confronted with reality, I am uneasy. I look at them: the homeless seem to participate, standing orderly, answering. A woman, probably with the people who organized the event, seems to conduct them. I have a gut feeling of “we are going with it, because in the end we receive what we want”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We arrive at the National Museum but alas, it is closed. It was open yesterday, for the Happy Monday, … It is true that we have seen it last time, but only the collection for the “tourists”. We would have liked to visit the other parts, but some other time…</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HgGsRqERcxs/Vyof5fNk_fI/AAAAAAAATDE/4pQ6B2lDy7QhGv4422za9F1wTNZK03XgwCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HgGsRqERcxs/Vyof5fNk_fI/AAAAAAAATDE/4pQ6B2lDy7QhGv4422za9F1wTNZK03XgwCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B017.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The building behind is the Tokyo National Museum.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-anqGIdJbCRY/Vyof4tIPSJI/AAAAAAAATDE/p1qFh4Y3PrcKEVkvZaoGIfU2pJZM0Y_ZgCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-anqGIdJbCRY/Vyof4tIPSJI/AAAAAAAATDE/p1qFh4Y3PrcKEVkvZaoGIfU2pJZM0Y_ZgCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B014.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picnic in Ueno Park on newspaper.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--uVzR2ZsKng/Vyof4ABlgJI/AAAAAAAATDE/jsh3EyYEqjMFk5tlYoPDREg8MtOykTt4ACKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--uVzR2ZsKng/Vyof4ABlgJI/AAAAAAAATDE/jsh3EyYEqjMFk5tlYoPDREg8MtOykTt4ACKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B013.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We walk on streets that survived the WWII bombings. The houses have a different feeling, smaller, simpler, dated. Some temples and some cemeteries in which identical wooden buckets (used for the washing of the tomb), with the family name written on it, are stacked at the entrance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We pass by the Zoo, admire the rail-train. We are looking for a special lake, the guidebook says so, but it is closed in for some works. We take the upwalk to cross a very busy street and there are many sounds, and people, that seem to crowd me in. Fortunately we get home and eat some MSG soups and have some rest.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nG1-7hHcwSk/Vyof87LSmjI/AAAAAAAATDE/9duCHdxguJ8t-5RP_6FOy3BVwSuHnxVwQCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nG1-7hHcwSk/Vyof87LSmjI/AAAAAAAATDE/9duCHdxguJ8t-5RP_6FOy3BVwSuHnxVwQCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B028.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The restroom, outside the Ueno Park, near the Zoo.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The upwalk that leads to Ueno Station</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marker for Ueno Station</td></tr>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YTxCU5rMz04/Vyof9jr0xrI/AAAAAAAATDM/ftQxRZObmncHW9Kf5XwlchQyv8zieYreACKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YTxCU5rMz04/Vyof9jr0xrI/AAAAAAAATDM/ftQxRZObmncHW9Kf5XwlchQyv8zieYreACKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B031.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At 4:30 pm we leave again to the Sensō-ji temple. It seems that everyone got out in the streets: the students are done with their school work for the day, people are on their way home, tourists visit. And it seems that they are all here: some linger, some pray, some read their fortune. There is a hexagonal elongated box in which there are 64 sticks, each with their markings. A boy wants to know what is in his future: he takes the box, shakes it while he thinks of what he wants to know, and through the small opening on the top he removes one stick. After he reads its markings he puts the stick in the box, and the box back in its place. Then he goes to an organized shelf where he finds the paper that has the same markings. On it, his future is written (his or any other person’s who draws that stick). Mixed in the crowds is one man who supervises the students and he is ready to intervene if their joyful expansiveness transforms into rowdiness. The temple in itself tells us nothing, it has the same Japanese feeling, ordered, lacquered, symmetrical, perfect. Mihai tells me we are here for the atmosphere. From the top of the stairs we can see the whole pedestrian boulevard leading to the gates of the temple: it is hemmed with lights that sit above the food stalls and people flow in both directions. </span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n7Ed5mjPw-8/Vyof9_S33qI/AAAAAAAATDM/MREm11vyKbQRBURBeNwlpKxtmmKoDn-ZgCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n7Ed5mjPw-8/Vyof9_S33qI/AAAAAAAATDM/MREm11vyKbQRBURBeNwlpKxtmmKoDn-ZgCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B032.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A hundred yen to know your future, you have only 64 choices!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Huge temple doors, you can see them behind Mihai and myself in the above picture.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">At one food stall one man fills pagoda shaped matrices with a liquid and then adds a blob of red bean paste mixed with sugar, heats them over the fire, and while they are cooking, he fills other matrices with the liquid. When the first ones are done, he just moves them, upside down, over the freshly filled ones and that’s how he gets small pagoda shaped waffles. We buy some, just for fun and burn our mouths, they are so hot. But they are good. We move with the crowd, observing it: every cliche that we know it’s here from hair styles, to clothes, to gadgets. And they are ALL crossing my personal space.