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Nagano Zenkoji 日, Takayama 雨
Grass slippers (草鞋) hanging at the door opening to the grounds of the Zenkoji (善光寺), a huge and busy temple in Nagano that is dedicated to all Buddhist sects cuz it houses several different Buddhas. I visited before catching the 3 pm train from Nagano to Takayama.
Dunno why devotees worship this "totem" pole
The bustlinng crowd inside the temple before I was told no photography was allowed.
Buddha's feet. Having them here is as good as having the Buddha here.
Temple grounds. Huge.
A baby Buddha with his pet raccoon. Hehe ... by the way, the Buddha offerings here are quite strange - from Doraemon to Hello Kitty to Stitch. Initially, I thought its because this is a baby Buddha, that's why, but today I was at the Guanyin temple in Kamakura and there were the same type of offerings to the Buddha. Hehe ... funny Japanese. 
No only the Chinese, the Japs are great at biking! Remember how they invaded Malaya silently on bikes during WWII *shudder* 
The futon I surfed in the apartment of Martin Lamothe, a traveler cum English teacher on the JET programme. I'm tempted to apply ... apparently one does not have to be a native speaker as long as he/she is proficient in English. Martin knows at least 1 Singaporean on JET.
Day 1 of the festival - 14 April - it was rainy the whole day. So the display of the ya-tai and performances on some of them had to be done at the storage room. There was supposed to be a night festival but it was cancelled due to wet weather, which is a shame :( 
The puppets in the ya-tai performances are mechanical ... like robots! Interesting.
So I visited the puppetry museum. The little guy in orange wrote the word. 
When they mentioned lion dances, I didn't quite imagine that the Japanese lion head looked like these ... quite menacing and scary actually.
Some pan fried bun with delicious fillings. I bought one with mushrooms ... yummy! Martin called these "festival food" - tid bits served in a carnivalesque atmosphere.
Rain or not, the show must go on. The God must come out of his shrine.
The Takayama spring festival (there are 2 each year, the other one's in autumn - October 9 & 10) is called the Sanno Matsuri and the deity associated with this festival resides at the Hie Shrine. Hence, during the 2-day festival, devotees would bring him on tour around Takayama. I would later find out that Takayama is the 'holy town" where the human soul begins and is redeemed. A temple built on grounds with the best feng shui in Takayama called the World Shrine performs such "cleansing" rituals.
The flute girls play a melancholic tune to which the lions dance, and the drum is being sounded too. All these in unison to clear the path of devils for the deity to pass through. The process is quite magical.
The lions will stop in front of shrines to pay respect to the resident deities. Other than that, they will also bless businesses at the their shops, much like what we have for Chinese New Year.
Interesting to see men clad in medieval garb. However, they were either middle-aged men or children. Very few are young men
The Takayama City Library where I sought refuge from the cold and rain, and to while away time hoping to communicate with some friends but alas! Gmail, Facebook, Ebuddy did not work. Luckily we also have Plurk!
There's a shop that create paper machier birds ... very pretty and quite affordable (100 yen per piece) but I didn't get any cuz I ... ermmm ... really don't fancy birds.
Grass slippers (草鞋) hanging at the door opening to the grounds of the Zenkoji (善光寺), a huge and busy temple in Nagano that is dedicated to all Buddhist sects cuz it houses several different Buddhas. I visited before catching the 3 pm train from Nagano to Takayama.
Dunno why devotees worship this "totem" pole
The bustlinng crowd inside the temple before I was told no photography was allowed.
Buddha's feet. Having them here is as good as having the Buddha here.
Temple grounds. Huge.
A baby Buddha with his pet raccoon. Hehe ... by the way, the Buddha offerings here are quite strange - from Doraemon to Hello Kitty to Stitch. Initially, I thought its because this is a baby Buddha, that's why, but today I was at the Guanyin temple in Kamakura and there were the same type of offerings to the Buddha. Hehe ... funny Japanese. 
No only the Chinese, the Japs are great at biking! Remember how they invaded Malaya silently on bikes during WWII *shudder* 
The futon I surfed in the apartment of Martin Lamothe, a traveler cum English teacher on the JET programme. I'm tempted to apply ... apparently one does not have to be a native speaker as long as he/she is proficient in English. Martin knows at least 1 Singaporean on JET.
Day 1 of the festival - 14 April - it was rainy the whole day. So the display of the ya-tai and performances on some of them had to be done at the storage room. There was supposed to be a night festival but it was cancelled due to wet weather, which is a shame :( 
The puppets in the ya-tai performances are mechanical ... like robots! Interesting.
So I visited the puppetry museum. The little guy in orange wrote the word. 
When they mentioned lion dances, I didn't quite imagine that the Japanese lion head looked like these ... quite menacing and scary actually.
Some pan fried bun with delicious fillings. I bought one with mushrooms ... yummy! Martin called these "festival food" - tid bits served in a carnivalesque atmosphere.
Rain or not, the show must go on. The God must come out of his shrine.
The Takayama spring festival (there are 2 each year, the other one's in autumn - October 9 & 10) is called the Sanno Matsuri and the deity associated with this festival resides at the Hie Shrine. Hence, during the 2-day festival, devotees would bring him on tour around Takayama. I would later find out that Takayama is the 'holy town" where the human soul begins and is redeemed. A temple built on grounds with the best feng shui in Takayama called the World Shrine performs such "cleansing" rituals.
The flute girls play a melancholic tune to which the lions dance, and the drum is being sounded too. All these in unison to clear the path of devils for the deity to pass through. The process is quite magical.
The lions will stop in front of shrines to pay respect to the resident deities. Other than that, they will also bless businesses at the their shops, much like what we have for Chinese New Year.
Interesting to see men clad in medieval garb. However, they were either middle-aged men or children. Very few are young men
The Takayama City Library where I sought refuge from the cold and rain, and to while away time hoping to communicate with some friends but alas! Gmail, Facebook, Ebuddy did not work. Luckily we also have Plurk!
There's a shop that create paper machier birds ... very pretty and quite affordable (100 yen per piece) but I didn't get any cuz I ... ermmm ... really don't fancy birds.
