Japanese horned beetle of the scarab family (Kabuto-mushi)

This summer, one of my friends suddenly visited my room and it was the first time for me in my life.
When I was an elementary student, I had used to play with him very often in summer. But I had never contacted with him since after junior high school. I'm sorry.

Can you guess his name?





It's Japanese horned beetle, and Japanese name is Kabuto-mushi!

I'd like to observe the proprieties, I should invite him to my room. At that time I took the next picture.



After taking pictures, he left my room for night sky.

So, I'd like to write about Japanese horned beetles on this blog!

It's so difficult to see them in Japan especial in city area, but on the other hands the horned beetles are the most popular insects among Japanese boys. This is the reason, sometimes we can see them in some pet shops.

But, in local area, Japanese boys catch them at mountain, forest or Japanese Shinto shrine easily.

How about horned beetle in your country?
Please let me know the kinds and figures!

Meoto-Iwa is a holy rock at Futami-Ura in Japan.

This time, I'd like to introduce the Futami-Ura where we visited at after the Uramura oyster festival.

The area where Futami-Ura is in is the ground of the Futami-Okitama shrine and there is a very famous couple of the rock called Meoto-Iwa in Japanese in watching sunrise. (The word "Meoto" means a married couple in Japanese.) Especially the sun rises in the middle of the rocks in the summer solstice.

I'm interested in the sunrise in the summer solstice. But it's very difficult to take the picture, so this time I just update ordinarily scene.

This board describes the history of the shrine.




Usually, shrines have such boards as the picture. And the deity of the shrine is Sarutahiko-No-Mikoto. So we could find some statues of frogs said to be his familiar in the shrine. (I forgot taking any pictures of the statues.)





We could see the Meoto-Iwa after going through a first torii. The sea was very calm at the Uramura oyster festival, but the sea had some billows with strong wind when we visited the shrine after the festival. So it was very different even if both areas locate at same area.




Do you know the manners of worship for Shinto shrines? There was a signboard of the manners and it was also written in English by the shrine pavilion! I've never seen such signboard before.





There were the Meoto-Iwa and a small torii after the shrine pavilion. Can you guess the size of torii by the offertory box? It's really small.
By the way, the Meoto-Iwa is one of the toriis for Okitama-Shinseki that is an incarnation of Sarutahiko-No-Mikoto and also the place where deities come from Tokoyo-No-Kuni. Because of he was drowned by catching his hand in Hirafu-shellfish when he was fishing at Azaka in Ise area on Japanese mythology.



This picture was taken at the closest point to the Meoto-Iwa.
We can see the Shime-Nawa is the stylized straw rope on Shinto and it change at the special event each May 5th, September 5th, and end of December. And the events are bit famous at the area, so we can sometimes watch them on any TV news.

When I walked around the area, I thought that Japanese have such folk customs believing some unique things in great nature like deification and they worship them. It's really easy to guess by Native American's culture. So I'm interested in the fact that there're some such places where we can find some great nature with Japanese mythology in Japan.

Uramura Oyster Festival

We visited in Uramura town in Mie prefecture to enjoy the Uramura Oyster Festival last weekend.

Mie prefecture is one of the scenic prefectures and it has some deeply indented coastlines. So the coastlines make very calm gulf, and the atmosphere is very similar as Matsushima. Maybe the suitable environment for oyster is very similar.







The both pictures were taken at the gulf. Looks very calm, right? In the future, I will write a blog of the Futami-Ura and the atmosphere is so different.


Anyway, I took some pictures at the place stuffing a lot of oysters free! And the event was the biggest in the festival!









We could stuff a lot of oysters on the table into a green bag for 30 seconds and the fee is only 500 yen! The staffs helped us well during stuffing and it was possible to heap oysters on the full bags, so we got three bucketful of oysters by four people. After returning to our house, we ate too many boiled oysters and grilled oysters!

Anyway, we could enjoy grilled, boiled, steamed with wine and deep-fried oysters with oyster rice at the festival. And the prices weren't expensive, usually only from 200 to 300 yen. But, oyster miso soup was free! After tried every dish, we had eaten moderately.

At the festival, I was interested and excited by a bottles of wine that were Rubaiyat!
I knew the wine when I searched the information about nice wines in Japan for my website. So the taste should be good! And I bought white and red! I couldn't guess any reasons to be able to buy the wine in Yamanashi prefecture at the festival. Anyway I was very lucky by the fact that making website gave the knowledge about nice wines in Japan to me!

And I took the next picture when we stopped in a souvenir shop after the festival.




That's all!