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gNqpzlWHSvw/Vyof_ls5hWI/AAAAAAAATDE/ceH6Y5c9HXEw_T5PXAXcCF2wJc7Saqk-QCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gNqpzlWHSvw/Vyof_ls5hWI/AAAAAAAATDE/ceH6Y5c9HXEw_T5PXAXcCF2wJc7Saqk-QCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B038.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In a way I feel like Gulliver in Blephusku: I am tall and they are sooo many. The apartment feels small, in the subway the seats are small and all the holding bars are across my face. Everything is small if I compare it with me. The night is young… we’re going to Shibuya!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Being in Tokyo means that we get to visit our friends, Doru and Ana. I ask Mihai where do we meet? Shibuya Station. WHERE in Shibuya Station, because that is a very important hub and it has several levels, and how are we going to recognize the meeting place (a panic feeling freezes my guts)? At Hachi’s Statue. What? Where is that? Google maps to the rescue, and we move in a darkness illuminated by neons between Manga characters, workers, tourists, checking from time to time the screen, and we’re right on spot! We lift our eyes from the screen, and a few feet away, there it is: Hachi’s statue.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Though it says "How to buy a subway ticket" it is more complicated to choose the ticket to get you where you want to go.</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jb3Hc5FTR-U/VyogBWxYZsI/AAAAAAAATDE/-EaLWQcGwJMXtATDghGak2ttyYnTPZy4QCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jb3Hc5FTR-U/VyogBWxYZsI/AAAAAAAATDE/-EaLWQcGwJMXtATDghGak2ttyYnTPZy4QCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B042.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fP583JocuOk/VyogBlISnEI/AAAAAAAATDQ/gev4pM2nF2AD_fwNWCFjauIMq3ETHhFwgCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B043.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fP583JocuOk/VyogBlISnEI/AAAAAAAATDQ/gev4pM2nF2AD_fwNWCFjauIMq3ETHhFwgCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B043.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Hachi was an Akita dog who waited for his master every day at the Shibuya train station, even after his master died. He was present at the unveiling of his statue, though not this one because the original was recycled for the war effort. He died of cancer and his ashes are buried next to his master’s. I knew some of these things from the movie Hachikō Monogatari, and from the American remake Hachi (with Richard Gere). I look at the scene: people take their position (touch or hug or no contact with the statue), have someone take their picture, collect their camera and look at their picture as they make room for someone else, repeat. For a while I judge them. I have a nagging feeling…Yes! It dawned on me! I’m tired, I am out of my reserves and I am looking at man’s best friend’s statue, the one that made me decide to never, ever have a pet (because my death will cause his misery)! Solution: whip-up some energy, because I can rest later, have my picture taken, because I’ll regret if not, and enjoy my evening, because we’re meeting friends!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ana and Doru are the same wonderful people. First they take us to an Anime store, where one can find all kinds of merchandise related to a anime movie. Ioan wants to buy something from One Piece.</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mWtoWkxWwsI/VyogCZ0dkoI/AAAAAAAATDM/ulMSp5xksAAmAJsMwwffyHhugFJqd3pJACKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mWtoWkxWwsI/VyogCZ0dkoI/AAAAAAAATDM/ulMSp5xksAAmAJsMwwffyHhugFJqd3pJACKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B045.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8B4Ry3ZBquc/VyogDp0gwNI/AAAAAAAATDM/SxLBnPmf9S8r7yahekbGjGdXw0RUXnvIwCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8B4Ry3ZBquc/VyogDp0gwNI/AAAAAAAATDM/SxLBnPmf9S8r7yahekbGjGdXw0RUXnvIwCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B049.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Then we go to a restaurant where everybody can find something to eat. We talk fast, we have to cram four years information in a couple of hours (though we kept in touch over social media). The evening flies and we feel we did not have enough. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SdjxAUQ4MbM/VyogCs1qwSI/AAAAAAAATDM/b02SiUsRjVsNPr_EITXVgLtMcQJPgsK1wCKgB/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SdjxAUQ4MbM/VyogCs1qwSI/AAAAAAAATDM/b02SiUsRjVsNPr_EITXVgLtMcQJPgsK1wCKgB/s640/Japan%2B5%2B046.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We end back to Shibuya Station crossing the street halfway and acting for the camera. Japan is a wonderful place to be!</span></div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-64218201930194467512016-02-16T23:16:00.000+00:002016-02-16T23:16:35.800+00:00Nikko<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Wake up!<br />
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Cameras, spare batteries, some food, water, tickets…let’s go! Today we are going to visit Nikko and we want to beat the crowds. That’s why we leave so early and in such a hurry.<br />
