No Time to Say Hello, Goodbye

An announcement, before I continue with the Lake Biwa posting:

I found a video with the dance on Ogura Jinja's attractively designed website. You'll have to scan ahead a four minutes into the video (or six minutes in if you want to skip the mostly stationary section) to see the kagura. The video isn't hi-def or anything, but you can see enough of the dances and hear the gagaku pretty well.

I continued down the train line towards Ishiyama, first stopping at Miidera. From the station, you simply walk up the river--by "up," I mean "uphill" towards Hiei-zan--and follow the signs to the temple. I've learned to make great use of the local sightseeing maps which you can usually find just outside bus stops and train stations, although having a portable map of the area is highly useful as well...Before finding Miidera, I first ran into this charming little shrine along the way: Mio Jinja.

The only flier I got from this shrine was all in Japanese, so just had a long, painstaking conversation with Mari-chan about what the pamphlet was saying. Some parts were rather difficult for her to explain, but I think I got most of it. Mio Jinja's primary deity is Izanagi no Mikoto, the male kami of creation in Shinto mythology. From what I understand, he wears three belts, red, white and black, which each become their own separate kami...

(That was the difficult part.) The kami derived from the red sash is associated with the Hour of the Rabbit, and Mari-chan described the rabbit as a the kami-sama's kashin, I believe. The translation was literally "vassal" or "attendant," but perhaps a better word for it would be "familiar," since it's an animal.

The rest of my ideas on the reason for all the rabbit imagery is all conjecture. I'll have to ask my Japanese religion teacher if she knows any more about it. Considering that after Izanagi's journey to the underworld in search of Izanami, he had borne three extremely important kami including the kami of the moon, I don't find it a completely far stretch, but it may simply be coincidence after all.

In order to cleanse himself of the impurity of the underworld, Izanagi performed the first purification ritual, washing himself in the ocean. When he washed his face, Amaterasu was born from his left eye, Tsukiyomi from his right, and Susanoo came from his notrils. Personally, I find Susanoo's nasal origins quite hilarious, seeing as he is the kami of the sea and storms. Again, I don't know if these three kami have anything to do with the three kami from the belts, rabbits are closely associated with the moon. In Japanese mythology, there is a rabbit in the moon, tsuki no usagi, making rice cakes, instead of the man in the moon we see in Western cultures. (On an utterly tangential note, Sailor Moon's name in Japanese, Tsukino Usagi, is a pun on this.)

Miidera, originally called Onjouji, was established in the year 672. In 859, Enchin, a grand-disciple of Seicho (the founder of the Tendai sect of Buddhism) gave it its new name, meaning "three wells temple," after the springs used for the first bathings of Emperor Tenchi, Emperor Temmu, and Empress Jito. While at first, Enryakuji on Hiei-zan, and Miidera, at the foot of the mountain, were both very important religious centers for the capital, over the course of history they became rivals when the Tendai sect split in two.

A statue of Kannon...although this pose is similar to the Nyoirin Kannon's,

usually she/he is depicted six arms rather than just two, holding various objects such as

a Dharma wheel, a wish-granting jewel, and a lotus.

Because of time constraints, I only had time to explore the westernmost side of the Miidera grounds.

 

Detail of the woodwork on one of the buildings next to the Kannon-do

Incense burning from inside the Kannon-do

The outside of the Kannon-do

Wonderful of Lake Biwa and the Kannon-do complex just uphill from the hall

I made one last stop at Nagara Jinja, before continuing to Ishiyamadera.

Ok, I've got nothin' here. Not really sure what the story behind this place is, and it's hard to find any information about it online in English. Plus, Google-translate fails.

Awesome dragon fountain though.

Given the stone and the plaque, I'm pretty sure this yanagi is special somehow...

Just a restaurant with an interesting painting on the outside...

a least, I thought it was a restaurant. Might be a shop.

An interesting little garden on the way to Ishiyamadera from the station

An elusive ghostly koi flitting about in the pond

Ishiyamadera in 15 Minutes

When I arrived at Ishiyamadera, it was five minutes before closing time at 4:30. (Some temples and shrines are looser about their closing times, and wrap things up at sunset--which can be much later than 4:30 depending on the season.) No such luck, though. I debated whether or not to go for it or turn back, for about two minutes. Then I went back up to the ladies at the admissions booth, pointed at my nokyo-cho, and asked where I could get it stamped. I didn't understand everything they said, but they pointed uphill--way uphill--gave me a note and waved me past without an entrance fee. I took it that the note, which said 4:45, indicated the time by which I had to get my muscular buttocks off the temple grounds. So I sprinted up about three flights of stairs, accordingly, asked a couple along way if I was going in the direction of the Honden, and the lady lead me up the last flight of stairs and gestured me to hurry inside. The temple staff was clearly packing up for the evening, but one of the monks kindly did the stamp-signature for me, last minute and everything.

Then I took literally a 15-minute tour of Ishiyamadera.

Imagine me scampering all over Ishiyamadera's very moutainous grounds snapping dozens of photos.
And now, imagine this with the Benny Hill theme in the background.

Fin

Just kidding.

Needless to say, I was completely out of breath after the Reader's Digest Visit to Ishiyamadera.

