Let's go Shrine Seeing!

Last week was a special festival called Karasu Zumo in Japan, or "Crow Wrestling." It's celebrated at Kamigamo Shrine in Kitaoji, Kyoto, which from our location took a little while to get to. In fact, it took us about an hour and a half, so lets get to that part first.

On a Quest

The train system in Japan is relatively easy to navigate, especially if you take a mainline train, such as Keihan. We took that to Tambabushi first, which is a major hub for the Kyoto area as you can change to the local line from here. In our case, we did not know it, but to reach the station we needed we had to take the subway, which resulted in it not being listed on the main board [which took up a solid chunk of the wall]. Usually all you have to do is fine the station you're going to, which lists the fare next to it, and hop on a train heading that direction. One of the elderly women that had been watching us asked where we were headed and pointed us to the main office. There the conversation went something like this:

"Where are you trying to go?"

"Kitaoji."

"Kitaoji?"

"Yes. Kitaoji."

"Kyoto?"

"No. Ki-ta-o-ji."

"Oh! Kita-Oji. Take the subway off platform 2."

That started us in the correct direction, but we were still stumped as to how we were supposed to get tickets. This led to one of us going to ask again where we buy the tickets, then him magically appearing at a section in the wall that opens and pointing out how to change the screen to subway prices. With that we set off onto the dark world of the subways. Or what we thought would be dark. They're actually the same type of train that runs above ground, are just as clean, but just spend more time underground than above it. Getting the correct station though involved some careful reading of our google directions. It told us which stations to travel through, but did not show us how they were written. Luckily go and shi ended up being stations four and five and from there we were able to find the "O" in Kita-Oji.

Once we were off we found ourselves smack in the middle of the Kyoto suburbs, and relied on Google Maps to get us to our destination. We passed one shrine and it told us to continue on, but as it seemed pretty busy we asked if this was Kamigamo or not. With an affirmative answer we headed inside.

The main torii gate at Kamigamo Jinja

About the Shrine and Festival

Kamigamo was originally founded in the 8th century BC in dedication to the thunder kami. After it burned, it was rebuilt during the Heian period as a means to purify the Demon's Gate coming from the imperial palace, the northeast corner of a house. This is why there are two large mounds of sand in front of the main ceremony hall, as sand is used as a means to purify this area. Several ceremonies are held throughout the year to help further this purpose, including the Hollyhock festival and the Karasu Zumo/Chrysanthemum festival.

Karasu Zumo is dedicated to the crows that taught people how to sumo, and two priests act as crows at the beginning of the ceremony, hopping around and cawing. The young boys who sumo in white loin cloths are also symbolic of crows. Watching the festivity is a priestess chosen to act as princess, who played the same role in the Hollyhock festival during the spring. She is offered up the chrysanthemums to purify before the bouts begin. After the sumo bouts, chrysanthemum sake is served to purify the body and soul.

Kamigamo is currently a world UNESCO site, as it carries a great deal of history and is one of the oldest shrines in Japan.

Where Did I Find All This Out

Sake is one of the most sacred parts of a shrine festival, and is especially important as the shrine brews it themselves. While we were in line, one of the residents started to speak to us in English. As a general rule, we've learned that if someone starts speaking to you in English they are usually trying to practice. He most likely was, but it was really beneficial for us as he worked for the company in charge of researching UNESCO sites. He said it was his first time actually getting to see the festival and showed us a paper compiling all the information he had found out about Karasu Zumo and even why Kamigamo was so important. On the back he had drawn a rough map of several shrines around the imperial palace in Kyoto. It was a real coincidence, and if I hadn't been suffering the starts of heat sickness I would have loved to talk to him more about it.

After the festival, we went and said our prayers and wishes to the main deity at Kamigamo, as its actually an entire family that is housed there. It was probably one of the better shrines to do so at, as the main hall had directions in English on how to pray.

First throw in your offering of money.
Bow deeply twice.
Clap twice.
Recite your prayer or wish.
Bow deeply once.

At other shrines, I think you may also have to ring a bell before you bow to wake up the kami housed there.

~Zenko~

Go Go Gaijin Rangers!

My first week in Japan was a very hot and humid one. I had to take several trips to the pharmacy and generally learned my way around the area we are in. Already, I've managed to get lost on the bus once, when the coordinator told us any bus driving by Kansai Gaidai's main gate will go down to Hirakata-shi Station and City Hall.

