Greetings and salutations, to those of you who are still faithful enough to follow this blog.
As soon as I got into the habit of updating this almost weekly, I left you all high and dry without an update for almost a month.
I could once again blame it on life but...

You know? I will blame it on life. Life tends to get in the way of things we want to do, doesn't?

I'm not going to give any excuses or anything, but I will say that hopefully this month I can get at least three updates in. The first of which, being this one, is yet another photo blog! [cue unenthusiastic fanfare here]

But this isn't just any photo blog, this is a photo blog that can only happen once in seven years. This is a photo blog about Zenkouji Temple's Gokaicho festival.

Zenkouji's main branch is in Nagano City in Nagano Prefecture. I had the privilege of living within the temple "city" for three months while I was an exchange student in high school. My third host family through the Rotary Youth Exchange Program was a monk's family who owns a shukubo (visitor/pilgrim lodge), named Ryoushouin, directly west of the Niomon Gate. They're the fifth picture down on the left side of that page, and if you look at the map, they are the bottom-most one in the blue square.

The quick story behind Zenkouji is a man named Yoshimitsu Honda (本田善光) had a statue of a Buddhist triad jump onto his back from out of a river. The statue in question is supposedly the first ever Buddhist image to come to Japan, and was tossed into the river following a feud between two clans. The kanji for Yoshimitsu's first name can also be read as "Zenkou", which is why the temple is now named "Zenkouji".
As Zenkouji was built before Buddhism in Japan had split into different factions and sects, so the temple is presided over by both the Tendai and Jodo Shu sects of Buddhism. It is one of the last remaining pilgrimage sites in Japan, and historically is one of the few temples to have allowed female worshippers and pilgrims. There is also a story about how a non-believing old lady followed an ox, who had gotten some of her laundry stuck on his horns, to the temple and turned into a believer. If you walk around the temple gardens, you can see a statue of the ox.
The main temple in Nagano also has a kaidanmeguri (戒壇巡り) : a pitch black tunnel under the building where everyone is equal in the darkness, searching for the "key to enlightenment/paradise". Those who find this "key" are said to have their sins washed away and are guaranteed a place in nirvana.

Now, the weird thing about Zenkouji is the actual Buddhist statue that Yoshimitsu found is a "hidden Buddha". Literally, it must be kept out of sight from everyone, including the head priest and priestess. Supposedly it is locked up in a vault in the bowels of the Nara Museum. Every six or seven years they bring out a replica for worshippers and pilgrims to gaze upon for about two months. Then that replica is hidden away from view until the next festival, the Gokaicho.


Zenkouji has since spread around Japan, and there are well over 100 different branches. Many of the branches were started by warlords in the Sengoku Period, and the ones in Gifu were started by Oda Nobunaga, while the ones in Aichi were started by Tokugawa Ieyasu. We have a branch here in Gifu City by the large Inaba Shrine near the castle, and there is one in the nearby city of Seki.



The last Gokaicho was held in April and May of 2003, the year after I had been an exchange student. This year's Gokaicho had me really excited, as I was finally in the country for it, but due to time/money/flu panic, I was unable to head to Nagano's Zenkouji to witness the festivities. However, for the first time in Zenkouji's history, six temples across the nation held Gokaicho at the very same time, two of which were Gifu Zenkouji and Seki Zenkouji!

Gifu's Zenkouji is pretty small, only one building, so I decided that Seki's Zenkouji was were I wanted to be for this thing. Sadly, I didn't get any time to go until the last day of the festival, May 31st.

But man, did I pick a good day to go!

The weather was beautiful, and I got one of the last parking spots that was less than a 10 minute walk away. Considering the temple in Seki is much, much smaller than that of Nagano, there weren't nearly as many people as I had expected.
Seki's Zenkouji is relatively old, supposedly older than the current 300-year-old main hall in Nagano. There are five buildings: one that houses a Buddha sitting on what looks like a pineapple but is really a bunch of tiny Buddha images, two that house smaller Bodhisattvas and Buddhas, one that house a quite large statue of the Buddhist Triad, and the main hall. The main hall and the Buddhist Triad building are connected by a wooden corridor that houses a Binzuru statue (a physician that followed the Buddha and supposedly heals ailments if you touch where you hurt), and a series of statues that I guess are either the Gods of Fortune, or the Gods of Hell. I'm not sure which and no one would explain it to me. There is also a bell tower up on the mountain behind the two smaller buildings, where one may ring the bell for a donation of 100yen. The bell makes a lovely ring.

