Obon

"Obon (お盆^?) or just Bon (盆^?) is a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the departed (deceased) spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors' graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon-Odori."

" The festival of Obon lasts for three days; however its starting date varies within different regions of Japan. When the lunar calendarwas changed to the Gregorian calendar at the beginning of the Meiji era, the localities in Japan reacted differently and this resulted in three different times of Obon. 'Shichigatsu Bon' (Bon in July) is based on the solar calendar and is celebrated around 15 July in eastern Japan (Kantō: areas such as Tokyo, Yokohama and the Tohoku region). 'Hachigatsu Bon' (Bon in August) is based on the solar calendar, is celebrated around the 15th of August and is the most commonly celebrated time. 'Kyu Bon' (Old Bon) is celebrated on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, and so differs each year. "    The Shuzenji area is differnet again, celebrating O-Bon from 30-Jul to 3-Aug.

Baba prepared an altar with the family 'ihai' (spirit tablets inscribed with the buddhist names of the family ancestors), and various offerings.

On Sunday morning a local priest visited for a short service, Then we went to visit the graves.  ('ohaka-mairi').

At each grave an offering of eggplant and rice was made.

"Bon Odori (盆踊り^?), meaning simply Bon dance is a style of dancing performed during Obon. Originally a Nenbutsu folk dance to welcome the spirits of the dead, the style of celebration varies in many aspects from region to region. Each region has a local dance, as well as different music."

"The typical Bon dance involves people lining up in a circle around a high wooden scaffold made especially for the festival called a 'yagura'. The yagura is usually also the bandstand for the musicians and singers of the Obon music. Some dances proceed clockwise, and some dances proceed counter-clockwise around the yagura. Some dances reverse during the dance, though most do not. At times, people face the yagura and move towards and away from it. "

The music can be songs specifically pertinent to the spiritual message of Obon, or local min'yo folk songs.  Some modern enka hits and kids' tunes written to the beat of the "ondo" are also used to dance to during Obon season.  Consequently, the Bon dance will look and sound different from region to region.   The dance of a region can depict the area's history and specialization. For example, the movements of the dance of the Tankō Bushi (the "coal mining song") of old Miike Mine in Kyūshū show the movements of miners, i.e. digging, cart pushing, lantern hanging, etc. All dancers perform the same dance sequence in unison.

This is the bon-odori at a festival at Zenkouji temple in Omotesando in mid-June.   It was a small festival but very elegant and a great atmosphere.   As you might expect in Tokyo most fashionable suburb.

Pacific Cultural Arts Festival

Hannah has been learning Taiko drums at a club after school.  Today she performed with the club at the Pacific Cultural Arts Festival at Komazawa Park.

We stayed around to watch some of the other acts.   Next was a New Zealand maori song and dance group, apparently all Tokyo residents.

A group dressed as anime characters singing what sounded like folk-songs 

And the highlight for all the daddy, a samba troupe!

Photo Booth

Last night and this morning we had fun today playing with the Photo booth on the Ipad

Happy Birthday

In July Hannah had her much anticipated 'happy birthday' when she turned 4 and officially became a big girl.

She got to celebrate this three times with three cakes.   Firstly with Baba, Makoji-chan and Ya-chan on 17-Jul at Baba's house.  With a cake from the surprisingly excellent shop just down the road.

You can see how much Hannah loves having 'happy birthday' sung to her.

Then opening presents from Baba and Makoji-Ya-chan

Then a second time, on her actual birthday with Mum and Dad in Tokyo.

Hannah loved opening presents from our family in New Zealand and reading the birthday cards, especially the cards made by William, Sophie and Claire which Hannah has hung up in the living room.

Then a third birthday party on 23-Jun, with Kyo-chan.   By now our practiced birthday expert know how to get every detail just-right!

And finally, many weeks after her birthday, Mum and Dad bought their present for Hannah.  This was a big hit - a nice big box for playing 'my-cat-likes-to-hide-in-boxes' with! 

The actual contents of the box - a keyboard - was unfortunately rather less popular.  

Within 5 min Hannah is saying 'I dont like practice'

Miura Peninsula

The weekend of Jul-10 we went to visit Rika's and Kyo-chan's old boss Sugiura-san.   Sugiura and her husband have a holiday house in Miura town at the bottom of the peninsula near the Misaki harbour.

We stayed Friday night at a 'Resort Mansion'  Mohou  in Miura Kaigan.   This was a big condominium where you can rent a 40m apartment by the night.  It also has a pool in the basement and a big buffet resturant for breakfasts and dinners, and is near the beach.

On Saturday we went down to the beach which looks out east across the bottom of Tokyo Bay to the Boso Peninsiua.  

Hannah making friends at the beach.

Later on Saturday we went down to Miura to stay at Sugiura-sans holiday house.   It is an absolutely lovely 80 year old traditional Japanese house that they have up-dated very sensitively.   I was very impressed how pleasant the traditional house is to stay in.

Since it was very hot, I excused myself and went to get my hair cut short at an old barbershop I'd noticed at the end of the road.   It was a lovely early-Showa style shop that had been built by the present owner's grandfather in the 1920s.   Also it turned out that the barber's hobby was making model ships from scratch, especially ships of the Nihon Yusen line.  So we could admire a model of the same liner Hikawamaru that had been moored outside our hotel in Yokohama the previous weekend!  He even gave Hannah a ship-in-a-bottle.    

Rika, Hannah, 'Monsieur', and Sugiura-san.    Hannah really enjoyed playing and joking with 'Monsieur'

Misaki port, the port of Miura town is a major port especially for tuna, although it seemed very quiet when we walked around at dusk.   This is looking south-west across Sagami Bay to Mt Amagi in the Izu Peninsula (where Baba's lives).   Although the sea was very still when we visited, a few weeks later Misaki was lashed by a typhoon and I heard 2-3 fishermen were drowned.

       

On Sunday they took us down to the beach on the east side of the peninsula.     Hannah could play in the rock pools 

Kyo-chan, Rika and Sugiura-san.

The weather was unusually clear and we had spectacular views across Sagami Bay.   North-west towards Enoshima,  west to Mt Hakone and Mt Fuji,  and south-west to Mt Amagi in the Izu peninula.

Between Miura peninsula and Oshima island the Phillipine sea plate is subducting under the Eurasian plate.  This lifts up the the Izu, Miura and Boso penisulas on the Eurasian plate, and pushes down the bottom of Sagami bay (max 1500m deep),  and also causes regular large megathrust earthquakes.   The epicenter of the M7.9 1923 Kanto earthquake which destroyed most of Yokohama and Tokyo is estimate to be just south of the Miura peninsula.   In 1703 the same fault ruptured further to the east in the M8.2 Genroku earthquake.  (see  http://usgsprojects.org/tokyo/submitted/Stein_et_al_Tokyo.pdf).   Back in 1498, the M8.6 Meio-Nankaido earthquake caused a large tsunami which caused 26-41,000 casualties and washed away the Kotoku-in temple housing the great buddha in Kamakura.

Looking East to Mt Fuji (in clouds) and Mt Hakone.