Iinoyagu Shrine and Ryotanji Pt.2

Picking up where I left off (warning: lotsa pictures - text is pink in honor of the sakura. I hope it's not too hard to read.  If it is, just highlight it.):


We progressed into the Ryotanji grounds from the graveyard (though I guess that's the grounds too, so maybe more like the Ryotanji garden?).

And proceeded to to make our way around, exploring all the paths, admiring the flowers, and taking commemorative pictures.

Bell

Exploring the temple grounds

The main building

Sakura (cherry blossoms)

Silly tourists.

After we had explored as much as possible outside, Nicola, Steven, Joel, and I went in to look around the inside of the temple.

A veteran of many Buddhist temple visits, Josh opted to stay outside with the huggy tree.

There was no one at the reception area, but we could see someone inside, so I tried calling in to get their attention.  An old man came out and asked if there was no one there, and if so, to ring the bell.  Well, just as I went to do that, the person came.  We paid, got a little pamphlet in English (which really doesn't say much at all) and went in to the entryway.  I should have taken a picture of it for those of you who haven't been to a place like that, but you can't wear your shoes inside the temple (because it's old, shoes are dirty and noisy, etc.) so there are shoe boxes and you leave your shoes there and proceed in socks (or whatever you're wearing.  Some places offer slippers, but usually not).


The man who asked us if no one was at reception ended up giving us a tour!  I don't think it's something he normally does.  I did my utmost to translate for the other three, but a bunch of it I didn't understand at all, and some of it, I think I miss-translated.  //orz


He led us past the kitchen (on the left) and into the main area of the temple, where there are several statues of Buddha.  The first, is over 330 years old (if I translated correctly).  He is sitting in a zen position with his hands folded in his lap and thumbs allllmost touching (not quite) and his gaze slightly in front of him (we had to do this at the end of practices when I did kendo at school).

Zen Buddha

He then told us about the floor we were standing on.  Ryotanji has Nightingale floors.  <3 <3 <3  Nightingale floors are engineered to make little creaking noises (which allegedly sound like a nightingale) when someone walks on them.  This is to alert if there are intruders (they are also found at places like Nijo Castle in Kyoto).  They're a tiny bit annoying, but 1000% rad.  


We moved to the middle area, where there were tons of flowers and a small statue of Buddha in a basin of 'sweet water' (not sure if that meant something in particular).  One hand was pointing up 'to heaven' and the other 'to the earth.'  We took turns pouring a small ladle of the water over the statue.  I guess this is how you with Buddha happy birthday?  XD  I don't really get it, but April 8th is Buddha's birthday, and it's the Flower Festival to celebrate it.  (He then made a point to say 'Christ's birthday is December 24th, right?  In the winter.  Buddha's birthday is in the spring with all the flowers, so it's the flower festival!')

Middle room with Birthday Buddha beyond the flowers.

Steven wishing Buddha a happy birthday.

View view - as was pointed out to us - from the center room is the most beautiful view of the front garden.  I didn't get a great picture of it, but it really is much prettier from the building than from the outer garden.

In the third part of the main building, there is yet another Buddha.  I forget the significance of this one.  :I  (So many to remember!)  But what's neat about it, is that if you look at it head-on, he looks serious, but if you look at him from an angle, he looks like he's smiling slightly.  And I think he said one was over 700 years old.

Smiling Buddha

Back out in the hallway, we were shown the carved dragon in the hallway.  This piece was made by the same person who made the floors (I read that in the pamphlet just now).  Even though the name of the temple is read 'RYO-TAN-JI,' the first character in it is dragon ('RYU').  So... here's Ryotanji's dragon.

It wasn't very large - maybe three or four feet in length, and you can see here it's displayed diagonally across the doorway.

The inner courtyard at the temple.

The upper level of this building looks like the silver pavilion in Kyoto.  "Only the second level." (I'll take his word on that.  I visited the Silver Pavilion two years ago and it was undergoing some restoration at the time, so I didn't get the best view... not that it's as crazy impressive as the Gold Pavilion anyway)

So we walked down the hallway and entered the red building.  In it, we had yet another Buddha (I don't remember the purpose of that one either), and a palanquin which I think he said belonged to Ii Naomasa, who was an important member of the Ii family, the patrons of Ryotanji for centuries.  He built Hikone Castle and did some other stuff.  Sengoku-jidai.  Rock on.  There was something else in the room which he talked about, but I didn't take a picture of it and I can't remember what it was.  >.<  (According to my pamphlet, it's probably that the building was erected in 17-2 to enshrine the priest Kaisan... so it was probably a statue or something of him)

Palanquin.  Off to the side is a Daruma, which hasn't been used yet, so I don't know why it was sitting here.