I ran into the couple again as I was catching my breath in a small setting area near the temple entrance. I didn't recognize the lady at first until I understood she was asking if I got my book signed in time. She also offered to drive me to the train station, when I told her where I was going, but I told her that it was fine and that I was just going to walk back. It wasn't a particularly long walk, but I appreciated the gesture anyway. She told me to take care/be careful, and we parted ways.

I walked along the Setagawa River for most of the way, watching all the kayakers...

They are "kayakers," yes?

Spontaneous self-portrait...turned out more interesting than I expected, with the lights.

"I think Shakespeare summed it up sobeautifully in his play...where he said,'If music be the food of love, play on...'He didn't say on what,but I think it's a marvelous idea."

See, there's some Anna Russell for you, just to change things up a bit.

Saturday morning, a small group of us international student hopped the train past Hiei-zan to Ootsu, which is just west of Kyoto, over the mountains. Ootsu is the capital of Shiga Prefecture, on the southwest side of the largest lake in Japan, Biwa-ko, and also the hometown of our main sensei in Japanese. (I say she's our main sensei because she teaches half of the Japanese classes for my level, and I think she teaches at least one class for each level of Japanese...)

On the train, we ogled the cuteness of the Japanese shougakusei while they ogled the foreignness of us. Sometimes they can be real brats. One group of little boys we passed once a few months ago, were gabbing about how ugly we were. These kids were pretty adorable though. They watched Andrea playing games on his handheld console with fascination. When we laughed, they smiled back a little, sometimes uncertainly at first, then cracked grins and waved at us.

Kitagawa-sensei and and a few members of her family picked us up at the train station and drove us first to the hall where the taiko drummers practice. Then it was only a short stroll over to Ogura Jinja, the local shrine, where the drummers would be participating in some vague religious event that day.

Scenery near Ogura Jinja

One of the gentlemen who runs the taiko group, I believe, speaking with Karina just at the main torii.

Three sacred trees

A small crowd waiting for the festivities to begin...

Ogura's Imamiya Jinja peeking through the trees, and its Shinguu Jinja hiding on the right

Kitagawa-sensei's niece and nephew shaking a omikuji box

Beauty and art, embedded in the earth

Finally, the formalities began. A lot of men, some who were Shinto priests, some dressed in what appeared to be historical costume, and a few who may have just been laymen, all walked up onto the platform. There was a lot of keirei...perhaps some saikeirei as well, and the head priest purified them, and then the crowd, by waving the oonusa left and right. Afterwards, he performed some rituals, made offerings, and some of the laymen took turns making offerings as well.

Then the taiko drummers played--first the men, then the women. (The women were particularly well-coordinated and in synch as a group. Kitagawa-sensei said it was probably because women play taiko together as a group more often, whereas men often play individaully.) Like all traditional drum music...I take that back--like all great percussion--the music struck to the core, to the bone, stirring up something deep and old. Something about beating taut dead animal skins...well, they're probably synthetic now.

"Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hail souls out of men's bodies?" Indeed.

Next, a beautiful, graceful fan dance. The man over on the right is probably playing a kagurabue, a kind of transverse flute used in traditional Shinto music.

But soon we had to head to Kitagawa-sensei's family's house to drop off

some of our things before going to learn some taiko!

Someone's charming flowers by the road back to the house

Look! I found Kagura! And possibly, Lord Okoto as well...

They drove us to an elementary school, where we found a group of young children performing taiko for the students and some of their parents, I believe. Once they finished, the head taiko drummers provided us with drumsticks, and a simple rhythm to learn. And we proceeded to have at. After a while of learning and practicing the rhythm, we still turned out to be terrible when it came to playing as

a group though.

Assuming one is right-handed, stand to the right of the taiko. The left hand makes the "ton" sound, and the right, "tan." "Ton" and "tan" represent quarter notes, and "ta" represents an eight note. In our case, two eight notes, "ta ta", was done with the right hand, although I'm sure it gets much more complicated than that.

The rhythm (in common time) they gave us went thusly:

ton, tan, ton, ta ta x4
ton, ta ta, ton, ta ta
ton, tan, ton, ta ta
ton, ta ta, ton, ta
ton, tan, ton, ta ta

Rinse and repeat as needed, and instead of the last line, finish with:
ton, tan, ton, [rest]

After the very satisfying experience of systematically striking objects to produce aesthetically pleasing resonances, we returned to Kitagawa-sensei's family's house for a savory meal. With ton katsu, and some other traditional Japanese foods whose names I can't recall, and most importantly fruit. Real fruit.
Most fruit here in Japan is pretty expensive, so I don't really get to eat it very often. I miss raspberries so much. Whenever they went on sale at Harris Teeter, I'd buy two packets and eat them like candy.

Kitagawa-sensei showing us the shamisen, a three-stringed lute.

Andrea let me post the video he recorded during lunch here (thanks!!):

The Carnage

They also allowed me to take some pictures of their beautiful home...

Everyone else left after lunch for tutor camp or for their circles' activities, but since I had the rest of the day free and was in new and unfamiliar territory, I thought I might as well get in some sight-seeing. Kitagawa-sensei and her brother helped me work out which trains to take to get to the temples I was looking at visiting, and how to get back to Kyoto. Kitagawa-sensei was kind enough to drive me to the train station, and before we left, her sister gave me a fan which she said their mother wanted me to have, since it was rather sweltering that day. It was all very, very sweet of them, and I thanked them for everything--in Japanese, haha!

That was a laugh of triumph, by the way.