Fall has arrived!

Asia » Japan » Wakayama » Koyasan
November 27th 2007

Published: December 12th 2007

Koyasan Japanese Vocab aki: fall/autumn kouyou: the autumn leaves/the fall foliage momiji: japanese maple leaves rousokku: candle keitai: cell phone kirei: pretty November 10: Zach and I headed up to Koyasan (Mt. Koya) to see the changing leaves. Japanese people are very adamant that there are 4 distinct seasons in Japan (haha, as if they are the only place with seasons or something...). The fal... Read Full Entry

Photos are below

Photos: 61, Displayed: 21

birdies!

Dedicated to Auntie Mia and Uncle Glenn- you would love the bird watching here! It's pretty common to see these white cranes and herons on the rivers in this region of Japan! The quality of the pic is not so good...but then again, my camera is puny...

Byoudouin

The Phoenix Hall...famous for being Japan's oldest remaining Buddhist temple and for being on the back of the 10 yen coin.

Byoudouin...again

The Mighty Phoenix!!!

Haha...it looks like a scrawny rooster!!!

Yay- more leaves!!!

more momiji

Katsuragi Cho

the town of Katsuragi

Katsuragi Cho

the village of Shigo, located on this mountain

Kushigaki Matsuri

Shigo's speared persimmon festival- a mother helping her son prepare the kaki by skinning in.

budoh kaki

grape persimmons...didn't know such a thing existed, but here they are!

Sora sora!

Yosakoi! Modern Japanese dancing that has hit Japan like a typhoon! It's very lively and full of dramatic looks and high kicks and stuff like that.

Me and Lara

Lara is the JET in a nearby town- she's from London originally and started bringing me to taiko practice a month and a half ago.

Taiko!

My world debut!!! Haha, yes, I messed up several times. The guy in the front to the right is "hot guy" amazing drummer man...me and Lara oogle him during practice and both agree that he's probably the best looking Japanese guy in all of the ken (prefecture).

Awwwwwwwwkward!

Definitely a case of sabetsu (descrimination)...pick out the foreigners, make them wear red hapi coats and interview them in difficult language in front of crowd without warning...the nerve!

me prepping persimmons

Me trying my hand at the persimmon spearing thing...you up the kaki on this old fashioned machine the has a veggie peeler attached to it. So when you rotate the speared persimmon, it skins it. Josh, the JET in the next city over is supervising my shoddy work...can you see the look of distress in my face?

kushigaki

After they spear the persimmons, they put them up to dry along the mountainside roads. There is a saying that goes with the persimmons, which are usually arranged in a row, 2-6-2, called Nakayoshi. It symbolizes friendship and something about growing old and grey together, but always smiling...iono...something like that anyways.

kushigaki

They hang the kushigaki all over the mountain- literally everywhere, making the mountainside orange and beautiful- I think Auntie Lia would like it!

kushigaki

a close of the skinned, drying persimmons.

tis the season!

christmas decorations outside a mall in Osaka near the bus station

time for the night bus!

me and zach- ready to ride the 7 hour night bus to Hiroshima city!

Hiroshima!

We arrived in Hiroshima at about 6am before the sun rose...it was freeeeeeeeeezing!

12th December 2007

Zach
non-member comment

Beautiful Pictures...
Nice Travelblog - hope you get nice and addicted to uploading your photos because they were great to look at. Maybe we can work some snow shots into the scene soon enough! ;o)

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