We walked down another hallway to another small building where there was a list of the names of all the heads of the Ii family dating alll the way back.  The three most important heads of the family have statues in the interior of that part of the building.

Ii lords.  The one all the way on the left was Ii Naomasa.  I don't remember the others, just that they were older than him.

Half-way down the stairs to the hallway again, we were told is the prettiest view of the back garden.  You can see the curve of the roof and you can see the garden which was designed by a master.  I really was a lot better than my picture.  It just doesn't do it justice.  D:  The main building was reconstructed in 1670 after being burned down in 1572.

I'm always impressed at the craftsmanship of of people hundreds of years ago.  Where has all that art gone?  Buildings today are either boring or weird from trying too hard!

We breezed through a really cool room on our way to the garden.

This room was really interesting and colorful, but I guess there wasn't much of interest for us, as far as our guide was concerned.

The back zen garden is apparently famous.  If you see a picture of Ryotanji, it will most likely be of the back garden.  It's very carefully laid out with special shapes and significance.  The pond is shaped like a dragon (according to our guide, but like the character for 'heart' according to the pamphlet).  The largest mound in the middle symbolizes Buddha and aligns with the Buddha statue inside.  There are large stones on either side which symbolize the temple guards (the slightly scary statues you see at the gates of any given temple) and they align with the ones in the outer gate (which I didn't include a picture of).  Some of the large stones in the front right (as you look) are shaped like a turtle.  There is a flat stone on the edge of the pond where one can sit and pray or meditate.  The grass is so immaculately maintained, it was hard to tell if it was real, but I'm sure it is.  Our guide told us all this, then told us to relax and enjoy the garden.  He left, and a couple of minutes later, a recording about the garden came on.  I didn't understand a word of it.  >.<

Here you can see the large mound in the middle (Buddha) and the flat stone in front of the water.  You can kind of see the koi in the pond too.  Even with such a pretty garden in front of him, all Joel could talk about was the silly fish!

The rock formation which looks like a turtle. The triangualr stone in the lower right is the head, and the ones on either side are the front flippers.  the whole hill is the shell.

After the recording was over, we made our way to the giftshop area where we found our guide again and asked him for a picture with us.  He said it was embarrassing and acted shy for just a second, then was giving orders.  XD  He got the lady who was standing in the giftshop area to come and take the picture, and he orchestrated it so that she was taking the picture from inside the room and we were sitting so you could see the garden behind us.  Maybe he wasn't so embarrassed after all!  What a ham!  <3

I wish I had asked his name, but there wasn't a good time.  :I  I don't know if he is a priest/monk (whatever the title is) or a volunteer or anything.  But it was incredibly sweet of him to give us a tour!

Back in the garden, we met up with Josh and made our way out.

This area grows lots of oranges!  The sakura and oranges looked nifty together, so I took a picture.  :>

And a close-up of some of the very white sakura on the way out of the temple.

We made our way back to the bus stop and hopped on the bus back to Hamamatsu.  As the man at the tourism center suggested, we got off at the castle to see the cherry blossoms there.

It was only a difference of a few days, but the sakura were in full bloom, as opposed to a few days ago when they were just starting to blossom.

It was getting dark, so we went straight to the castle, stopping for a few pictures along the way, when opportunities presented themselves.

Blurry picture by Nicola.

Steven wanted an Abbey Road-esque picture, but this is as good as I got.

I took a picture like this which is the background on my phone now.  ^_^v

A nice person whose area we were encroaching on for our pictures took one for us (while Steven was in the castle).

It was getting dark quickly and the lanterns were lit for people who came to enjoy the sakura in the evening: 'yozakura'.

Office hanami "flower viewing" party.

On our way back from the castle, I got a call from Aaron about my car trouble the other day (I had e-mailed him).  I told him I had the car sorted out, but was confused about a text I got from my IC earlier in the day which sounded like a break-up text.  We happened to be walking past the office, so he told me to come up. Nicola came up with me and the others went home. 


