Mt.Fuji Toll Road Has A Unique Function To Play Music

As I introduced yesterday, there is a big toll road to go up to Mt.Fuji 5th Station for climbing. The road is called "Fuji Subaru Line" and even after the climbing season ends people can still go through the road by cars or buses as long as snow doesn't block the road. 

Interestingly, the road has a section with a special road surface that can make a musical sound. The unevenness on the surface of the road together with frictions generated by moving car tires makes music. 

There is an information board on the road and it says when cars run at a speed limit of 50km/h (30 MPH), tires will make musical sound and people can enjoy it. The music is a part of a Japanese children's song about Mt.Fuji. I recorded it and posted here, so please click the Youtube link above to listen.

Actually, I found out the music is not so clear when I drove there at exact 50km/h (30 MPH ), but at a little bit faster speed, the sound became clearer. However if people want to listen to the music, they can't go over the speed limit too much. Therefore it is a nice and interesting way to prevent speeding. 

Where Would Be Better To Have A Good View Of Mt Fuji?

The image of Mt.Fuji for most people is probably the beautiful symmetrical shape with a flat top. Then where should we go to have a better view of Mt. Fuji? Should we go close to the mountain as much as we can?

Actually most Japanese would recommend a place little far away to have a great view of the mountain although a couple of big roads are laid out to the 5th station of Mt.Fuji which is the major starting point of the climbing routes. People can go there by cars and buses easily. The climbing routes of Mt.Fuji are closed between October and June, but even after the climbing season ends people can still drive to some of the stations connecting to the 5th station. The stations are directly below the top of Mt.Fuji but Mt.Fuji is too huge to see properly from there and trees block the view. 

The photo on upper left hand side is taken from the 4th station on one of the the big roads. With the photo it is difficult to tell if the mountain has a symmetrical shape and a flat top as the typical image of Mt.Fuji. 

From the 4th station, when you look out, you would be able to see the surroundings which is shown in the upper right hand side photo. In fact Mt.Fuji is surrounded by a flat land and isolated from other mountain ranges. It is one of the unique characteristics of Mt.Fuji. Though it is a high mountain with a height of 12,388 ft (3776 m) and radius of about 18 miles (30 km), the area is almost flat and includes 5 lakes. Therefore, if we go to the mountains or some higher spots on the other side of the flat area, we can have a great view of Mt.Fuji in its entire shape.

The lower photo is taken from the top of Mt.Tenjou which is located on the lakeside of Kawaguchiko-Lake, one of the 5 lakes around Fuji. Mt.Fuji is showing its whole beautiful symmetrical shape with a flat top as in famous pictures and drawings of Mt.Fuji.

In addition, there is an amusement park in the flat surroundings of Mt.Fuji and on the top of the roller coaster is also known as a great place to see Mt.Fuji. However, it would be only for those who love roller coasters and can relax at the top.

For reference, I added a map below of Mt.Fuji area and the spot I took the photo showing the entire image of Mt.Fuji.

A Mini Virtual Trip of Momiji-Gari (Autumn Foliage Hunting) in West Tokyo

Leaves of both Japanese maple trees and ginkgo trees have turned their color beautifully in Tokyo area. It would be the best time now to enjoy the gorgeous red and yellow color combination. 
Therefore I'd like to take you to a mini virtual trip of "Momiji-Gari (Autumn Foliage Hunting)" which is a traditional Japanese custom I introduced in a previous post last October.
Hope you will enjoy the photo and also the movie below!

A Movie Monster "GODZILLA" Appeared in Shinjuku, Tokyo

These photos are taken at Kabuki-cho, Shinjuku, Tokyo. Kabuki-cho is a very busy area filled by lots of restaurants, pubs, and amusement spots, and actually the area has been a notorious block for malicious pubs and shops which charge people exorbitant price.

However the administration is trying to clean up the area and many redevelopment projects has been on-going.  Especially this year, 2015, a new business complex with a movie theater and a hotel was built in Kabuki-cho and an actual-size GODZILLA's head on top of it. 
Apparently the GODZILLA's head can make GODZILLA sound, moreover the mouth can breath out smoke.  It is a kind of show provided by the hotel in the building complex. 

GODZILLA was originally a Japanese movie monster, but now he is well-known internationally since two GODZILLA movies were made in U.S.A. ( GODZILLA in 1998, and GODZILLA in 2014). Actually the history of GODZILLA movies is pretty long. It's been more than 60 years and over 30 GODZILLA movies were created including the two American movies. 