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We admire the television tower against the dawn, that’s the only view that we are going to have of it. We enter the metro system and we have to find our way to the train station. Ioan is not feeling very well, sleeping on the floor will do that to someone who is not used to it. Then we wait in line to board the train. Ooops, not ours, better get out of the way. Two more minutes and our shinkansen stops exactly to the sign. We have less then an hour to eat. In Utsunomiya we change the trains and 40 minutes later we arrive in Nikko.<br />
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I’ve read on a flyer somewhere that the train station is designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Maybe, but it doesn’t look like (find an answer <a href="https://www.quora.com/Who-was-the-architect-of-the-JR-Nikko-Train-Station-in-Tochigi-prefecture-Japan" target="_blank">here</a> )<br />
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We orient ourselves, decide to skip once again the bus and just walk uphill. It is a large boulevard, plenty of space for the side-walk, full of restaurants, most of them closed. There is a contrast between the early hour and the growing number of people on the street. It would be a lesser crowd if it would be a normal Monday, but the Japanese celebrate today, in the Happy Monday System, the Health and Sports Day, which means MANY people. </div>
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The boulevard ends in a T at the foot of a green hill. We’re actually on a bridge viewing another one, a painted red, old-style wooden bridge. It is privatized, people pay a fee to walk on it and take pictures. We enjoy it from our distance.<br />
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We cross the busy street and enter a secluded place. Just like that…The city’s sounds are filtered and muted by the trees…several staired alleys spread the visitors…and we’re in a different world. A sign politely asks us not to enter the stone wall. We have no intention, but it is nice to know that it is possible.<br />
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We look over the map and move towards Tosho-gu Temple. There are many temptations here, a museum, a garden, but this is our first time in Nikko and we want the essence. We find ourselves on the main bulevard, a wide space hemmed by hedges and trees. I tread on the thick rock carpet and I’m thinking that it is made like this on purpose, to slow me down, to have time to separate myself from the quotidian and tune into my surroundings. From here on, the concentration of people on square yard grows directly proportional with time and distance to the main attractions. Slow rise stone steps lead to the Ishi-dorii, the stone entrance gate. The space opens up, like a piazza, accomodating the many groups and on one side, a future stage for some event, overshadows the five story pagoda. Opossed to the stone gate there is the Omote-mon, with the two deva kings protecting the entrance to the complex. We buy our tickets, climb abrupt stairs, present some of them to the eversmiling person, and we’re in.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The stone gate</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Omote-mon, above our heads.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can you guess what animal represents this sculpture?</td></tr>
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It looks more like a courtyard, with smaller stone gate in the middle of it. On the sides are the three sacred store-houses: the upper one has two elephant carved in relief and is the repository for the sacred portable shrines, used in the annual festival. They are all walled up, and even if they were open, I don’t know what would have interested us: they used to stock up the Tokugawa memorabilia, in boxes hidden in bigger ones, deposited in coffers. We will see some of it in the museum.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The three sacred store-houses</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, these are elephants, like the other sculpture from above!</td></tr>
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Facing them is the only unlaquered building in the complex. It looks more like a shed (being a Japanese one, it is still beautiful), that has sculpted in bas-relief the famous three monkeys. We find out that there is more to know about them, they are part of a story:</div>
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A mother monkey looks far into her child’s future and the child looks up at the mother.<br />
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The three little monkeys tell us that children should see no evil, hear no evil and talk no evil.<br />
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Then the child is about to become independent.<br />
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He becomes ambitios…<br />
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…and then frustrated in life and he looks desperately down the cliff, while one of his friends is cheering him up.<br />
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He is love sick!<br />
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The newly wed couple is going to sail together the rough waves of llife together.<br />
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She is an expectant mother and we can go back to the first scene.<br />