We talked it over and Aaron explained things - really the IC is very limited in what they're supposed to do/ paid to do.  SO my idea that this was supposed to be a helpful person was totally wrong. T_T#  It's not at all like when I volunteered as a language partner, but also helped with various things.  Then we just chatted with Aaron about things.  The head of the branch (who is Japanese) brought in sweets for us.  O_o  We greeted him formally for the first time.  It was awkward, but the snack was yummy.  ^o^/  After a while, Nicola and I left.  We got some cheap Italian (which always has a uniquely Japanese taste) and headed back to the station, where we split.


I came home, blogged some, and went to bed.


I'm SO FAR BEHIND on my blog!  D:  This one is already really long and it's getting late, so I don't want to continue it from here, but I'm getting a back-log (and it takes a long time to make an entry with all the pictures and everything)!  Two days ago, I went for a meet-and-greet with my schools and the Board of Education.  Yesterday, Nicola and I went to Okazaki and Nagoya.  So much to talk about!  Tomorrow, I'm going to Hamamatsu for the Princess Road Procession/Festival.  It should be cool.  I'm practicing my bento (packed lunch) skillz for school, so I made a bento to take tomorrow.  I've got a picture I'll post when I blog about tomorrow.  Sunday, the son of my host parents is getting married, so I'm invited to that.  Monday, I start in at school!!  So much is going on!!  D:  I'll try to get back on top of things!

My New BFF

Somehow the day has passed and I never got around to properly working on my blog about yesterday.  I'LL DO IT TOMORROW.  I PROMISE.  :>  Right now, I'm feeling too sleepy to write a decent blog, complete with nice pictures, so here's a quick recounting of today:

- I got up
- Did laundry
- Wrote about 13 postcards - Postcrossing and BASARA friends (my dear family - I'm waiting until I can get some nice 'JAPAN'-esque postcards for you)
- Ventured out in the crummy wind and rain to go to the post office and grocery store
- There was a lull after the post office, so I went to the place where I bought my futon.  I got a bag for taking my things to school and a pair of slippers (fuzzy pink ones with Peter Rabbit on them!  For those who don't know and I'm sure don't care, my blankie is also Peter Rabbit)
- Got some groceries, including ingredients for potato salad and curry
- Got taiyaki (fish-shaped sweet cake with red bean in the middle).  THIS WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY.  The guy at the taiyaki place, presented the bag to me with a huge smile on his face and said 'Thank you verymuch!'  The first person to be nice to me in Kosai!  TT^TT  I gave him a big smile and said 'thank you' in English too, and left into the horrid weather.  (He looks like he's about my age or so, so I've been calling him Taiyaki-kun (even though that's overly familiar/using a diminuitive on someone I don't even know) because we're BFFs 4 LYFE)
- Bummed around home.  The weather is apparently typhoon-esque.  There are winds that are either 50kph or mph... not sure.  XD  Rain, all the good stuff.  They first delayed and then stopped the Shinkansen (Japan's bullet train), and that's saying something.  I stayed in an did nothing much.  Now it's suddenly late.  O_o

Tomorrow, I don't get to go through with my plans for going to Nagoya with Nicola.  >.<  It turns out (I learned this morning) that my IC is taking me to my schools and the Board of Education tomorrow, so I get to cancel my fun plans and do work.  It's a bit last-minute, in my opinion.  :I

I'll probably be back here around dinner time and I should be able to get the blog about Ryotanji up with no trouble.  Sometime when I remember, I'll post a picture of my car.  I haven't taken one yet!

Iinoyagu Shrine and Ryotanji Pt. 1

Well, in great contrast to yesterday, today was quite lovely!  We did a lot and I took over 200 pictures, so there are a lot in this entry!


I was running a bit late today when I left for Hamamatsu.  I figured that I would just swing by the post office, get what was being held for me, and go to the station.  Well, I got to the post office, and was told to go to the other one.  Good thing I happened to know where the main post office was because I found it one one of my excursions.  I parked and went an and the lady saw the slip in my hand and told me I was in the wrong line, and that I should go out toe door to my left.  Uh... okay.  I was totally confused, so I went out... there was a window there, but no one at it.  I went outside and tried to call my IC to ask her about it.  It was loud and I couldn't really hear her, but it sounded like maybe I woke her up, so I told her I'd figure it out.  I went back into the main part of the post office and looked super confused and they shooed me back the other way asking if I'd pushed the button.  No one said anything about a button!  >.<#  So I found the small white button labeled in Japanese and Portuguese and pressed it and waited for the attendant.  She took my slip and got my thingy.  Then she wanted my alien registration card.  Sorry, lady.  Don't have it yet.  So I offered my passport/visa, and she took that.  Yay.  As suspected, it was my bank book.