For the past 60 years, computer graphics technology has been improved a lot and the image of recent GODZILLA movies looks very real. Yet I would personally recommend the very first GODZILLA in 1954 as the best GODZILLA movie. It was made about 10 years after the end of World War Ⅱ, so the fear of weapons of mass destruction and radioactivity feels real in the movie though the image was not high quality.

In the first movie GODZILLA was a tragic monster mutated by radioactive pollution. Since the first movie he was loved by people and the movie company kept making GODZILLA movies. As a consequence, he became a monster whom Japanese feel very friendly and are familiar with. Now, he became a new landmark in Shinjuku. Perhaps, this can be considered as a happy ending for GODZILLA.

Photos of A "Fuji-Monument(Fuji-Zuka)" in Hachioji City, Tokyo

I'd like to continue the topic of "Fuji-Monuments (Fuji-Zuka)" which I introduced yesterday, on November 26th. 

Tokyo is not very far from Mt.Fuji and Mt.Fuji view is visible from many locations in Tokyo when the weather is decent and the air is clear. However, still many of "Fuji-Monuments (Fuji-Zuka)" had been established in Tokyo.

For example in Hachioji-City, as in the photo above and also in the right hand side photo which I showed yesterday, one big rock having a natural Mt.Fuji-like shape is one of the "Fuji-Monuments (Fuji-Duka)", and it is named Hachioji-Fuji. It is located in a local park, Fuji-no-mori Park. Inside of the park there is a small Sengen Shrine which is one type of Japanese Shinto shrines worshiping Mt. Fuji as the main goddess, and you can see a Fuji-shape carving on the wooden offertory box in the photo above. Hachioji-Fuji is located backside of the shrine building.

The history of this "Hachioji-Fuj"is not clear because no priest is stationing in the shrine building. Probably not many local people would visit here nowadays and Hachioji-Fuji is just standing there quietly. 

Since the transportation system has been developed a lot in Japan, today there is no difficulty visiting the original Mt.Fuji. People can enjoy climbing the real Mt.Fuji. However, wouldn't it be another fun to find this kind of hidden local Fuji when you explore local towns?

Are There Any Other Fuji Mountains?

It may sound like a silly question. Of course, Mt. Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan is only one. However, actually there are many mountains having the word "Fuji" in their names all over Japan. Those are called "Local Fuji Mountains (Kyoudo-Fuji)" and usually people call them with the place name as in "Ezo-Fuji(in Hokkaido)", or "Sanuki-Fuji(in Shikoku)", although it is not the official names of the mountain.

Since Mt. Fuji has been a special sacred mountain for Japanese people since ancient times, people are always eager to see Mt.Fuji even though they are not living close enough  to see actual Mt.Fuji. Therefore they started to call a local mountain "Local-Fuji" because either it looks similar to Mt.Fuji or it has some connections to Mt.Fuji. 

Even outside of Japan, there is a "Local-Fuji" in the U.S. as well. Apparently those who emigrated from Japan to Washington state in U.S.A. named Mt. Rainier as "Tacoma-Fuji" because they missed Mt.Fuji so much.

Even when there was no big mountains in a local town, people in old days still established some miniature Mt.Fuji, as in the right hand side photo, to compare it to the Mt.Fuji. They are called "Fuji-Monuments (Fuji-Zuka)". With the "Fuji-Monuments", usually a Sengen Shrine was built together. Sengen Shrine is one type of Japanese Shinto Shrines to worship Mt.Fuji and the headquarter of Sengen Shrine is at the foot of Mt.Fuji. 

At Some of the "Fuji-Monuments", visitors could climb up the miniature Fuji to get a blessing of Mt.Fuji. It is a tradition to receive a Mt.Fuji-blessing easily, especially in old times, since there were no way for most people to climb up the real Fuji.

The photos of real Mt.Fuji and "Fuji-Monuments" on this blog were taken at Hachioji City in the west side of Tokyo. The shape of the "Fuji-Monuments" looks like a mirror image of the real Fuji-view from the area.  

In addtion there are more photos of Mt.Fuji taken from West Tokyo area on my "Today's Mt.Fuji from West Tokyo" page! Please click here to see the page!

Traditional Lucky Charm Market on a Day-of-Bird in November

These photos are showing a traditional lucky charm market called "Trinoichi (Market of Bird-Days)". This Market is a traditional seasonal event held a couple of times in November every year. The reason it is called "Trinoichi Market" is the fact the Market is actually held on a "Day of Bird". In old times, people used twelve animal symbols of the Chinese zodiac to count time such as year, month, day and hour. 