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Further on we can see in the another house the beautifuly laquered sedans, used for transportation. They look like the ones in the “Shogun” movie, made after the book with the same title by James Clavel.<br />
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A little bit up the road, on the left side is the entrance to the Crying Dragon, but we are going to stop here later.<br />
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And then we should be able, but are not, to see the Yomeimon, the Yomei gate, the most wonderful, colorful, almost perfect gate. It is covered because it is restored for the 400-years anniversary. But look what a camera can see: parts that are finished, others that are cleaned, ready to be painted. We learn from the pamphlet that when they build this gate they considered it to be perfect, and so, in order not to upset the gods, they’ve deliberately installed one column upside down. The gods did not punish them for offering something that is not perfect.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-llHZjtLnJiw/VsKFAbGyh8I/AAAAAAAASsU/axMK08z_6e0/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-llHZjtLnJiw/VsKFAbGyh8I/AAAAAAAASsU/axMK08z_6e0/s640/Japan%2B5%2B024.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last one is the upside down column.</td></tr>
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When we exit from under the gate, we find ourselves in an L shaped yard hugging the temple. It has a heavily sculpted, colorful wall, more to uplift the small, white and natural wood color, Kara-mon, the Chinese gate. The Tokugawa clan would have entered through this gate in the temple, between the ascending and descending dragons, but we go on the side, take our shoes off, deposit them on the provided shelves, and wait in line on the laquered wooden floors. A Japanese monk guide gives details about what we are seeing. I catch only separate words. When the group that was inside leaves, we climb the steep stairs to sit on the tatami in the Oratory. Separated through mobile walls there is another enclosure where people with pink papers have a religious service. The priest has golden robes and a special head-dress. I couldn’t help but to notice the way he was chanting was similar with the Christian service. I return my attention to our monk-guide. He translates only the essential. He is blessing us, waves above our heads a religious object (a stick with flowing cut white paper), after that we all clap, and they bow their heads in prayer. We are encouraged to climb the few steps down in the Stone Room, where there is an altar, and I admire the craftsmanship. We have just a little time to glide next to the gift shop and back the steep stairs, laquered wooden floors and shoes, before the next group fills the space.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HtbXbigHYng/VsKFH2DNI1I/AAAAAAAASsQ/Juhjmte4KKY/s1600/Japan%2B5%2B040.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HtbXbigHYng/VsKFH2DNI1I/AAAAAAAASsQ/Juhjmte4KKY/s640/Japan%2B5%2B040.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Through the Karamon and up into the Oratory.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApdCDlN0Z0DitFWKakIMKLbMXNbJ2LDyQuRpT52A94zc-mUSi6wbtWeyg_p2rBMdVLrtmOKLh-RSCCjpNRBWmCEuKZab66fDJn21tulUc43pYu63uvkLisvA1PcxIqAwZpRGG115zMFU/s1600/Japan+5+028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApdCDlN0Z0DitFWKakIMKLbMXNbJ2LDyQuRpT52A94zc-mUSi6wbtWeyg_p2rBMdVLrtmOKLh-RSCCjpNRBWmCEuKZab66fDJn21tulUc43pYu63uvkLisvA1PcxIqAwZpRGG115zMFU/s640/Japan+5+028.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Karamon and the wall seen from the inside, facing the Yomei-mon. </td></tr>
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We follow the map toward the Inner Shrine of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Another check point for other tickets, right before the Sleeping Cat, a famous feature of the temple. This is a small sculpture, right above the gate that leads to the stairs to the shrine. It is said that it looks life-like. Not now, with its peeling paint. It is supposed to represent tranquility, after chasing away all the “harmful mice”.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The cat is right above the sign, next to the man's head.</td></tr>
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The two hundred stone stairs are climbing in a steep manner between tall cedars. Moss adornes them. I’m not the only one huffing and puffing, lots of other people do, including young ones. Once we get to the lower court of the shrine we notice an elder lady lying down, covered with a blanket and some people comforting her. Soon enough we see the paramedics coming, wearing jikatabi, traditional boots, and carrying a soft strecher. In the air a helicopter is hovering close by. We continue toward the shrine. Ieyasu not only wanted to be shogun, but wrote in his testament that after his death he was going to be worshiped as a god. His grandson took care of the details. Another set of stairs, a squarish stone yard with bronze animals in a small clearing between the trees. On one side there is a wooden shrine where people can hang prayers and bow their heads.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Split tree, still living.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sea of roofs, seen from Tokugawa Yeyasu's Inner Shrine</td></tr>
