Itsuki came back from school with fever, headache, and joint pain. That made it sound like she had a case of Swine Flue (there is a small outbreak of it in Osaka right now) .. but after a good night of rest and sleep she recoverd very quickly and already was fit enough the day after to go out with our little Momo for a quick walk.

So we went down to the Hana-no-bunkaen parking field. It’s a parking field for visitors to the botanical garden (hana=flower) but there aren’t many people visiting the place and it only is used at weekends. That makes it perfect for unleashing Momo and letting her have a good run during weekdays.

The Aoi Matsuri (in Japanese: 葵祭) is one of Kyoto’s renowned three great festivals, with the other two being the Jidai Matsuri and the Gion Matsuri.

Aoi Matsuri is celebrated each year on May 15th. It was a ritual that began in the sixth century by Emperor Kinmei to gain the favor of the deities of the Shimogamo and Kamigamo shrines so that they could have a good harvest.

It was named Aoi festival for the aoi (hollyhock) leaves which were once believed to protect against natural disasters. These leaves are used as decoration throughout the celebration.

The festival is thought to be one of the oldest in the world and historians trace it back to the Heian period in the sixth century. It was started by Emperor Kinmei in the sixth century to quiet the deities to save their precious harvest. There were either great storms or an unripe grain that caused the people of Kyoto to pay attention to these deities. Whatever the case, the Kamo-deities were thought to be angry at the disrespect of the people and had put a curse on the city. A diviner determined that it was the deities enshrined at the Kamigamo and Shimogamo Shrines were the ones who were upset at the people of Kyoto. In response to this, Emperor Kinmei had special rites performed at the two shrines to quiet the deities. Then magically, either the storms cleared or the grained ripened and the harvest was saved. Later, in the ninth century, Emperor Kanmu recognized these deities as protectors and establishes Aoi Matsuri as an annual imperial event.

I was arriving a bit late in the morning for seeing the procession on their walk from the Imperial Palace to the first shrine (Shimogamo Jinja). So i moved on to the Kamigamo Shrine and waited for the processing to arrive there in the afternoon. It was a sunny nice day and even though i had found a nice spot shaded by trees i still managed to get sunburned. The location under the trees made for some interesting lighting conditions with all the shadows and occasional patches of light shining through. Usually when using flash this can be easily solved (a Nikon feature called Active D-Lighting), but with all the horses involved in this festival flash-photography wasn’t allowed.

Transport: Kyoto Imperial Palace: 5 minutes’ walk from Imadegawa Station. Imadegawa Station is on the subway Karasuma Line from JR Kyoto Station.
Shimogamo-jinja Shrine: About 5 minutes’ walk from Shimogamo-jinja-mae bus stop. Shimogamo-jinja-mae bus stop can be reached from JR Kyoto Station on City Bus No.4 or No.205.
Kamigamo-jinja Shrine: Close to Kamigamo-jinja-mae bus stop, which is 30 minutes from JR Kyoto Station by City Bus No.4.

Website: The official website (all in Japanese) is the one of the Kamigamo Shrine, that celebrates and organizes this event. Both the Kyoto tourist pages as well as the Japan Tourism pages also have some entries on the festivals in english.

Just had my birthday today and Itsuki got me this little yummi cake to celebrate the day

The Saidai-ji Hadaka Matsuri is more famously known as the Okayama Naked Man festival. It’s one of the three most eccentric festivals of Japan. Up to nine thousand men wearing only loincloths (Fundoshi in japanese) struggle fiercely with one another over a pair of lucky sacred sticks (Shingi in Japanese), thrown into the crowd by the priest from a window 4 m up. Anyone who luckily gets hold of the shingi and thrusts them upright in a wooden measuring box known as a “Masu” which is heaped with rice is called the lucky man, and is blessed with a year of happiness.

The origins of this festival date back 500 years when worshipers competed to receive paper talismans called Go-o thrown by the priest. These paper talismans were tokens of the completion of New Year ascetic training by the priests. As those people receiving these paper talismans had good things happen to them, the number of people requesting them increased year by year. However, as paper was easily torn, the talismans were changed to the wooden ofuda that we know today.