With such system, a month can have the same animal days twice or three times, so that "Trinoichi Market" can also be twice or three times depending on the year. In such cases, each market is called separately, such as "Ichi-no-Tori (The First Bird)", "Ni-no-Tori (The Second Bird)", and "San-no-Tori (The Third Bird)". This year in 2015, we have "Trinoichi Market" three times and the second market "Ni-no-Tori (The Second Bird)" was just finished on the 17th and the photos were taken on that day.

What kind of lucky charms are sold at a "Trinoichi Market"? On the market days, many of stalls are set up on the grounds of some shrines and sell traditional "lucky rakes" as in the two upper photos. The meaning of this lucky charm is "Collecting Luck for The Next Year", and usually the rakes are made of bamboo and heavily decorated as in the lower left photos. There is a variety of sizes for "lucky rakes" and the price depends on the size. A big one can be about 5-6 feet (150-160cm) and the smallest size can be about 5 inches (10-15cm). The bigger rakes seem to have too much decoration and don't look like rakes anymore, but when you see the small one shown on the photos on the lower right hand side, you can see it is a really rake. 

This year, there's going to be the "San-no-Tori (The Third Bird)" market on the 29th of November which is Sunday. If you'd like to collect luck for the next year,  you can still have a chance to go to a "Trinoichi Market" and get a "lucky rake"!

The photos are taken at Otori Shrine in Hachioji City, Tokyo.

Traditional Japanese Custom for Children "Shichi-Go-San" on November 15th

"Shichi-Go-San (Seven-Five-Three)" is a traditional Japanese custom to celebrate children's growth at age three, five, and seven. That's why this custom is called "Shichi-Go-San (Seven-Five-Three)". Many parents who have children at age three, five, and seven would dress their children in formal Kimonos and take them to a temple or a shrine to pray for the children's healthy growth on the day of "Shichi-Go-San" celebration. 

The meaning of the celebration is different at each age.  At age three, mainly girls are celebrated because traditionally it was the age to start growing their heir. Since old times long beautiful pitch black hair is a symbol of women's beauty in Japan, it was an important change for girls. On the contrary at age five it is a celebration for boys only because in old days it was the age when boys started to wear formal men's style Kimono trousers called Hakama. At age seven, it is a celebration time for girls only because girls start to wear thick Obi-belt of Kimono same as grownups in old days.

Traditionally the November 15th is the "Shichi-Go-San Day", but since the children wear formal Kimonos for this custom, parents usually choose a good weather weekend to celebrate it. Thus if you visit a shrine or temple on a fine weekend day in this month, you may be able to enjoy watching the gorgeous combination of "Shichi-Go-San" children wearing Kimonos and colorful autumn foliage as shown in this photo! 

The combined photos were all taken at Takahata-Fudo Temple in Hino City, Tokyo.

Photo of "Aka Fuji (The Red Mt.Fuji)" As Same Title As In Hokusai's Famous Ukiyoe-Print

 "Aka Fuji (The Red Mt.Fuji)" is a well-known phenomenon in Japan that occurs when Mt.Fuji gets tinted reddish color from reflection of a sunrise. Actually this photo wasn't taken at dawn but at dusk, but the reddish Fuji reminded me of one of the most famous Ukiyoe-Prints, which is called "Aka Fuji" by Hokusai Katsushika.  
A simple reproduction is shown below.

"Ukiyoe-Print" is a traditional wood-block print and during the Samurai era it was used as common means to spread visual information to others. It looks like a color-print because it was printed for each color separately, for example this "Red Fuji" Ukiyoe-Print needed 5 repetitions to print the five colors of blue, light blue, red, green and sepia. Since Japan didn't have any printing machines back then, there were many craftsmen working for this Ukiyoe-Print factories and divided their work to produce a lot of prints.

With Ukiyoe-Prints, even common people could enjoy seeing famous places, beautiful sceneries, popular actors and pretty girls. Apparently the price for a print was reasonably low, so it can be said that these were like one-page magazines with photos at that time. Therefore, Ukiyoe-Print were used to protect Japanese porcelains when fragile goods were packaged for exports, the same way we use old magazines or old tabloid papers.