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We return to the main temple’s yard, only to find it litteraly crowded. It is the design of the place that makes it feel like this, the same number of people would make no difference in Versailles. We step asside to take more pictures, and I adjust my personal space to an even lower limit.<br />
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Next stop the Crying Dragon (the one that we skipped when we entered): the story goes that in this particular building there was a painting on the ceiling, drawn in India ink by Kano Yasunobu (17th century), of a dragon that was heard groaning when people clapped their hands in prayer. The drawing was destroyed in a fire in 1961. Now we could enter in groups and listen as a monk would demonstrate, by clapping two wooden boards, a perfect echo only under the newer dragon’s head.</div>
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On our way to the museum we catch ourselves enjoying a group of three couples dressed in kimonos as they are posing for themselves. Every time that I see someone in kimono I think I should wear my national costume in a similar situation in both my countries.<br />
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The museum is a modern building with a classic air. We stop to watch the two short movies that are provided: one about the museum, the other one a persuasive animated presentation of Tokugawa Ieyasu. I presume the truth is somewhere in the middle, he was an inteligent man who lived in his time and some remember him for his honorable intentions of uniting and consolidating Japan, others for his shrewed and secretive tactics, assuring his family with a long and unchallenged reign. We are not allowed to take pictures and so we move along between swords wonderfully crafted and objects that once were in Tokugawa’s life, including a folding fan, on which he wrote himself.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Life is a long journey bearing a heavy burden.<br />
There is no need to make haste. Accept travails as the norm and discontent will never haunt you.<br />
When desire floods your heart, hearken back to tribulations endured in the past.<br />
Forbearance is the foundation of lasting prosperity. Anger is the foe plotting your downfall.<br />
Drinking only from the chalice of victory without tasting defeat poisons the soul.<br />
Cast blame on yourself and never others. Want is always better than abundance.</td></tr>
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We are totally spent. We don’t want to see anything else, though there are plenty of things to be admired. The guide book said we should plan for two days in Nikko, but I am happy that we didn’t follow the advice. I feel that for this trip, as little as we’ve seen from Nikko, is enough. </div>
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Going back toward the train station is different for us. We are hungry, our only meal was breakfast early in the morning and a snack. Ioan wants to repeat yesterday’s experience with a hot soup before the trip back home. We search almost every restaurant window for prices. All of us balk at the 2000 yen dish, no matter how fanciful or exotic is. For that money we could all eat from the convenience store and have desert too. Adding insult to injury, we have no reservation for the train (Mihai did not want to stiffle our freedom to leave early or late from Nikko). It is really, really crowded, like rush hour, but in the train. The boys manage to find a surface on which to lean in, lost in their screens, one searching for next days transportations, the other in his endless chess games. I scootch in a luggage space, but I can’t stay long, I feel boxed in.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rice with pickled radish, wrapped in nori (seaweed).</td></tr>
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I admire a mother of two little boys, one in a stroller, the other one, around 3-4 years old, on his feet. For the whole length of the trip they were quiet, shared little food, comforted each other and bothered no one. When the older brother got tired from standing, he sat on his hunches and played with his younger sibling. He did not ask to change places, or to be held. And when they left, they bowed quietly to their neighbors.</div>
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On our way home we do some shopping (including beer and a very good sweet red wine). After we eat, we wash our clothes and put them to dry in the tiny bathroom, which has a timed setting for drying clothes. Life is good.</div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834317478825651626.post-81587206911209427112016-01-27T20:55:00.000+00:002016-01-28T03:41:11.818+00:00Hiraizumi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Another early morning for us, we wake up before the 5 am alarm. Still on jet-lag. We could waste time in the room, our train is later in the day, or we could go to the market and enjoy the show. Quietly we gather our belongings and tip-toe out of the hotel.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, Ioan does not have a flower in his hair! It is a chrysanthemum from a vase that sits on the table hidden almost completly by him, but you can see it in the mirror. We are surrounded by those shapeless blue or red one size fits all slippery slippers (you can fall to your death if you're trying to climb those stairs wearing them) and if there is a large group, there are more in the bin. You can see how many people are in the hotel by counting the pairs of shoes in the cubby.</td></tr>
