Bannaji snow

It so rarely snows here, that when it does I get kind of excited about it.

 

So, I took a little trip to Bannaji today to take pictures of things with snow on them.

bean-throwing!

I went with some friends to a local temple for setsubun this year.

The temple people had spent the entire day making ama-zake. It was apparently only available at certain times of the day. Luckily, we made it there in time for the last batch!

Afterwards, it was shabu-shabu time!!

Yum!

織姫山 recording session

I kind of joined a Jazz band, and I’m kind of singing with them at their next gig.

(I’ll give those in the know the needed details concerning this)

Anyhow. They have a song called Orihime, and we went up on top of Orihime mountain to record it this evening. It was an amazing sunset.

七夕

I went to the Tanabata festival at Orihime shrine this evening. I almost didn’t think it was going to happen because of all the rain we had today. I was going to wear my yukata, but after about 40 mintues of futile obi tying, I eventually gave up and wore a one-piece and leggings. I got there late, so I didn’t get to write my wish and hang it on the bamboo, but I still made a wish anyway!

I went to Tanabata last year, too. I guess I just like this festival because it’s cute. I also made the realization during the past year or so that Orihime is a weaving goddess and because this was at one time the textile center of Japan (see Sunday's post), naturally there would be a shrine to a weaving goddess here! I wonder if there are any shrines to Hikoboshi…

I know for a fact that a map of his constellation is on a bridge in 枚方市 (Hirakata City) in Osaka. Orihime’s is on the other side (which I unfortunately cannot locate the photo of). Also, from Keihan Hirakata-shi station, you can take the Orhime and Hikoboshi lines to… ooh… who knows where!? I never had any good reason to ride them, but I did sincerely like the names. The trains are even pink and blue! Cute!
But, I digress. Back to Ashikaga.They shut off all the lights at about 8:00. Unfortunately, once again, it was too cloudy to see the stars. Oh well. Probably wouldn’t be able to see them anyway, with all the lights from town on, too. The luminaries on the steps were really pretty. Glad my cell phone has a night camera setting!

Golden Week

Well, for those of you who don’t know, golden week is when Japan has three big holidays right in a row. This means that everyone and their brother must go and travel somewhere over the extended weekend. It’s the busiest travel time of the year next to New Year’s. From my own personal experience I have learned to not do any serious sightseeing during golden week…as the crowds simply make it… un-enjoyable.

I did, however, manage to have a nice break!

I went to the National Art Center in Roppongi to see the Artist File 2010 exhibition. As usual, the National Art Center managed to bring in another top-notch exhibition. I really enjoyed experiencing the varying perspectives of each artist through their works. In the case of this show, some notable indivduals were Naoyo Fukuda and her embroidered books and business cards, Takashi Ishida’s Moving Picture and Still Picture, and the surreal, paint-laden canvasses of Toru Kuwakubo. Yep. It was a good art show.

Then! Lindsey came to Ashikaga!! Wooohoo!! We had kimchi-yakisoba and french toast and had a FANTASTIC time! I played the music festival at Banna-ji, which went all right. I was actually nervous (which I usually am not) and I thought I could have played better, but my singing was adequate. I really appreciated having the chance to participate in the event, and I am thankful to all of my wonderful friends who made it out to the festival. THANK YOU!  (I’m sorry I didn’t play my best for you though.)

Then! There was a kitty! On my back step!

Kitty….. Since it was about  90 some degrees outside and I felt quite bad for it, so I gave him some water and named him Sergeant Pepper. Yep. Well.. “Sergeant” only  because the positions of “Chairman” and “General” are currently occupied.

So… yeah. Good golden week. Art, music… cats? Oh! And a fantastic balcony-barbeque that happened yesterday (though I ducked out early, since I wasn’t feeling well). Yes. Definitely a good golden week.

大日尊野外ステージ音楽祭

I have a little gig on may 4th at Banna-ji in Ashikaga. My set starts at 11:55 AM. If you have some spare time on your hands this golden week, please drop by! There will be a lot of talented musicians playing at the festival!

- 大泉太鼓 10:00 -10:45
- Red Hibiscus 11:00 - 11:45 
★ Bridget Beaver 11:55 - 12:10
- 黎明座 12:30 - 1:15
- Frank Kaneko and the country western boys 1:30-2:15
- The Vicelords of Valhalla 2:30 - 3:15
- Parque Viente 3:30 - 4:15

Hope to see you there!

