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.