However Europeans who imported porcelains were surprised to find the wrapping papers and loved them as beautiful art from Japan. They started to collect them and the Ukiyoe-Prints influenced many European artists. Europeans' appreciation for the Ukiyoe-Print in turn influenced Japanese appreciation for the prints, and Japanese started to value them as Japanese Art. Not only the prints are now expensive, Ukiyoe-Prints from Samurai era became very highly priced antiques.

However, maybe somewhere in the world there are still abandoned hundreds-year-old porcelains made in Japan. If you lucky enough to come across them, you'd better check the wrapping papers!

Photos of Mt.Takao Momiji Festival in November

"Mt.Takao Momiji Festival" has begun! Every year this seasonal event for colored leaves is held at Mt.Takao in Tokyo in November. However the forecast says after the 15th would be the best timing for viewing the foliage this year. The photos are from last year around the end of November.

"Momiji" means Japanese Maple trees which will turn to beautiful red in fall, but the word also can mean just "Colored Leaves". It is confusing since Chinese characters used for writing, are ideographic where each character can have multiple meanings. The Chinese characters for Momiji, "紅葉", is a combination of Chinese character "Red" and "Leaves" which can be also pronounced as "Kouyou" meaning literally "Colored Leaves (in fall)". In fact Momiji tree is one of the major trees for the "Colored-Leaves Hunting" which I wrote previously a week ago. Thus the word "Momiji" is used for "colored leaves", as well.

You may think that colored leaves are not only in red color. Yes, actually the Japanese word "Kouyou", which I introduced in the previous paragraph, can be written using different Chinese characters "黄葉". This combination characters have the meaning of "Yellow" and "Leaves". In short, Japanese word for colored leaves, "Kouyou" can be written in both Chinese-character combinations of "Red Leaves" and "Yellow Leaves".

It is like playing with words. I think it would be one of the fun aspects of using ideographic characters for writing. However there is no Chinese-character combination for "Orange Colored-Leaves". Perhaps we should create that one, too.

An Open-Air Tea Ceremony Event With Geisha in Hachioji Downtown

As I introduced a couple of times previously, Hachioji downtown is one of the rare areas where real Geishas are still working. Geishas are usually labeled with the name of the area where they work since they traditionally work inside of a limited district. Thus, the Geishas in these photos are called “Hachioji Geisha”.

Although they are certainly working in Hachioji-City especially around downtown area, it is still difficult for people to come across them. There are not many of them. However, several events are held in the city where Hachioji Geishas participate and if you visit Hachioji on the days of these events, you can definitely see them.

This is an open-air tea-ceremony event with Hachioji Geishaa held on the Oct. 17th. With 500 Yen everybody can have a set of a traditional sweet and a traditional tea bowl of Macha-gren-tea (a strong green tea made of green tea powder) poured by Geishas. Of course a Geisha will serve the tea set to you.

Apparently the event started only a couple years ago, but it became one of the annual Geisha events in Hachioji.

Colored Leaves Season Has Just Started in Tokyo Area

Beautiful fall season has started in Tokyo area. Lots of leaves are turning red, orange or yellow, and now we can see the gradual change from green to the fall color.

As I mentioned several times previously, Japanese always love seasonal things. The same way people go out for "Hanami (Seasonal Flowers Viewing)", people rush to see beautiful colored leaves in this season. 

However, we don't use the word "Viewing" for the colored leaves in fall. Somehow we use "Hunting" for the colored leaves, such as "Let's go to Momiji-Gari (Colored Leaves Hunting) this weekend!"

Perhaps it is the gentlest hunt, people hunt beautiful leaves with their eyes or cameras. 

The photo was taken in Tama-City, Tokyo.

 

A Samurai Parade, "Hojo Ujiteru Festival" in Hachioji

On October 18th, the Hojo Ujiteru Festival was held in Hachioji City, Tokyo. It featured a Samurai parade and demonstrations of Japanese Samurai sword and Samurai conch horns, which were used as a cue for Samurai war in the Middle Ages.

Hojo Ujiteru is one of the historical Samurai lords of the late 15th century. He was the third son of Hojo head-family in Sagami-area, which is now Kanagawa Prefecture, and Ujiteru was entrusted with the defence of the east side of their territory, which is now Hachioji City.

His oldest brother suffered an early death and the second oldest brother took over the family's main castle, Odawara Castle. His two younger brothers protected the north and the south part of their territory. Apparently the family was united strongly against their enemies until his castle, Hachioji Castle, was conquered in 1590 and the whole Hojo family was overthrown with the fall of their main castle, Odawara Castle, in the same year.