Shouting out ‘Wasshoi! Wasshoi!’ the almost naked men approach the precincts. Although this festival takes place in winter, the fervor of the men waiting impatiently is so strong that they seem to have difficulty breathing, which is why water is splashed over them. Precisely at midnight, the lights are turned off all at once, the sacred sticks are thrown into the crowd, and the vehement rush to grab the sticks starts. Even if someone is lucky enough to get hold of the sacred sticks, they are quickly snatched away by others, almost like a rugby game.

There are paid seats available and if you want to have a good view on the festivals main-event then i suggest you spend a bit of money on them although you need to be quick – they are sold on the Saidaiji website and sell out months before the event. Places to stand are also available and can be bought from the festival committee headquarter during the day of the event.

Transport: Saidai-ji temple is about 10km to the east of Okayama-city. (about 3 hours drive south of Osaka). Traffic moves slowly and roads are usually congested … the best option is to take the train. There are also additional buses driving back to Okayaman JR Station after the event.

Website: The official website (all in Japanese) is the one here and there is also some information about it on the JNTO homepage in English.

Itsuki is out tonight for a year-end party (Bounenkai – 忘年会 : lit. “forget the year gathering”) at one of her workplaces and I decided to go shoot some pool at the monthly 9-ball competition in my favorite pool hall g-Forest. Unfortunately I didn’t do well and I got to go home early …

On the way back home i dropped into a FamilyMart to get some sweets (apple pie) and spaghetti lunch for tomorrow and noticed a new soft drink on the shelves. The sucker that i am i couldn’t resist the allure of trying out this new fancy looking drink.

I haven’t opened the can yet, but i don’t expect Final Fantasy IX Potions to be very nice. A quick Internet search mentioned the words “repulsive and repugnant” in combination with an earlier version of the drink and my experience so far tells me that the more advertising a drink needs the worse the taste is. But there is always this hope to find something new and awesome that makes it worthwhile to go through 95% of garbage!

P.S. - so i got around to drink one of the cans .. turned out that “repulsive and repugnant” is still spot on .. that stuff is undrinkable

So i was browsing the event calendar of festivals in Japan and noticed the pompous sounding description of the On-Matsuri and thought ok, let’s bookmark that one and go have a look.

The On-Matsuri in Nara is held each year between December 15th-18th at the Wakamiya shrine (part of the Kasuga taisha shrine). Apparently the greatest attraction of the festival are concentrated on the 17th. The On-Matsuri is a festival held at Wakamiya-jinja Shrine which stands in the precincts of the Kasuga Taisha Grand Shrine. It was first organized in the 12th Century when an epidemic prevailed, and prayers were offered at this festival for the eradication of the plague and also for the blessing of a rich harvest.

On the afternoon of the 17th, they have one of those Jidai Gyrotesu (Procession of the Eras) similar to the ones in Kyoto and Tokyo (and probably some other cities). It’s a parade of 500 people and horses dressed in costumes from 9th to 19th century.

Unfortunately i was a bit late and only got to see the end of the parade. But as it happened the weather was again rainy like the last Jidai parade that i saw in Kyoto and the actors again didn’t look too motivated. I hope i will have better luck next year!

The procession ends at a little shrine where others then perfom kagura (music dedicated to the gods) and bugaku (court music accompanied by traditional dance) till late in the night. Here is some recording of that sound:

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And here are some snapshots of the festival:

Transport: The shrine can be easily accessed by foot from Nara train station. Just get out of the station and turn right in direction to Nara Park. Walk a kilometer along the road and you can’t miss it.

Website: The official website (all in Japanese) is the one of the Nara Prefecture tourism website. The Japan Tourism website also has some information about it.

Wintertime is Chankonabe time ;-p! The restaurant serving this pot-dish is one of my favorite! – the interior looks nice and rustic and the food is delicious … the perfect place to invite some friends along for a nice dinner!

Echan and Bechan joined us for this dinner. Having a couple of friends coming along is always a good idea for a dinner like this … the more friends come the more variety of those little yummy side dishes can be ordered and enjoyed! Among those side dishes the grilled chicken slices on sour umeboshi (plum) sauce is my favorite followed by fried camembert cheese or grilled Hokke (mackerel).

The main dish is the Nabe (one-pot dish) which had heaps of different things in it: Tofu, fine sliced pork, Chickenballs, Vegetable, Shrimps, Mushrooms, Bean curd … and even some Oysters for Bechan. After eating everything the broth is then used to cook some Somen (pasta) in it.