At the festival, I didn't take enough pictures. Because I had to curry a big bag of oysters, so I didn't have my free hands and it made me forget to take. And I hope that you guess how we enjoyed the festival.

Matsushima is one of the most famous scenic places in Japan

There are the three most famous scenic places in Japan, which are Amano-Hashidate, Matsushima and Itukushima.

When I traveled in Tohoku area in November 2006, I also visit Matsushima! Matsushima is so famous in the fact that Basho Matsuo who was the most famous in Haiku couldn't compose good Haiku that is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables.

Finally he gave up to compose his Haiku by the really beautiful great view.
So, his Haiku in Matsushima is...
Matsushima Ya,
Ah Matsushima Ya,
Matsushima Ya.

He just called Matsushima three times in his Haiku. Can you guess how beautiful it is?

So this time, I want to update some of my friend's pictures of the great view in Matsushima. Because of my battery of my camera had gone at that time.





Matsushima locates in Sendai gulf and there are a lot of small islands in the gulf, so the small islands make the special views.
And the there are a lot of pine trees on the island, the pine trees also help the special atmosphere to be very Japanese view. Because, pine tree is called Matsu among Japanese, and the tree is one of the important trees for Japanese, for example we make Kado-Matsu with pine trees to celebrate Shogatsu.




We took this picture on the island, and we can find a lot of the islands in the gulf.




And there is a red Japanese bridge after walking few ten minute, we are require to pay 200 yen to go across the bridge.




During waking across the bridge, we found the interesting thing. Can you guess what there are under the sea?

The answer is 'oyster'!

Because of Sendai gulf is so famous place in oysters in Japan.




After the bridge we walk around the island and took this picture. It was so fine day and we really enjoy sightseeing!

By the way, there are a lot of small shrines on the islands and the small shrines were tomb long time ago. We forgot picturing them! When we visited Yamadera in Yamagata prefecture, we also found such shrines. So I guess that the facts depended on the culture in Tohoku area. I'm interested in the common fact between Matsushima and Yamadera.




This picture was taken at the park on the island. We can watch the surface of the rook if we visit there at low tide.
It's easy to understand the rock scooped out since few thousand years ago! We also found some geologic stratums on the rock.




This is our lunch at that day!
We ate oyster rice, grilled oysters and oyster soup!
It was so nice!




When we walked around the red bridge, we found the place selling a lot of oyster and visited there. At that time, there are few small boats with a lot of oysters! It was very interesting and we talked with the fisherman about the mountain of oyster. But, we couldn't understand what he was saying by his very strong Tohoku accent.


After Matsushima, we visited very huge Buddhist temple that houses of the load of the domain of Sendai grave. The atmosphere was so nice, so I really want to post on my blog. But I couldn't take any picture with my camera whose battery had gone.

I study that it's very important to bring my battery charger of my camera with me when I travel anywhere.

The Hasso is one of Japanese quasi-national parks in Inuyama-City

Last weekend, we went hiking in Hasso where is in Inuyama city that is our neighboring town. The area 'Hasso' is selected for one of Japanese quasi-national parks with the beautiful nature, so the area is bit famous for camping and really convenience to visit there from our town by a car.

So this time, I'd like to introduce Hasso and update some pictures took in the area.




This is the area map of Hasso in the campsite, and I took it to refer the map on my digital camera when we lost our way.

And in front of the map, we planed our hiking course that we could enjoy our hiking whole day, and the course had some beautiful areas, which were Hasso Falls, an observation platform, marshy areas, the Virgin Falls called 'Otomeno-Taki' in Japanese, the five stairs falls.




This is the Hasso Falls. It looked very simple, but it made a lot of fresh airs.

At first, we planed eating our lunch in front of the falls, but there weren't enough space. So we changed our plan to eat at the observation platform.










These pictures were taken at observation platform.
We can find the little world on a first picture. The little world is a theme park that has a lot of international building in the park, and we can't enjoy only buildings but also we can try international foods and costumes. We usually visit there by our school trips when we are elementary school students or junior high school students. At that time, I couldn't find any interesting things and just felt tired, but now it's very interesting theme park for me. Our senses would be changed by time easily.

This second picture is mt.Ontake.
We can find the shape of Mt. Ontake if it's really fine day in winter. Sometimes, our teachers said "We can see Mt. Ontake today" to us in our school. I think Japanese love some big mountains, for example Mt. Fuji, and Japanese sometimes love talking about them, I think that it's Japanese sense. Recently I like the sense little bit. I also changed by time in this point.

