“Photos of Fuji Visitor Center in Fujikawaguchiko-Machi, Yamanashi Prefecture”

These photos are taken at "Fuji Visitor Center", in March it's still possible to see some snow remaining on the ground, depending on the weather.

The center was established by Yamanashi prefecture in 1998. The building includes an information center, an exhibition room for natural history of Mt.Fuji, a souvenir shop, and a restaurant. Since the number of international tourists visiting Mt Fuji is rapidly increasing after Mt. Fuji was selected as a world heritage site by UNESCO,  the information about Mt. Fuji is available in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean.

By the way, the address of this center is Yamanashi prefecture, but actually the Mt. Fuji is located right on the border of Yamanashi prefecture and Shizuoka prefecture.

It’s funny but the two prefectures have been arguing over the title of the “Home of Mt.Fuji” for almost 400years since the Samurai era.

Even now on the official maps of Japan, the border of both prefectures break off upon the Mt.Fuji.  The “border-line-blank-area” was born as a compromise because both prefectures would not give up their ownership of the mountain top.

It seemed that the both sides accepted the compromise. Since the area around the top of the Mt.Fuji is a property of Sengen-Shrine which is the head shrine worshiping Mt.Fuji, everybody admitted to keep the area as a sacred ground of the shrine without belonging to any prefecture.

After all, Mt Fuji is a special mountain for Japanese people as I have mentioned previously.

Photos of Fawn Lily Flowers in Sagamihara-City, Kanagawa Prefecture

These flowers are fawn lilies, in Japanese it is Katakuri which grow wild in many places on main Japanese islands. Usually this plant can be seen in deciduous forests and the flowering season is March, but the flowers are not so eye-catching in the forest as you can see in the hand side photo.
 

However this plant is very well known among Japanese people, because it was the original raw material of starch powder in Japan. In old times people collected the rootstocks of the plant the forests and produced starch powder.

Nowadays starch powder is made from potatoes since people can produce it much more efficiently, but actually people still call starch powder “Katakuri Powder” although everybody knows starch is not made from Katakuri anymore. It remains the name of the starch powder in Japan.

Today, nobody uses the plant, people just enjoy seeing the lovable small flowers as a reminder of the origin of starch powder during their hiking in forests.

A Photo of Kakurenbou-Yokocho in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

 These stone paved paths are named Kakurenbou-Yokocho that keeps a very traditional atmosphere surrounded by black wooden wall. Yokocho as similar meaning to a lane or lanes (Japanese nouns don't have the definition of the singular/the plural form). 

This area, Kagurazaka, had been developed during the Samurai era since it’s located right outside of the Shogun Castle. It’s actually one of the rare places that people can still expect to run into real Geisyas who are visiting expensive restaurants in this area for their work.

The name “Kakurenbou” means “hide-and-seek”, because when high officials made an incognito visit to this area during the Samurai era, it is said that it was easy to lose the tail on Kakurenbo-Yokocho.

Photos of Japanese University Graduates in March

March is the graduation season in Japan. All Japanese schools start a new school year in the beginning of April and finish it in March. So, sometime during this month, schools all over Japan hold their graduation ceremony.

At the ceremony, students need to be formal, which is not a problem for Jr. high school / high school graduates since most of them have school uniforms. How about university graduates? Actually most university students wear traditional Japanese clothes at their Graduation Ceremony and nobody wears Western style gown although most university freshmen wear Western suits at the Entrance Ceremony.

So, in March people often come across university graduates wearing traditional clothes like in the photos above. Girl graduates are especially gorgeous with their kimono, but you can see two different styles of kimono in the photos. The most popular style among girl graduates is not a standard formal kimono, though there is one girl wearing a standard formal kimono for young lady in the left photo.

The most popular style is called “Hakama style” which is a combination of Kimono and long wide trousers which you can see in other two photos on the right. In old times Hakama was used when Samurai daughters learned how to use swords or spears.

After Japan got a modern government, the style became a typical high school girls clothes, because in those days people still wore kimonos every day. Unfortunately, actions were too limited with kimonos. The Hakama style solved the problem so it was considered a very modern style of the new era and became popular among young girls. The style continues to be attractive as a school girls’ style, and many girls still choose to wear it at their graduation ceremony.

A Photo of Camellia Flowers In A Garden Of A Private Residence in West Tokyo

Camellia is one of the typical winter flowers in Japan and from ancient time people have enjoyed it. It is native to Japan and apparently European people who visited Japan found it in 17th century and introduced to Europe.

The top season of the camellia flowers is February, so it is already the end of the season. Then, now it is common to see in towns the fallen whole camellia flowers spreading around the tree like in this photo. This is one of camellia’s characteristic, it doesn’t scatter the petals and the whole flowers fell down at the end.

With this characteristic, there is a false rumor that Samurai people had hated this flower because it reminded them of beheading, the worst execution for them, but many of Samurai lords actually loved this flower and enjoyed to improve this plant.

Besides, regarding the Tea Ceremony, which is loved by Samurai people as a hobby, it is called “the queen flower of the Tea Ceremony” because it is used for the decoration of the Tea Ceremony most of the time throughout February since it is difficult to find beautiful flowers in the season.

Moreover, people have been using the camellia seed oil a lot, too, for cooking oil, hair liquid, and so on. Especially hair care products made from the oil have been trusted by many women and actually traditional wooden combs are soaked in the oil when they are produced.

So, there are a lot of connections between this flower and Japanese culture.

A Mini Virtual Tour of A Historical Site In Tokyo And Having Lunch At A Japanese Restaurant

This park is named “Former Iwasaki Family’s Mansion And The Garden” that is a historical spot in the center area of Tokyo.
In 1896 after Japan got the first modern government, the Iwasaki family, founder of the Mitsubishi group, purchased this land and constructed a number of buildings. it was a large premises, but only three buildings remains, a western style building, a Japanese house and a billiard house. The three buildings exhibit contrast and harmony between Western and Japanese culture. The British architect, Josiah Conder (1852~1920),  built the  western style building and the billiard.
The whole premises was appointed as one of the Important Cultural Assets of Japan in 1999.
After visiting this historical site, let's go to a Japanese restaurant and try some Japanese lunch!
(If you can't see the slideshow below, please click here!)

A Photo of The Sunset in The Middle of March

This photo was taken in West Tokyo area. 

Although “spring hazephenomenon” occurred already, still deciduous trees on mountains are bare. The trees' buds are not coming out yet.

So, in this photo, we can see it as a comb-like-edge on the ridge of the mountain with the sunset light.