Thus for this festival, a group of people from each area that his brothers protected joined the parade to unite with Hachioji people. There were people from Saitama Prefecture, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Shizuoka Prefecture. It was nice to see that the strength of family bond in the Middle Ages helped to connect people from different prefectures hundreds of years later.

Views of Local Shrines - Where Are Japanese Gods and Goddess in October?

In Japan, people usually call months with Arabic numbers as in “1 Month (January)”, “2 Month (February)”, and “3 Month (March)” and so on. However there is another old-fashioned name for each month which is seldom used nowadays. Interestingly, the old-fashioned name for October is “No-Gods Month”.

As I mentioned previously, Japanese Shinto is a religion based on nature worship, which says that there are countless gods and goddess for everything in nature. These many gods and goddess are colloquially called “Eight Million Gods”.

Yet, apparently October is the time for the annual conference of the “Eight Million Gods”, where all gods and goddess are gathered at Izumo Great-Shrine in Izumo-City, Shimane Prefecture. According to a legend, all shrines but Izumo Great-Shrine are considered to be empty during this month. And therefore, it is literally a month of “No Gods” in most places.

On the contrary, in Izumo-City people call October “Gods-Are-Here Month” traditionally.

The photos are local shrines of west Tokyo and they will be empty now. Maybe, this month wouldn’t be a good time for visiting these shrines to make a wish.

Mt.Fuji Got The First Snow Crown This Fall

Yesterday newspapers reported this news. In Japanese language, “snowcap on the top of a mountain” becomes “Snow Crown” and the first “Snow Crown” on Mt.Fuji in the fall is one of the regular seasonal news items. With this news Japanese can really feel the temperature is now going down towards the winter.

Since Mt.Fuji is the highest mountain and a symbol of Japan, I think the literal translation of the word “Snow Crown” would be more suitable than “Snow-Cap”.

The photos were taken from the west side of Tokyo.

Photos of Hachi-kou Statue and Hachi-kou Bus at Shibuya, Tokyo

I'd like to continue to talk about Shibuya. This is a famous dog statue in front of Shibuya Station and a well-known land mark as a meeting spot around Shibuya. When people try to get together in Shibuya, this statue is often mentioned in the conversation “Let’s meet up in front of Hachi-kou!” “All right!”.

This dog statue has an actual model, named Hachi. The word "kou" following the name is one of the casual honorific placed after nicknames or pet's names. Since the story of Hachi became a Hollywood movie(“Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” in 2009) with Richard Gere, now more people know about it, but anyway I will introduce the story briefly.

Hachi was an Akita Dog owned by a professor of Tokyo University about 100 years ago. The professor loved Hachi so much and Hachi also loved his owner a lot. Hachi started to see off the professor at Shibuya station every morning and also went to welcome him at the station every evening on his own. However the professor suddenly had a stroke and died at work. Probably Hachi couldn't understand his beloved owner's death, and even after he was adopted by another family, Hachi kept his routine of going to Shibuya Station every day for about nine years until he died.

Apparently, Hachi's story didn't end with it. There was another episode between Hachi and the local people in Shibuya...

Years later after the professor’s death, a newspaper reported the story ot Hachi's routine visit to wait for his owner. It was a touching story and more people were impressed as they saw Hachi kept visiting Sibuya Station day after day. Thus when Hachi was getting old, people in Shibuya Station found a space inside of the station to let him sleep there, moreover the station workers made a special task to keep an eye on old Hachi, and they took care of him in turn. Hachi became a favorite dog to everybody around the area.

In his later years, the local people thought of making a statue of Hachi for his memories. A famous sculptor was hired for the project. When the sculptor finished the statue, Hachi was still alive and attended the unveiling ceremony. He died about one year after the ceremony. People held a big funeral for him and he was buried beside his owner’s grave.

Years later towards the end of world warⅡ, materials for weapons were running short in Japan and most of statues were asked to be provided to the government. The statue of Hachi-kou wasn’t an exception. However, the local people didn’t want to lose the statue, and eventually people decided to hide it until the war ended. Unfortunately the statue was somehow lost from the chaos at the end of the war, but after the war ended people tried to get it back. They attemped to re-make it although it was really hard to find bronze material at the time. 

Moreover the sculptor, who originally made Hachi-kou statue, had already passed away. Yet his son grew up and became a sculptor by then. The son happily accepted the request to re-make Hachi-kou statue, and he even sacrificed one of his father’s pieces, which survived the war, to get enough bronze for the Hachi-kou statue.