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The sun is up, but the streets are deserted, with the exception of the dog-owners. Because everyone else is at the market buying or eating sea food. We look out-of-place, with our backpacks, still we’re oggling at the variety and the abundance, not in just one place, but repeated along the street.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It says that we can eat now!</td></tr>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FlT2jTVpkRg/Vqgj5XispaI/AAAAAAAASi4/BDE1tuBImBs/s1600/Japan%2B4%2B007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FlT2jTVpkRg/Vqgj5XispaI/AAAAAAAASi4/BDE1tuBImBs/s640/Japan%2B4%2B007.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These bags are full of roe!</td></tr>
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We board our train and start eating. Japanese people will not eat outside the food court, or on the sidewalk, nor in any public space, but they eat in trains. The fact that the chairs have a tray, or that you can buy fresh food in any train station, or even in the shinkansen tells us is ok. We don’t have eki-ben (train station boxed food), we have something that we like better: hard-boiled eggs, salami, bread and cabbage leaves!<br />
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On one side of the train we can see that mixture of cultivated fields and villages, on the other the sea and the works to keep it at a bay. And then we enter the tunnel, swallowing while pinching our noses to help with the popping ears. We don’t have a special feeling, it’s just a tunnel, with the exception of the following picture, there is nothing to tell us that we are deep under the sea and we’re crossing not only the Tsugaru Strait, but Kuromatsunai line (the one that marks the differences between the different evolution of the animals of Hokkaido and the ones from Honshu). Soon enough we are on the other side, and everything looks similar with the island that we just left.<br />
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We change two more trains one from Shin-Aomori (the new Aomori) to Morioka, from there to Ichinoseki (where we leave our backpacks in a lockbox), and finaly to Hiraizumi in a train that looks more like a subway.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The girl was so absorbed in her Manga book...</td></tr>
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We walk toward the World Heritage site (we don’t want to take a bus), enjoying the different gardens to the different houses.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They don't grow like this, they have teams of people trimming them to shape.</td></tr>
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Chūson-ji is more like a village: there is a large steep avenue lined with hundreds of years old cedars, that leads toward the different temples and religious buildings and gardens of the Pure Land Buddism. The story goes that everybody contributed either with money or gifts, or workers to the construction, only the supervisor, who was poor, could not. So he decided to contribute with the cedars, grew them from seeds and when they were old enough, transplanted the little trees in the places he thought they would complement the buildings. The place burned to the ground, but the trees are still here.<br />
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We’re going toward Konjiki-dō (the Golden Hall), one of the original buildings from the 12th century. We’re side-tracked by a Kabuki representation, masked people doing exagerated movements accompanied by instrumental music.<br />
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The temple is housed in a modern concrete building. We are not allowed to take pictures and that’s why I rely on the <a href="http://www.chusonji.or.jp/en/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">internet</a>. Everything is covered in gold and there are some accents in mother of pearl. For me it is a beautiful thing. For others, is a worshiping place, they crowd to be in the middle, to pray and bow their heads.<br />
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After this, we go to the repository, the other original building that survived centuries and then to the museum where there is also a movie about what we saw, kind of like making it up for not being able to see up close or take pictures.</div>
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Once outside we are confronted with the gift shop. There is something that we’ve learned last time when we visited Japan, but we forgot: every place has its own merchandise, you can’t find anywhere else the things that you see. There are also cookies samples! We like them, we buy them, we eat them. Then I realize I don’t know what’s their name. I go back in the store and ask: karintō manjiā.<br />
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We enjoy the gardens, the hundreds of years old cherries, with their propped limbs, the lakes with rocks and moss, all reproducing at a smaller scale, and in collaboration with the other ones, the pure land, the heaven, where the Buddists aspire to live their eternal life.</div>
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Mihai wants to go to another temple, Mōtsū-ji, also famous! And he wants to get there on a path through the forest, instead of walking down the street. He is right, the path is lovely, covered in moss, wooden rails, quiet…<br />