I got into my car and tried to make my way to the station.  I missed my turn and tried to do the sensible thing and go up to the next light and turn left and try to get there that way.  Of course, I wasn't thinking.  Japanese streets are insane.  I ended up way on the other side of town somehow.  So I got back to the station, and couldn't figure out where to park!  I found my way out back and found a parking lot (where it's 500yen to park your car!).  It would have been a little less stressful if I hadn't had someone on my tail the whole time.  D;


The trip to Hamamatsu isn't bad at all.  It's 320yen and only about 20 minutes.  I was surprised how many people were on it at 11am on a Monday.  I met up with Nicola, Joel, and Steven in the lobby area of ACT City, and we waited on Josh before progressing to the top to the observation deck.

View from the elevator.  The observation deck is on the 43rd (?) floor, so it was rather a way up!  The courtyards at ACT City are gorgeous!  To the left, you can see how close we are to the station.

Hamamatsu City.  That dark thing on the horizon is the Pacific Ocean!

Hallway in the observation deck.  You can get married up here!  They have a small chapel at the end of the hall.  O_o

Hamamatsu from the other side of the tower

I super-cropped one of the pictures from the observation deck and was pleased how clearly you can see the castle and the cherry blossoms!

Steven, Josh, Joel, and Nicola on the Observation deck.

(As a side-note, while I'm writing this, I'm having some 'Peanut Cream' on bread.  I bought this under the impression that it was peanut butter.  This is not the case.  It's more like the stuff you get that's intended for fruit dip.  About that consistency and VERY sweet.  I may require a care package of Peter Pan.  Just sayin'.)


We enjoyed the view and chatted for a while, then decided to get on with our day's plans.  We inquired at the tourism place about how to get to Ryotanji and decided to get lunch first.  The guy was full of great advice, btw.  He said we should stop at the castle on the way home and enjoy the cherry blossoms.  And have some sake.  Nice guy.  XD  He asked where we were all from.  I think I've talked to him every time I've been in there.  Well, no.  Once, I talked to the chick.  She was useless.

My lunch.  Zaru soba and tempura.  (Together - ten-zaru soba).  I made the mistake of seeing the special which was this plus rice and assuming that to get this - sans rice - would cost less.  Not the case.  It was another 70yen more than the one with the rice.  >.<#  I traded Steven and Joel for their eggplant in exchange for my shrimp.

After lunch, we scooted over to catch the bus for our one hour ride to the temple.  We had a good time on the bus and were probably rather generally annoying with our happiness.  At one point, I was laughing to hard I snorted.  What a lady.  We got off the bus where the tourism guy said to and were rather generally lost, but Steven's GPS helped get us on the right track (on the third try or so).

View from Jinguji Bridge.  Unfortunately, you can't see the very pretty cherry blossoms off to the left.  Imagine them.  ^_^

We entered the area at Iinoyagu Shrine and saw some tori gates (as expected at a shrine) and sakura.

We stopped to purify ourselves by cleansing ourselves in this rather cold water.

Rinse one hand, then the other, then your mouth.  I never do the mouth part, honestly. <_<

There's a little chart with shows the process.

We made our way into the shrine.  We saw a priest dressed in his SUPER COOL traditional clothes, but he was rushing about and I didn't want to be rude and try to take a picture.  :I  Being polite can be pooey.  We drew our fortunes.  I got small luck, Joel and Steven got big luck, Nicola, got average luck.  I forget what Josh got... did he draw a fortune?  O_o  


To help contribute to the upkeep of the shrine, we made donations in the box.  None of us follow Shinto (that may be obvious), but is can be interesting to observe their practices.  

Nicola ringing the bells - which sound more like rattles - after making a donation.  Ringing the bells gets the gods' attention and they like the sound.

Then we wandered around the grounds a bit.  The architecture is gorgeous, even if you're not really into things like that.  And the flowers were so pretty!

There's a small path which leads from Iinoyagu to Ryotanji.  Itnoyagu is a Shinto shrine, but Ryotanji is a Buddhist temple.  It's very common to find them practically on top of each other.  We walked around a graveyard there.

Since the temple is so old, there are some very old graves here, but also newer ones.

Offerings such as flowers, incense, and sake (you can see the One Cup there behind some leaves) are left for loved ones.