Therefore, the current Hachi-kou statue is in fact the second one and it was the fruit of the people’s effort and love for Hachi. In addition, Hachi-kou became a major symbol of Shibuya today and the design can be found easily in the area, even on buses as in the left lower photo.

☆To read more about Hachi-kou, click here!

Views of The Shibuya Crossing In Front Of Shibuya Station, Tokyo, At Night

These are photos of the “Shibuya Crossing” at night, which were taken frame by frame after the signal changed to green. 

It may appear that there are too many people for some special events or something at the time, but actually this is an everyday view since Shibuya is a super popular spot. Even at midnight people will be still walking here, so I guess no one can make this place empty and use it for shooting movies or dramas.

Therefore many Japanese were very surprised when they heard this crossing would be seen in a famous Hollywood Movie “Biohazard” before the movie was released and they wondered "How!?", but of course a movie set constructed was used in the filming.

Views of Ginza, The Most Luxury Shopping District in Tokyo

Ginza is known as a shopping district for famous brands and department stores. In addition, the area is one of the most expensive land for decades, it carries an image of “high-class” and everyone recognizes the iconic view of the intersection with a clock tower (the photo on the upper left).

Ginza has a lot of art galleries, good restaurants, and shops offerng the latest trend, and therefore it is a great place for stroll and window-shopping. Recently some renowned brands such as Dior and Hermes started to built artistically designed buildings, which is attracting more attention.

The place name "Ginza"means “The Institute of Silver”. Actually there was a mint for silver coins during the Samurai era. Many archaic words are not used with their original meanings anyone but remain as place names. Ginza in Tokyo would be the most famous one with a such archaic name. Today, 

people at GInza tend to spend lots of money at luxury shops and restaurants, unlike people in old times who minted money there. Perhaps this place has some power to attract money since old times?

September 1st Is A Day For Disaster Evacuation Drills In Japan

This is Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office building located in Sinjuku-ward, Tokyo. It's one of the popular spots for tourists since it is located in the center of Tokyo and has observatory floors on the 45th floor (663ft/202m) in both towers in the left hand side photo. 

However that is not the reason I chose the photos for today.
On September 1st in 2015, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office started distributing a new handbook “Prevention Against The Effects Of Disasters” for residents in Tokyo. 

For Japanese people September 1st has been the day for thinking about disaster prevention and having an disaster evacuation drill.

It came from a historical disaster in 1923. A terrible earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 hit Tokyo area on September 1st and it caused extensive damage. Thus Japanese government decided this day as Disaster Prevention Day in 1960 though it's not a national holiday. 

It is good to keep reminded of disasters since Japan is an earthquake country and this season is a typhoon season in Japan!

Photos of Geisha's Performance at Hachioji Festival in West Tokyo

The photos above were taken at Hachioji Festival. As I introduced a couple of times previuously, Hachioji downtown is one of the towns which real Geisha are still working. Historically Hachioji had been a big post town famous for silk fabric. The downtown prospered and more than hundred Geishas were working at one time but that number dwindled as the silk business decline.

Apparently there are 18 Geishas still working in Hachioji (in 2015). Hachioji Festival is one of the good opportunities where people can see their performances for free. Every year, they show dances and play traditional instruments in the evening of the first day of the festival.

Last year, a newcomer was introduced on the stage. She is the one who wears a light purple Kimono with very long sleeves in the lower photos. Actually she was a teenager therefore was still in training. geisha's work involves serving alcohols at parties and she had not yet reached Japanese legal age of drinking/serving alcohol. She was in training to be Geisha but it was okay to appear in a dance with other Geishas.

Perhaps we could call her “Geisha Intern”, but actually there is a special word for her status. The girls on training to be Geisha, are called “Hangyoku” and the translation is “Half Jewel”. The name came from an old custom that the price for a Geisha was called “Jewel Fee” and the charge for intern girls was half of a Geisha since they were still trainees.

By the way, “Half Jewel” and “Jewel Fee” were used in Tokyo area only because the circumstance and the culture about Geisha are different between regions. For example, in Kyoto which is the most famous place for Geisha where people can frequently see Geishas on the streets, the intern girls are called “Maiko”. It means “Dance Girl”, and Geishas are called “Geiko” in Kyoto. Even the name of the price for a Geisha was called differently, which was “Ohanadai” and it means “Flower Fee”.

There are more posts about Hachioji Festival and Geisha in 2016!