No.

Only buses going in that direction will end up at Hirakata-shi Station. All others go to Nagao. Which is further into the countryside. On the brighter side of things, we met a little girl and her mother, who we did our best to speak in Japanese with. Eventually we were able to make our way back to Kansai Gaidai and from there to the city hall. Something interesting to note, is that in Japan spiders don't really care what kind of weather it is. They just enjoy relaxing in their webs, despite how big and terrifying they are (as opposed to house spiders, that just want to scurry everywhere).

The bus system is also really easy to navigate, though we've mostly been using it to get to Hirakata-shi station and our house. We did take a trip to Kyoto by train one day, and the trains here are ridiculously fast. Just to get an idea of how fast they are on film, you need to take a video, as still photography does it no justice. It's actually a little terrifying to think about what its like to be passed by a bullet train in that event.

Right.

Trip to the pharmacy first.

It's actually a bit more like the Japanese equivalent of CVS, called Kirindo. Because I am as sweet as andoughnut (a doughnut filled with sweet bean pasted) to mosquitoes and poisonous plants in Japan, I have had to pick up cream for my legs several times, even though I keep asking for anti-histamine. As fluticasone is an over the counter cream here, though, it did end up ultimately helping. Most pharmacies also have at least one staff member that can translate from English, which was very helpful as my Japanese is not quite good enough for me to say "my leg is inflamed and I itch really bad, what is good?"

On our trip to Kyoto we were surprised to see that many of the Japanese students had face towels with them, so the next day our group planned to buy some, and with the new Pokemon movie coming out I was able to get myself a pretty snazzy one. Face towels are actually so common, because when its hot out you need something to get rid of the sweat from your eyes, that the most expensive one was probably seven dollars.

The walk up to the shrine was pretty intense, as we went up a street full of Chawan. It was worth it, though, as nature was wonderful as well as the architecture of the building. The Kannon that was enshrined was pretty big, and makes me wonder just how large Daibutsu is. That is a trip for another day, though.

Food wise I've tried everything that looks out of the ordinary and limit my consumption of anpan and onigiri. I've had takoyaki and okinomiyaki which are both popular in Osaka, but I was not a big fan of okinomiyaki because of the egg in it. There are a lot of desserts that involve custard, which is even crazier, almost as much as having class on Labor Day.

~Zenko~

Across the Wild Blue Yonder!

The trip to Japan was significantly better than previous trips I've had. Well, it was definitely better than domestic flights I've taken (of course, the three Benadryl I took helped). Perhaps the worst plane was American Air, but it was one of their older planes.  Cathay really took me by surprise as they provided us not only the usual pillow and blanket for international flights, but headphones as well. One of the more intersting things was also the fact that we were given a menu for the flight, which included a shrimp cocktail.

What.

Movies are sort of a hit or miss thing on long flights, and I jokingly told a friend that the best movie would be the Avengers, because I wanted to see it in Japanese.

Wish granted. They had Iron Man and Captain America as well, but I opted for the Joss Whedon marathon option after Labyrinth and watched both Avengers and Cabin in the Woods.

I forgot to mention, but they also provided an outside camera view during take off and landing, after which we climbed high enough to see the entire continent of North America.

Arriving in Hong Kong was pretty neat, and very smooth despite the typhoon warnings. To make up for the five hour lay-over, we did a lot of exploration, and were surprised to discover that much of the airport looked like a mall. A very ritzy mall. Ritzier than King of Prussia. It was difficult to find out gate, as it continually changed, but while we were in Hong Kong my mind kicked into Chinese and said "Let's think in Mandarin for a bit." It made studying very difficult but was still alot of fun.

The pilot on our flight to Japan warned us we would be flying higher than scheduled to avoid the two typhoons that were heading in out direction. He got us there as smoothly as possible, and with very little turbulence. Landing in Japan was amazing, as the first thing you notice is how blue the ocean is. It's not Ocean City gray or Caribean clear, but a deep blue. Going farther inland also let us take in the mountains, and you could see that many of the towns were built at the base of mountains, with little urban development on them (but trees can hide a lot).

Thus far, Hirakata-cho is pretty fantastic, and the people are as well. Once my internet is good to go, expect pictures from the trip and some posts on food (my favorite)!

~Zenko~