Thursday, October 13, 2005

Mountain Tops

I just can't resist! Here is another cute photo of Jonah the Lumberjack!


This past weekend was a 3 day weekend. After the matsuri, on Monday, I went with 4 other teachers to a nearby mountain - Mt. Masui. We hiked to a Buddhist temple and had a picnic, It was incredibly peaceful and beautiful. There was nobody there, so we had the place to ourselves. I may try to go to another nearby mountain this weekend. Mt. Shosha has a temple as well and is one of the places that The Last Samurai was filmed. Everyone in Himeji talks about how Tom Cruise came to Himeji and filmed some of the movie on Mt. Shosha. If you've seen the movie, I believe it's where the lead Japanese film star lived in the movie, the one that takes his journal.
From left to right: Julian, Terry, Peter and Mac

I didn't take any pictures of the temple - but I thought this twisted tree and lantern were pretty cool!

Awesome picnic

Below is the tomb of Lady Jissoin. She was the concubine of the 33rd lord of Himeji castle. It said on the sign that she suffered from "feminine disorders" and she wished to help people who suffered from "feminine disorders" even after her death. "Her tomb is visited by many people and prayers offered here for miraculous relief from feminine diseases will be answered." I wonder if the Japanese on the sign is more specific about "feminine disorders". I doubt there are many tombs or places in Japan that are specific to eliminating "feminine diseases".

1 comment:

Gwynne Sullivan said...

Maybe her feminine disorder was that she had a penis.
HAHAHAHAHA!