My husband and I were lucky to get there about and hour before the closing ceremony started, so we checked out their replica of the Buddhist Triad (which was tiny and hard to see), listened to a priest tell the story behind Gokaicho, and did Seki's kaidanmeguri. Seki Zenkouji is one of the few, if not the only, temples that has a kaidanmeguri tunnel in the shape of a manji, 卍. It has some really abrupt turns in the dark, and while most of the time you end up fumbling through the dark on your own, only to run your nose into the wall, they tied up a rope for people to follow, and had a small blue LED light over the "key" to make it easier. I thought it was a cop out, but then again I've done the kaidanmeguri there twice before, and at least five times in Nagano. I can tell you the differences between the two, but I won't go into that much detail. I already type too much as it is.

After getting out of the kaidanmeguri and grabbing a few pictures of the crowd and buildings, we headed up the hiking path past the bell, just to see what was up top. Not much, but it was a good hike. When we got down to the bottom again, it was time for the ending ceremony, a mochinage. I believed I talked about mochinage with the Tagata Shrine festival, but for those who missed it, a mochinage is where they pelt a crowd with lucky mochi rice cakes. Not wanting to get bulldozed by several scores of grannies and grandpas who'd rip the dentures out of their best friend over a lucky mochi cake, my husband and I took refuge on the staircase up to the bell tower. A family who was helping set up for the mochinage noticed me taking photos of the crowd, posed for a picture, and even sent their kindergarten-aged son over with a mochi cake just for us before the official mochinage started. Then the fun ensued.

I'll let the photos below speak for themselves.

The post date for my last entry tells me it's been almost a month since my last post.
And I had promised a post the week after my last one!


All I can say is:
I'm sorry for the wait.

What exactly kept me from posting a new entry?
Well, to put it bluntly, life happened.
The ups and downs that come with life happened to be mostly downs last month, and kept me far away from the computer.


However I am back, and bringing you two new posts today! This post will be a quick recap of several events that have happened in the last month, and the next will be a list of various online resources useful when learning Japanese. Not specifically sites to learn Japanese from, but sites that are good to use as supplements to your learning.


Now, on to the main event! Photos and stories galore!
Those with slow internet connections may want to go get a cup of coffee or go file their taxes while all the photos load up.



First things first, I sadly do not have any awesome pictures of my awesome fiber optic internet line getting installed. The landlord refused permission to have NTT install the line through the wall, so we had to have it brought in through our window. Sadly, it wasn't as awesome of an install as I thought it would be. However, it is relatively faster than my last connection, which is awesome. No lag time in World of Warcraft in the mornings!



In the place of fiber optic installation pictures, I will add to the thousands of photos online of a very peculiar spring festival.

Every March the city of Komaki in Aichi Prefecture, the neighboring prefecture of Gifu who's capital is Nagoya, has a set of shrines that put on a harvest/fertility festival, known as a hounensai (豊年際). These shrines are Oogata Shrine (大縣神社) and Tagata Shrine (田縣神社). Tagata Shrine always has their festival on the 15th, while Oogata Shrine has theirs on the previous Sunday. Oogata Shrine's festival is relatively small and unknown, even though it occurs on a weekend. An image search on Google only brings up 149 hits, very few of which are actually of the shrine. Tagata Shrine, however, brings up 2650 hits. Nearly every single hit is an image of the festival.

I will warn you now. If you are at your place of work, or have young children/immature adults around you, please do not Google search this festival, nor scroll down past here.


This year the two festivals ran together, which I did not know, so I missed out on Oogata Shrine's festival. I dragged my husband to Tagata Shrine early in the morning, hoping to miss the crowd. However, I was dead wrong in my timing.