★Listen to my music on Purevolume

★Join the event group on Facebook

ココ・ファーム・ワイナリー

I am going to have to quote one of my elementary school English lessons for this post. “Ashikaga is famous for Coco Winery!” I went this past weekend for the yearly harvest festival. For 2000 yen you get a bottle of red or white wine (or grape juice), a lovely goblet, a corkscrew, and a nice little yellow badge to let everyone know you are a part of the festival. The wine was fantastic, as was the food! We lucked out on the weather, too! It was such a lovely day to sit on a sunny hillside and drink wine.

 

Coco Winery produces some of the finest wine made in Japan, a country whose wine is better suited for a sweet tooth than a sophisticated palate. Coco Winery’s vintages are apparently so good, in fact, that it was served at the G8 conference when it was held in Japan.

What makes Coco Winery so special, however is not only its fantastic wine, but the people who work there. The staff of the winery is made up of over a hundred autistic and developmentally disabled men and women. Most of them live at the winery year-round, and they all tend to the grapes that grow on the steep hill (as shown above. Believe me, I was on this hill… it is REALLY steep!!) completely by hand. In addition to the vineyard, Coco Winery is also a school, which retains the philosophy that one’s life can change with hard work and diligence.

Coco Winery is special to me because some of the students that I teach are developmentally disabled. Some of them may live and work at Coco Winery one day. As for my students, I can say this about them: they are quite possibly the brightest, and most cheerful kids that I have had the pleasure of teaching. Their English pronunciation and rhythm is fantastic and I truly look forward to having my weekly class with them. I mean these kids just absolutely sparkle with intelligence, life, and energy, despite whatever disability they may have. Actually, most of the time you’d never know there was anything different about these kids. The other thing that I think is so great is that the other kids at school treat them as equals. You never hear anyone teasing or making fun. I swear. If anything, the other kids are helping them get their lunch or explaining something to them. It’s fantastic. It makes the whole school such a nice place to be in. No wonder these kids are so happy.

In conclusion, Coco Winery is the kind of place I want to support. Especially if the people there are anything like my students, I’m sure that the feeling of having a place to belong and do something really cool like make wine is really awesome.
I’ve already posted a lovely little piece about the vineyard by CNN in a previous post, so please check it out!

typhoon day

Ok, so I took these pictures at around 5:30 PM on the day that typhoon 18 was supposed to be directly over Ashikaga. I get out of school at 4:30 and I rushed to the river to see how high it had risen from all the rain we’d had all week – I was just curious. The typhoon did create a substantial amount of damage in other parts of the country; 116 people are injured and I believe at least one person died. In Ashikaga, the winds were pretty intense, even with no storm. I almost got blown away while I was taking some of these.

Spectacular Views

Went for a hike a few weeks ago. Here are some photos of the view.

Apparently there are wild boars! I really wouldn’t want to run into one of those up in the woods…

Spectacular Views

I'm sorry I haven't had much time to give you a decent update. I've been busy working on a story book for my 4th grade semester review. It's called "Beatrice goes to the Museum" It's about a little girl who goes to the Metropolitan Museum on a rainy day. I had to forego the Things I Love Thursday post this week. Work comes first. However, to keep you entertained, here are some photos of the view of Ashikaga I took from a friend's apartment a couple of months ago & forgot to post. Enjoy. I'll be back from this hiatus next week. I promise.

織姫神社七夕祭り

The Tanabata festival at Orihime shrine! I think this is my favorite, just because the story and the imagery of the stars is so darn... cute.

For those of you who don't know the story, here is my version:
Legend has it that Orihime (princess Ori), the daughter of the Sky King (or just the universe, it depends on who's telling the story) wove beautiful clothing by the banks of the milky way (or, the heavenly river). She was really sad that because she was so busy making awesome clothes all day, she had no time to meet anyone and fall in love. The Sky King was concerned for his daughter's happiness, so he arranged for Orihime to meet with Hikoboshi who lived and worked in the fields on the other side of the milky way. Naturally, they both fell madly in love with one another and got married ASAP. However, once they were married, they spent ALL their time with each other and Orihime totally neglected her awesome clothes making and Hikoboshi let his cows wander all about the heaven. The Sky King was once again concerned about this, because he didn't want his daughter's talents to go to waste and neither did he want to chase after loose cows all over the universe. So, he separated Orihime and Hikoboshi across the milky way and forbade them to meet one another. Orihime was totally devastated and she cried and cried. The Sky King was really just looking after his daughter's best interests, so he cut a deal with her. He told her if she was good and finished her clothes making, she could go hang out with Hikoboshi on the 7th day of the 7th month. Once 7/7 rolled around, Orihime had finished all of her work and it was time for her to go meet with Hikoboshi, but there was no bridge to cross the milky way with. So she got upset and cried and cried, until a flock of birds came. The birds made a bridge with their wings so that Orihime could cross the river to see her man.