The third picture is Iruka Lake. Someday, I will write about the lake with sad and brave story. Because, the lake is so famous in our area.




Can you guess what it is?
I took this close-up photography at swampland, and the surfaces were frozen.
In my feeling, this swampland was the best in last our hiking.

And the atmosphere was like this!




Water came from left side and flow to right side on this picture and the width is 150 m and depth would be 1 cm.

And there are a lot of logs to go across the swampland, so people can walk on them. Some of them are bit old and decay, but they are still strong.




This picture are taken at the deepest point in the swampland, I guess that the depth would be three cm. We might understand that the swampland is so shallow.




On the other hands, we can find a lot of small stones over the water in the shallow place.

This swampland wasn't made with any rivers, it was made with spring came from the middle of the mountains, and the width of spring might be 200 m. The water is having came from long time ago, so the surface was cleaned and covered with small stones.

I didn't know such swampland is in Inuyama city.




After the swampland, we found the Virgin Falls and I took this picture.

Before the falls, we had to cross three log bridges, I don't want to go again by my fear of heights. Especially I bring my digital camera and cell phone with me, so I couldn't fall into the rivers.




Sometimes, we can find some falls and flows like this picture that I took during heading on five stairs falls.

At first, we thought that the falls were the five stairs falls by the fact we can count five falls, but it wasn't.




This is the five stairs falls! It's difficult to count the numbers on this picture.
In summer, some children would play with the falls.

This time, I enjoy the hiking in Hasso area in Inuyama city. There're some good views and falls that made us be interested in.
The area were very well-kept natures, and it's very easy to walk around and safe.

A lot of people usually enjoy camping in summer, but we can also enjoy hiking at a slow speed in winter.

If you're interested in Inuyama, please check more!
Inuyama City in Aichi

Japanese Scarlet Maple Leaves at Jakko-In

I guess that it might be ten days ago. We had excursion for viewing scarlet maple leaves at the famous temple “Jakko-In” in Inuyama-City in North Aichi-prefecture. So, this time, I’d like to upload some of the pictures of scarlet maple leaves and the temple.

Inuyama-City is bit famous for tourist attractions, because the city has Japan Monkey Park, Meiji village and Little World, which are theme parks established by Meitetsu-Group. Every park is huge and interesting.
And there is Inuyama Castle that has a castle tower, which is national treasure on the rocky hill close by Kiso River.

The temple “Jakko-In” at Inuyama-city is so famous for scarlet maple leaves that there are a lot of posters in Meitetsu stations.

This time, I walked on the route that we passed through under Inuyama castle and go to Jakko-In to enjoy scarlet maple leaves, and then we visit the castle and came back with my friends.

From here, I would like to upload the pictures!



This is the tunnel under Inuyama-Castle. And Kiso River flows right of the picture. We would guess the area is the upper of Kiso River by the atmosphere of the rock.




I took the picture has a lot of scarlet maple leaves on the small brook when I walked to Jakko-In. There’re a lot of leaves.




The road to go the temple was colored by a lot of scarlet maple leaves. The timing when I visit was end of the season of scarlet maple leaves. So we walk on the road covered by a lot of fallen leaves.




The road is like this picture. The trees are scarlet maple leaves at right side.







So, these are the pictures that I took when I found a small path at right side. The steps also covered by scarlet maple leaves. I guess that it’s easy to slip at raining day.




I took the scarlet maple trees on the steps. So, there are just scarlet maple leaves!




There was a bronze statue after the steps. Of cause the background also scarlet maple leaves!




After the bronze statue, I guessed that it was the real beginning of the approach to Jakko-In. There were no autumn leaves on the steps, so I took the picture.




But, the scarlet maple leaves continued from next steps. We really loved the scarlet maple leaves. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?




These steps were under the roof made in scarlet maple leaves! The color was beautiful red at the foot, but the colors were changed to yellow! Because of the scarlet maple leaves are very sensitive in the environment, so there was a difference of temperature between the foot and top of the small mountain that Jakko-In locates on.




There is Jakko-In is a temple on the top of the mountain. And it has a special bell. How special? If we pray for our dream while striking the bell, the dream will come true. So, I struck it strongly! I wish the dream would come true.




And I took the picture of Inuyama-castle while going back. The left of the sun is Inuyama-castle, and the river is Kiso River.


Japanese really love scarlet maple leaves, and the leaves is one of the representatives of Japanese autumn. The atmosphere is difference from Canadian one. Canadian Maple leaves would be great and breathtaking, Japanese Maple leaves would be sensitive and breathtaking.

Because, Japanese beauties have been cared from old times and it was calculated.