At only 10am, nearly 3 hours before the actual main events of the festival would start, the temple was already packed.
From the first glance, this looked like any other shrine you'd see in Japan. Typical styled shrine buildings, large stone torii out front, gardens everywhere.
The always-a-must food booths for festivals were also everywhere you looked. We made sure to pick up some yummy Hida Beef ka-bobs, and chocolate-filled taiyaki.



It wasn't until you got further into the shrine grounds, past the taiko drummers, that you notice this is not your typical shrine.
Every where you look are rocks that are phallic shaped. Either naturally shaped or carved by hand, every corner hides several small phalluses. Next thing you know, there are vendor tables selling phallic-shaped candies, ashtrays, incense burners and keychains.




They had phallic candy in several flavors
As well as many different phallic-shaped objects for gifts to take home with you.




As my husband described it, it seemed we had walked into the world's largest sausage fest. But what was the point of all of these phalluses?
Turns out, the deity of Tagata Shrine is a female harvest and fertility deity, and all of the phallic stones, carvings, candy, etc. were gifts and offerings to the deity in hopes for a bountiful harvest and healthy children. Oogata Shrine, the one we didn't get two, houses a male harvest and fertility deity and gets gifts and offerings of female genitalia.



Around 2pm, a parade from the nearby Kumanosha Shrine (熊野社) starts that brings three mikoshi floats to the main shrine of Tagata Shrine. One is an offering float, one is the male deity from Oogata Shrine, and one...I'm not sure what it is, to be honest with you. The offering float contains a newly-carved phallus, made from a single cypress tree. The thing is huge, and sticks out from both sides. There were two or three teams of men, all aged 42 (an unlucky age for men despite being the answer to the ultimate question), who take turns carrying the offering.







The other two floats are a red float, that looks much like a shrine itself, and a elaborate float. The red float, pictured on the left here, carries a statue of Takeinadene-no-mikoto, the deity of Oogata Shrine. Legend has it he was a warrior who married a girl from the village where Komaki now stands. The girl is the deity enshrined in Tagata Shrine, Tamahime-no-mikoto. Sadly, I did not get a picture of the figure inside of this, as much as I wanted to.
The little torii gate in front of the float did make me giggle, though. The Japanese can be very detailed with these things.






The last float, the really elaborate one held this guy:
No clue who he is. Neither the English pamphlet that I bought for 100 yen nor the informational website I found mentions it. My guess is either it's a second image of Takeinadene-no-mikoto, or the deity of Kumanosha Shrine. If anyone can find any information, I'd love to know!







For all three of these floats, as well as several groups of shinto priests and a group of 36-year-old women holding freshly-carved wooden phalluses (36 is unlucky for women), it takes about an hour to an hour and a half to make the 1.5 kilometer walk between shrines.
Once the mikoshi have made it to Tagata Shrine, the offering mikoshi is brought inside the main shrine, where it will rest for a year until the next hounensai brings a new offering.
Around 4pm there is a mochinage, or rice cake-throwing, where a bunch of the priests and special guests lob lucky rice cakes at the crowd. This is QUITE dangerous, and several times they warned that the elderly, pregnant women, people with kids, and people with eyeglasses should refrain from joining in as the shrine is not responsible for any injuries received while trying to catch a rice cake.

Overall, it was a unique experience, and both my husband and I were glad we went. The festival has gained a lot of popularity with foreign tourists, and a good 30% of the visitors to the festival were not of Japanese decent. There was also a random Japanese man dressed up in full cowboy gear, except for chaps. He also had a guitar case with him, which prompted my husband and I to stay far away from him, in case the guitar case held a machine gun, like the movie Desperato.

If anyone ever comes visit the Nagoya area in March, I completely suggest this festival. I think it's about 700 yen from Nagoya's Meitetsu train station to Tagata Shrine, which makes it a very affordable day trip.
Next year, my husband and I will definitely make plans to go to Oogata Shrine's festival, so I hope this blog sticks around so I have somewhere to post pictures!


Now, there is still one more thing to talk about.
However, I believe this post is long enough, so I will stop here and start a new one. So I guess you guys are lucky and get three posts today!