Saturday, November 28, 2009

Okayama Castle and Korakuen Garden

Okayama Castle was built in 1597. It is one of only a few castles in Japan that was painted black which earned the nickname "Crow Castle". It was destroyed by bombings in 1945, then reconstructed in 1966; This time entirely from concrete, Thus todays castle is only a replica.

Korakuen Garden was built on its own island in the middle of the Asahi River on the eastern side of Okayama City, adjacent from the castle, which is visible from inside. The garden's construction was finished in 1700, But needed rebuilding in 1934 due to flooding, and again in 1945 due to bombings of World War II. The garden is said to be in the top three of Japan's gardens.

My visit to the castle and garden were on the same day, October 12th, which was a national holiday here in Japan; National Sports Day. From what I understand, this holiday, is for nothing less than having a good day in the sun with your family and friends. In Japan, the work force works very hard hours, sometimes up to 16 hours daily. They have many national holidays which are much needed to give the workers a rest now and then, and of course, to give us foreigners some cultural experiences!

The castle and garden was one of my favorite days so far in the two months since I've been abroad. The Following are my photos from that day!

These three photos were taken outside both the garden and castle. They are of the festival that was happening due to the holiday. Lots of people enjoying some tasty Japanese food!







Next are pictures from inside the Castle grounds. I even got to take a picture with a Samurai!

















Next are photos from inside Korakuen Garden.

















































Saturday, October 24, 2009

SIGHTS OF TOKYO

I only had one full day in Tokyo, so we made the best of it going to multiple places by dealing with the intensely packed train system once more. We got off the train at Shinbuku station, which is said to the busiest train station in the world dealing with nearly 1,000,000 passengers daily and proceeded to see Harajuku, the Meiji Shrine, and Shibuya, and went to the top of the Tokyo Government building which gives you a panoramic view of the whole city (or as far as your eyes can see; I honestly never saw the end while in the city).

Harajuku is an area of Tokyo known for its outrageous youth culture. Here our main visit was on the street called “Takeshita-dori”. This street is basically a youth shopping district selling anything you can think of that the Japanese youth might want to purchase for their unbelievable fashion sense that really has nearly no rules as you would see in America. I noticed first off, that being as wacky as possible in your dressing is the style, rather than five or six main ideas. I saw girls wearing skirts that barely cover their butt cheeks along with boots of random colors and patterns that rise up past there knee caps. And to top off that outfit, they would wear even more nutty stockings that would be seen between the skirt and boots and have a purse with BARBIE written in pink on it. I saw more guys with girly hair cuts than at a bless the fall concert, as well as more T-shirts than I can count with nonsense English sayings on them like; PIE EATS, or SHOOT THE MOON. All and all, Harajuku was a great experience to see what the youth life in Tokyo is all about.




If you ever have the chance to see Tokyo, and you like Japanese tradition, I highly recommend you check out the Meiji Shrine, or Meiji Jingu in Japanese. This is a huge park containing a Japanese garden, walking trails and of course the shrine dedicated to the Meiji period of Japan, where the country went through the “Meiji restoration”; a huge turning point in modernization for Japan, not only in infrastructure, but also the ways in which daily life was lived for many people, and how the governmental system was treated.


Once you enter the gates and start to walk into the park you will completely forget that you are in a city of over 10 million people. All of the sounds of the city disappear and all that is left is the beauty of Japan’s plant and animal life. It was a very surreal place. Once you reach the main part of the shrine park, you will come across a wooden box standing about waist high with water pouring out of a faucet poking up from the middle. On top of the box are wooden ladles. These ladles are used for the traditional washing of your hands and mouth before entering the shrine itself. You are meant to take the ladle in one hand, fill it with water from the box, and wash one hand at a time with the water that you pour over them with the ladle. Once you have washed both hands you are to pour some into one palm, toss it in your mouth, and swish it around before spitting it out on the ground. Once you are clean, you dip the ladle one last time, hold it cup side up, and let the water run down the handle to wash it as well, so it isn’t dirty for the next visitor.


Inside the shrine, there are little pieces of wood that you can buy for 500 Yen (equivalent to about $5), on which you can write your hopes and dreams. Many of these, people had written things about hoping to pass exams, wishing a sick family member better, or wanting to have a safe journey through life. There were no boundaries on what you could write, just whatever you wanted to come true.

As you walk into the main floor of the shrine, there was yet another wooden box lined on top with dowels evenly spaced. Here you were meant to take coins (in Japan coins range from 1 yen, or a penny, to 500 yen, about $5) and toss them one by one into the box. As they hit the dowels, they would bounce around and make a sound that can only be heard by doing this, before falling to the bottom. I think that this action was much like a wishing well of sorts. The money was to represent, once again your dreams and ambitions, and there was no limit to the amount you could toss into the box. It was your money after all! This act is very traditional and is well known in Japanese society. Many people come here each year to take part in it.


While at the shrine, I got to see a traditional wedding procession. The bride and groom, along with their wedding party (probably close friends and relatives), start at one end of the courtyard and walk very slowly in a line to the other end, up to the side of the shrine, and then inside. We didn’t get to see the actual wedding itself, just the walk, but that was enough to understand the great meaning behind it. I can’t imagine how much it must mean to a Japanese couple to be married in the shrine. The group of people were very well dressed as you might imagine, and the bride and groom looked best of all, being shaded by an umbrella as they strolled across.








This is the traditional garden that was built inside the shrine. It contained a big pond filled with coy, the size of no other coy I had seen before. Now I have come to see coy in many places here in Japan, Some much bigger than these. It also had many wonderful plants which may have been even better in spring time or late fall when the colors are at their peak, yet still magnificent, and a tea house.








Shibuya is the type of place in Tokyo that we see in movies on a regular basis. Thousands of people out going about their daily life, huge video screens on the high rise buildings basically on every corner, shouting advertisements at you in Japanese, and best of all for me was the crosswalk I came upon. This was something I never thought I would see in my life and was incredible. There were two massive streets that came to an intersection. Crossing each street from corner to corner, just like in the states were four crosswalks. In addition to those four, they had added two more that crossed the middle in an X shape to give the most passing room to the hoards of people crossing. Everyone would wait while the cars passed first; nearly a thousand people for each turn of the light were waiting for their turn. Once the lights turned red for the cars, all of these people would hit the street crossing in all directions like ants running form a rain storm. You really had to pay attention, because due to the X shaped crosswalks, people might be walking right in front of you at any second. It was mass chaos for me, but this was all part of normal life in Shibuya. If I have another chance while in Japan, this is one place that I couldn’t miss.






This last piece is about the Tokyo Government building. You are able to ride the elevator up about 40 floors into a huge room filled with windows which creates a panoramic view of the entire city (or as far as you can see before your eyes quit working!). This was a truly astonishing moment for me. I had never even seen the biggest cities in my own country and to see the entirety of Tokyo from about was fantastic. you could see everything from up there; including all the places we had gone earlier in the day and the mass of the shrine. Here are my photos which were taken from all directions from the building to show how far it goes on.