Kamigamo Shrine and Misako
On Saturday, we decided to go see Kamigamo Shrine, which forms a pair with the Shimogamo Shrine. It was built about 100 years after the Shimogamo Shrine, in about the 7th century.
We got a tour (in Japanese) where we were not allowed to take pictures, but basically, the guy told us a story about the shrine and showed us the inner buildings. He said that a god threw a red arrow down from the sky and that a princess picked it up. She magically became pregnant and gave birth to a son. He returned to Heaven and asked her to celebrate when he came back and that was the beginning of the Aoi Festival, which takes place in May.
This shrine is about 20 minutes by bus (the 4) and is on the outskirts of the city. So I got to see and lay in grass and we had a picnic. It made my lifetime. I didn't even realize what the lovely smell was at first. I love grass so much and I miss it. Right now there's a plant growing out from between a crack in our concrete yard and it makes me so happy. Anyways, onto the pictures:
You have to walk through a couple of torii to get into the shrine. This is after walking through the first torii:
One of the buildings in between the first and second torii:
Unfortunately, there are a lot of chairs in this photo cause they were having a concert later that day, but here is a building after you go through the second torii:
A little river that runs through the shrine:
The cleansing area:
Little prayer plaques:
The gate to get into the inner shrine:
A little bridge that crosses over the river:
Closeups of some of the plaques:
A torii:
The huge lawn where we had our lovely picnic:
The river:
After seeing the shrine and relaxing on the lawn for a while, we decided to head back home because my batteries died even though I had just charged them (turns out my charger broke even though it's safe to use with 100-240V and 50/60Hz), so I needed to find a new battery charger and batteries. I bought six batteries, a charger and an electronic dictionary that allows you to look things up in a Japanese to English dictionary, an English to Japanese dictionary and also by writing kanji on a little kanji screen. The only thing is, is that it will not give you the readings in all the modes, so sometimes you have to look up a word and then look it up again. But it was a really good deal. We also bought athletic pants because our friend Chi invited us to go to her company's sports day.
Around 5:20 or so, we hopped on a bus to go downtown and meet my friend Misako. We had dinner at the Sunshine Cafe, an organic, vegetarian-friendly place with a variety of foods in Sanjo and then we went down to the river and drank the Ume-shu (plum wine) that Misako had brought along. It was very good. After that, we went to a bookstore near the river called Book-Off. I bought a book by Arina Tanemura (the author of Full Moon o Sagashite, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and others) called Aeon, and volumes 6-10 of Vampire Princess Miyu. I was really happy about the Miyu books cause they're a little old, and they were never translated into English cause Iron Cat has the license and they went under after publishing only up to volume 5. Now I just gotta get to reading. Those 6 manga were only 1750 yen (about $17). At home, the Miyu books cost about $12-15 a piece, and the other would have cost about $9-10. So, the cheapness of manga here thrills me. And it inspires Teddy to learn how to read Japanese, which makes me happy.
We headed home around 10 cause we had to get up at like 6:45 the next morning.
I'll write about the sports fest in my next post!
We got a tour (in Japanese) where we were not allowed to take pictures, but basically, the guy told us a story about the shrine and showed us the inner buildings. He said that a god threw a red arrow down from the sky and that a princess picked it up. She magically became pregnant and gave birth to a son. He returned to Heaven and asked her to celebrate when he came back and that was the beginning of the Aoi Festival, which takes place in May.
This shrine is about 20 minutes by bus (the 4) and is on the outskirts of the city. So I got to see and lay in grass and we had a picnic. It made my lifetime. I didn't even realize what the lovely smell was at first. I love grass so much and I miss it. Right now there's a plant growing out from between a crack in our concrete yard and it makes me so happy. Anyways, onto the pictures:
You have to walk through a couple of torii to get into the shrine. This is after walking through the first torii:
One of the buildings in between the first and second torii:
Unfortunately, there are a lot of chairs in this photo cause they were having a concert later that day, but here is a building after you go through the second torii:
A little river that runs through the shrine:
The cleansing area:
Little prayer plaques:
The gate to get into the inner shrine:
A little bridge that crosses over the river:
Closeups of some of the plaques:
A torii:
The huge lawn where we had our lovely picnic:
The river:
After seeing the shrine and relaxing on the lawn for a while, we decided to head back home because my batteries died even though I had just charged them (turns out my charger broke even though it's safe to use with 100-240V and 50/60Hz), so I needed to find a new battery charger and batteries. I bought six batteries, a charger and an electronic dictionary that allows you to look things up in a Japanese to English dictionary, an English to Japanese dictionary and also by writing kanji on a little kanji screen. The only thing is, is that it will not give you the readings in all the modes, so sometimes you have to look up a word and then look it up again. But it was a really good deal. We also bought athletic pants because our friend Chi invited us to go to her company's sports day.
Around 5:20 or so, we hopped on a bus to go downtown and meet my friend Misako. We had dinner at the Sunshine Cafe, an organic, vegetarian-friendly place with a variety of foods in Sanjo and then we went down to the river and drank the Ume-shu (plum wine) that Misako had brought along. It was very good. After that, we went to a bookstore near the river called Book-Off. I bought a book by Arina Tanemura (the author of Full Moon o Sagashite, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and others) called Aeon, and volumes 6-10 of Vampire Princess Miyu. I was really happy about the Miyu books cause they're a little old, and they were never translated into English cause Iron Cat has the license and they went under after publishing only up to volume 5. Now I just gotta get to reading. Those 6 manga were only 1750 yen (about $17). At home, the Miyu books cost about $12-15 a piece, and the other would have cost about $9-10. So, the cheapness of manga here thrills me. And it inspires Teddy to learn how to read Japanese, which makes me happy.
We headed home around 10 cause we had to get up at like 6:45 the next morning.
I'll write about the sports fest in my next post!