Grave upkeep is in the hands of the families.  This is a place providing buckets, water, and other cleaning tools used for grave cleaning - usually on the anniversary of death or special occasion, but no particular time is needed to make sure a grave looks nice.

Many of the graves here were cool because they had family crests on them.

I'm going to stop here for the night because I'm tired and there's still much left to tell about today - our private tour around Ryotanji, looking at the cherry blossoms at Hamamatsu Castle, and a visit to the Interac Hamamatsu office.  I don't really have any plans for tomorrow, so I'll work on it and have a lovely, picture-ful entry for you!

Ryotanji teaser - this was our first glimpse from the graveyard.

Hamamatsu-jo cherry blossoms teaser - an office flower-viewing party.

My phone does do Japanese!

When I applied for this job, I said one of the things I liked about Japan was that it seemed everywhere you went, you could just walk to where you wanted to go.  Much beyond that, you could take a bus or train.  Yay for public transportation!  Coming from the countryside and a small town like I do, it's such a novel idea to be able to walk like I did last time I was in Japan.  I loved it!  So where do I get located?  Somewhere I have to drive.  Now, when you're driving, nothing is very far away, but the point is that I specifically SAID that I really wanted to be someplace I could walk!  D:

Today it was cold and windy again, so I really didn't want to do anything.  I washed two loads of laundry in my small washer (which will be sufficient once I'm not washing all of the clothes I brought at once) and hung them out to dry.  They managed to not blow away, but I put extra clips on them so they wouldn't blow off the hangers, which I was worried about.

In the late afternoon, the sun by my back door looked great, so I put a blanket down and took a cat nap in it.  I was sad when I woke up and it had moved.  :<  At that point, I decided to venture out and see if the udon shop I noticed yesterday was open.

When I walked by, I didn't even see a sign.  I SWEAR there was a sign yesterday.  Guess they're not open.  So I walked around for an hour trying to find a place for dinner (preferably a cheap place with some sort of noodles because they're the easiest to get a vegetarian version with) and found nothing as it got darker and darker.  I finally gave in and got a milkshake at McDonald's (even though it was cold I really wanted something sweet!).  I asked for strawberry, but I think he gave me 'American Cherry.'  Either that, or the Japanese version of strawberry tastes like butts.  :<

I swung by the conbini and got some junk food that I don't need and some surprisingly not bad zaru soba and inari-zushi set (for y'all not in the know - this means I had cold buckwheat noodles which you dip in a sauce and there were sweet fried tofu pockets filled with sushi rice) for a decent price.  I at the soba, but covered the inari-zushi and put it in the fridge.

Tomorrow I'm going in to Hamamatsu to hang out with some people.  I guess we're going to ACT City, which is a nifty multi-purpose building with concert halls and swanky meeting places, but we're going to the top floor which is an observation deck.  It's the only sky-scraper in Hamamatsu.  Then we might go to the zoo or a cool temple and shrine I looked up online.

The best thing that happened today was after I got back from my walking adventure failure, I discovered that my phone can, in fact, still type in Japanese.  I don't know why the chick at the store told me it couldn't. >.<#  It's REALLY HARD to get used to texting in Japanese, but it's not so bad...  It's better than typing out the romaji!

I'd prepare for school if I knew what the heck I needed to do.  <_<#  But so far, all I know is that my first say is the 9th, and I guess that's the school opening ceremony.  :I

I need to decide which historic figure I want to research.  Although I'm a 'fan' of the Brogun (my nickname for Tokugawa Ieyasu) due to his portrayal in my favorite video game, I'm not such a fan of the actual guy.  Like the old addage, he really did just come in at the end and take the credit and reap the rewards of everyone else's hard work.  Jerk.  That said, I'm sure he had to have some real skills or whatever to get to that place... I think I'd like to research someone else like Brandon did with Akechi Mitsuhide.  Not really for a thesis, but as a pet project.  I love the Sengoku Jidai and find it fascinating.  As much as a video game is a jumping off point for getting to know names to research, it really isn't historically accurate, so it's fun to learn about the real people.  I'm looking for someone who really catches my interest.  I'm considering Date Masamune... or Chosokabe Motochika... or idk... suggestions?  <3  This is really the best time to do this.

On the subject of Date Masamune... XD  Have a picture of me I LOVE that Sean took a couple days before I left for Japan.  *sigh*  I want to cosplay~~ but finding fabric seems to be the real problem.  TT^TT