Autumn leaves

It's getting chilly day by day, but the beauty of nature is showing its best in this great season!

My friend and I took on a day trip to Kagawa prefecture.  Honestly speaking we decided to go for this trip because of our craving for famous sanuki-udon dishes:) But we found a really nice park called Ritsurin Koen, about 20-minute walk from JR Takamatsu Station.

A tea ceremony room was surrounded by red and yellow leaves, I have seen such Japanese autumn view for long time. And the mountain is just behind the park.

Awaji Island, the place of old myth

I visited Awaji Island in Hyogo prefecture.  According to Kojiki - the oldest existing story on the Deities (called "kami" in Japanese) of Shinto and the process of creation of this country by them - Awaji is the place that was created at first by the deity couple Izanagi and Izanami.  This is considered as the reason why so many shrines exist in this island (unfortunately I cannot find the exact number).  The above picture is surprisingly huge Torii (gate) of Onokoro-jima Shrine.

Almost in the middle of the Island is located a shrine called Izanagi Jingu, where the spirit of Izanagi is enshrined (I guess the reason of enshrining only the "husband" derives from the context of Kojiki, but won't mention it here). 

In the premise of the shrine, there is a old, 30-meter huge sacred tree, which is 900 years old! It is said this tree originally was two separate camphor trees, but their roots were united became a single tree.

The main purpose of this short trip to Awaji was actually not to visit those shrines, but to learn the traditional industry of this island.  I will talk about it later.

Introduction of this blog

Hi I'm Emi from Japan.  I just started this blog mainly to introduce our country's craftsmen and their great products to as many people outside Japan as possible.  You will see some pictures of nice scenery here sometimes.

After three years of stay abroad - in the US and Singapore - I came back and started my life here again about a year ago, and since then I have found many kinds of made-in-Japan products that are handmade by experienced craftsmen and realized how beautiful, elaborate, and practical  they are.  I mean, they are not just beautiful, but in many case useful because those craftsmen make their products considering the users.  I believe this is the spirit of Japanese craftsmen, and hopefully is our spirit as well.

One of the craftsmen I happened to know some months ago is one who engages in production of scissors for industrial use (I hope I will be able to write about him and his factory's products later!). One day I was reading his blog, and one sentence in it jumped into my eyes.

"You haven't made good effort to convey what you want to convey to people, have you?"

The blog says this line is what the author (the craftsman)'s friend said to someone, and these words caught his mind, he says.

I was impressed with them too, and it motivated me to make this blog to convey what I want to convey, that is, one of the greatest and coolest things about Japan to those outside Japan.

As you may know, or maybe not, unfortunately various negative situations is surrounding our country right now concerning, like, politics, economy, diplomacy, etc., etc... Actually those issues make me feed down almost everyday.  But still I love my country because we have those traditional, honest craftsmanship of our own, and I am proud of it so much.  So I chose to make effort to convey them.