The End.
Tonight was my first Tanabata ever, which was really exciting. I first learned about it in my Japanese textbook when I was a freshman in college. We had a concert today at school. All the kids sang and played the recorder. They all did a really good job!! The sixth grade sang a really pretty song called "Can I please have wings?" It almost made me cry.
Then, we had awesome Tanabata jelly for lunch.. which was like.. Jelly with star-shaped peaches. A win for kyushoku!

So this evening I hit up the Orihime shrine to check out the festivities... as it is obvious that a shrine named Orihime would have some kind of festival for Tanabata. Sure enough, they did. They lined the steps with luminaries made from recycled PET bottles and there were some drummers, a guitarist (who was kind of bimyo) and an awesome sinobue (bamboo flute) player.
I ran into quite a few of my students at the shrine, too. They were so surprised to see me out of school, and were unusually shy (meanwhile, I can't get them to shut up at school). Their parents were super nice though!! One of my third graders was up near the main shrine building and he showed me these little green frogs that were hopping around the rain gutters and making a racket.. he grabbed my hand and pulled me over and said: "BRIDGET SENSEI! LOOK, FROG!!" Oh my goodness it was so adorable.

It was too cloudy to see the stars, so we all actually totally missed out on when the two stars, Vega (Orihime) and Altair (Hikoboshi) actually meet. So much for stargazing.
I had a good time, met some really awesome people, got my O-mamori, and got a little dose of culture on a Tuesday night. As always, more photos are on the facebook.

鑁阿寺

I actually went to Bannaji Temple (or dainichi-sama... which is apparently what people call it) for the first time on my way home from school one day. I also visited the same day that I went to Ashikaga Gakko - since it was Showa day there was a whole lot more going on. They had this crazy puppet fortune teller that was cool. It gave me my love fortune... which turned out to be not spectacular, but not terrible, either. I tried to take a video of it w/ my cell phone, but I hadn't quite figured out how to take better-quality videos, so please excuse the poor quality:




There were a ton of people hanging around the temple, so I found it a little difficult to get some good shots sans...human beings.
There is a small pagoda on the grounds, whose form is very similar to the Indian stupa, not a big ol' pagoda like your stereotypical one at Toji in Kyoto.
There is a koi pond & garden which was nice, but there were these junior high school boys who were in my photos. Oh well, I guess they just added to the ambiance. Bordering the garden is an interesting belltower that has these sides that curve upwards toward a interlocking tie beam roof structure that surrounds the actual bell.
Next to the main hall there's another big hall that has red beams and white clay walls. Behind it are a storehouse, a tiny shinto shrine, and bigger shrine (to what, I don't know) which was painted a bright red (looks like its fading now).
So.. according to the brochure Bannaji temple was founded by Ashikaga Yoshikane about 400 years ago, which would be the Kamakura Period, AKA the Ashikaga period, which was when the Ashikaga bakufu ran the show. There's a nice little family tree at the end of the brochure that shows you the Ashikaga clan.







































I love that that dude just decided to take a nap on that bench.
More Photos on Facebook!

足利学校

Ashikaga Gakko is apparently the oldest school in Japan! Right here in my city! Holla! I went on Showa day, when, unfortunately, everyone and their brother felt the need to get out and about.

According to the pamphlet, present records can't really support any theories prior to the year 1410, so there is dispute as to when the school was actually founded. So here are 4 theoretical dates:
1. The Ashikaga school is a remnant of the Kokugaku school that originated in the Nara period
2. The Ashikaga school was founded in the year 832 by Lord Ono-no (tee hee what a silly name) Takamura.
3.The school was founded in 1249 by Lord Ashikaga Yoshikane (who also founded nearby Bannaji temple)
4. The school was opened in 1439 by Lord Uesugi Norizane, Deputy Shogun of Eastern Japan.

The school taught Confucianism of the Han and Tang dynasties and also the I-Ching. Next to the school, there is a Confucian Shrine (that actually looks more like a small temple, complete with a butsudan-style roof and shibi on the top roofline) with a bronze seated Confucius inside.
You can gaze out of the Hojo and have a nice think while looking at the pond & garden in the front or the smaller pool in the back. There is also a library on the grounds, that comes complete with 12,000 separate volumes, including the Song Dynasty edition of the 5 Classics of Confucianism. Talk about classics. The library isn't called 'Toshokan' though. Its name literally means "Treasury of Chinese Books."

I don't want to re-type the entire brochure onto my blog, but it really is a neat place to visit and learn a little about Chinese influence on Japanese culture. I would like to go back when there aren't so many people there!















More photos on the Facebook!