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We pass a sign, but we don’t pay attention, because our minds are thinking it is written in Japanese, and everything is wonderful, and we’re having such a good time, and then another sign. </div>
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Hey! It has a bear on it! </div>
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Wait! What?</div>
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Yes, we’re in bear country, we should announce our presence by knocking with the hammer on the wooden board kindly provided next to the sign!<br />
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Suddenly I feel like it is my duty to talk out loud, evidently ruining everybody’s quiet stroll. We take turns in knocking forcefully. Eventualy we’re out of the woods. We pass small fields of harvested rice, the sheaves tied to poles to dry. Everything is small compared with what I know about fields and cultures.<br />
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We buy our tickets and stroll the ground.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M13dGj0Em2I/VqgkHfd39CI/AAAAAAAASlo/itjdW-7JUZU/s1600/Japan%2B4%2B026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M13dGj0Em2I/VqgkHfd39CI/AAAAAAAASlo/itjdW-7JUZU/s640/Japan%2B4%2B026.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It is 11th of October, but why 27? Aren't we in 2015? (It means <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisei_period" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Heisei 27</a>)</td></tr>
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Here is the fountain to cleanse (with the dipper first one hand, then the other, and the last one the dipper itself for the next person to use it),<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kvTaByoZDH8/VqgkH5FWcWI/AAAAAAAASl0/-ep084-YOrg/s1600/Japan%2B4%2B027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kvTaByoZDH8/VqgkH5FWcWI/AAAAAAAASl0/-ep084-YOrg/s640/Japan%2B4%2B027.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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the incense burner,<br />
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behind it the temple,<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kVbpPQahcrI/VqgkJdzi90I/AAAAAAAASmA/m7FaLzTs0oI/s1600/Japan%2B4%2B029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kVbpPQahcrI/VqgkJdzi90I/AAAAAAAASmA/m7FaLzTs0oI/s640/Japan%2B4%2B029.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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and then the garden, really lovely.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzLmUpEH2hEAYFSnT12eTicEsnq6veB56DgIIgisBjsakplHryPlXCupEmJvHtRLlvM6K2QNFr-PVueMSIuq-PzhU4u03nb8gXcNUvlMIJq7IBDz4Aajjh0hNai69gw_57ZkR8PdswqUI/s1600/Japan+4+032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzLmUpEH2hEAYFSnT12eTicEsnq6veB56DgIIgisBjsakplHryPlXCupEmJvHtRLlvM6K2QNFr-PVueMSIuq-PzhU4u03nb8gXcNUvlMIJq7IBDz4Aajjh0hNai69gw_57ZkR8PdswqUI/s640/Japan+4+032.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yarimizu-the garden stream that has the bottom covered with rounded cobblestones and has from place to place rocks that control the flow of the water. It symbolizes a mountain stream that meanders peacefully through the plains. It demonstrates the techniques written in Sakuteki, the oldest book on gardens from Japan.</td></tr>
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All day long we walked through a haze, but just now the sun pierced the clouds and colored everything.<br />
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We go back to the station and while we wait for the train, Ioan enjoys a bowl of hot soup with udon (thick wheat noodles) (the waitress got out of the kitchen area and changed her shoes to serve him).<br />
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While traveling to Tokyo the boys play chess.<br />
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We had a lovely day, we’re tired, but the day is not done yet. We travelled more than 850 km (500 miles) today but we still have to pick up our new apartment’s keys. We walk two blocks to the tenth floor of a high rise building where there is the renting agency. It's after 8pm on Sunday night and there are two men in a deserted immaculate floor-size office. They give us the papers, the keys and explain how we will get to the apartment.<br />
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It takes us another 20 min to walk on alleys to get there. We recognize the building from the picture, input the code to enter, take the elevator and arrive. The keys have two sides of indentations and on the length various numbers of dips, it would be easier to cut a hole in the door than to break the lock.</div>
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Ta-da-daaaa! Our new 10/30 ft all commodities apartment! Entrance area with closet where we leave our shoes, then on the left washing machine facing toilet on the right, next kitchenette facing bathroom and at the end the living space with a comfortable queen bed and a coffee table with a flat screen tv. There is a mattress hidden in yet another closet for Ioan. And we have a balcony!<br />
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We have enough energy to eat something, plug the tools, make Ioan’s bed and then sleep…blissful….sleeeeep…</div>
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Ileana Ruxandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11895111913115399419noreply@blogger.com0