Showing posts with label fukuyama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fukuyama. Show all posts

Monday, December 22, 2014

Some More Round Windows


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My posts on the round windows of Japan have been popular, so here is a selection of ones I've found recently. This first one has to be one of my favorites. It is in an outbuilding in Henshoin Garden, in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture.

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This one is in the Ohashi House, a wealthy merchants home in  Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture.

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This one is in a shelter in the garden next to Fukuyama Castle in Hiroshima Prefecture.

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Korakuen garden in  Okayama.

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The Chinese garden Enchoen, on the shore of Togo Lake in Tottori.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Fukuyama Roses


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Fukuyama is the second largest city in Hiroshima Prefecture and is known as the Rose City, so its not surprising that images of roses are everywhere. The bus I took to get there from Hiroshima City was called the Rose Liner.

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Obviously designs of roses adorn the local manholes and draincovers.

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I visited in March and could find no actual roses, though in May they hold the annual Rose Festival with more than half a million roses on display.Tthere were plenty of rose-related products for sale though.

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The rose was chosen as the symbol of the city in the early 1950's to give hope to the inhabitants whose city was 80% destroyed by allied bombing at the end of the war.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Shichi-Go-San



Stopped by an unusual Inari Shrine near Fukuyama on Saturday and there was a Shichi-Go-San ceremony going on. The song the priest is singing is not something I've heard before. There is a cadence and lilt to it that was quite foot-tapping, quite unlike the normal "shinto" chanting which sounds similar to the buddhist chanting it's influenced by.

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The Miko performs the purification part of the ritual.



Shichi-Go-San is usually November 15th, so this was a little late. Before the creation of "state" shinto in the Meiji era the celebration took place in the home. Boys of 3 and 5 years old and girls of 3 and 7 years old visit the shrine for purification.

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THis little boy, for whom the ceremony was held, is holding a bag that contains Chitose-ame, "thousand year candy" for healthy growth and longevity.