When eating at this place we usually go back home with full stomaches and no need for breakfast/lunch the next day … but Echan brought some Swiss-Roll cake for desert so we left the place with a tiny bit of space for that one.

That was a surprise. Wife brought back home one of her patients today. She neutered him (poor guy!) and wanted to keep him home overnight for observation.

Looks like Itsuki did a good job. The little chihuahua didn’t show any signs of pain of the operation acting as if nothing extraordinary happened that day. He first was a bit shy and intimidated by our much taller Momo that wanted to play with him. But after a while he relaxed and started to get comfortable in his new home (for a night) … he even managed to mark his new place by peeing on our heated carpet without being shy about it

We just came back from our weekend trip to Seoul when Sae-chan called us and invited us to dinner with some of the worlds finest pool professionals. During the weekend that we were away they held the 41st All Japan Championships in Amagasaki with lots of international stars flying in to fight for the title.

Mika The Finnish Ice Man was winning the finals 11-2 against Philippine Ronnie The Volcano Alcano and was in a good mood for partying a bit.

Amongst others Charlie Williams, the lovely Yu Ram Cha and Rodney The Rocket Morris came along for some tasty Okonomiyaki dinner and celebration. After the dinner they went back to their hotel while Mika still felt like celebrating some more.

Mika had some flier of a little cozy looking bar/club that he wanted to check out so Itsuki and me drove him there and joined him for some friendly games of pool. Mika was showing his Finnish heritage and gave an impressive demonstration of how much beer a man can drink while still looking completely sober … it did however show a bit in his pool game, missing a couple of positions. Mika clearly wasn’t focusing on the pool, he just wanted to chill out and celebrate. In a quick race to 3 my wife managed to almost win him 3-2 … which would have been an awesome motivation for her to keep working harder on her pool game!

Later that night we started playing team games for drinks, us 3 against 3 of the clubs female professionals (well, thinking about it i think only 2 of them have been pro’s). That was a lot of fun and the games were actually pretty close. Luckily we still managed to win and therefore had plenty of free drinks.

Mika was working his magic and almost managed to get lucky with one of the women in the club. Unfortunately time wasn’t on his side and at around 4.30am in the morning we called it a night and dropped him back at his hotel, giving him a couple of hours sleep to sober up before his flight to the Philipines World Team showdown.

Finally! Itsuki managed to get off a whole weekend from her busy schedule and we decided to use this chance for a quick getaway trip to Seoul. Seoul is only about an hour away by airplane – perfect for a little weekend trip!

We stayed at Fraser Suites. They offer spacious serviced apartments (even for short stayers like us) at excellent rates. The rooms are modern and spacious (with kitchen, dining/living, separate bedroom and 2 bathrooms) and we certainly wouldn’t mind staying there again when we go visit Seoul next time.

Itsuki already knew most of the tourist spots (she’s been to Korea already a couple of times) and instead wanted to take advantage of the fantastic currency exchange rate to do some shopping. So we decided to split up in the morning and go separately.

I used the free time i got to hit some popular tourist attractions that were within walking distance starting with the little Deoksugung Palace. I was lucky on my way out to see some actors in traditional clothing posing there for us touris’ to take some snapshots. I then walked up north for the Gyeongbokgung (Royal Palace) which happened to be a lot bigger and more impressive then Deoksugung.

After spending the morning seperately the wife then joined me again for a Bibimbap lunch and then later we strolled the street markets in Myeongdong and Namdaemun. For dinner we had an excellent spicy chicken-pot-dish dinner in one of the little restaurants that was recommended by Itsuki’s travel guide. After finishing our dinner we took a taxi to the Sheraton Walker Hill Casino and tried our luck with a bit of Blackjack. My wife did quite well .. while i ended up loosing all of my gamble money ;-x

The next day was already our last one. After the exhausting Saturday (gambling till late in the night) we skipped breakfast and instead had a nice long sleep and started our day with a yummy Bulgogi (Korean grilled meat) lunch. After that we did some more shopping till it was time to go back to the airport.

2 days in Seoul made for a bit hectic travel but we both enjoyed the time tremendously! The food was absolute fantastic (i love Kimchi!) and we gave it our best to try as many dishes as we could in the short time we stayed there (even opting for Korean dinner in the airport instead of the usual complimentary airplane meal).