Nishihonganji Temple Kara-mon and Kobo-ichi at Toji Temple

  Yesterday I watched the news on TV that Kara-mon gate of Nishihonganji Temple would be repaired and today is the last opportunity to see the gate before repairing. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to see the precious gate, so
I went to Nishihonganji Temple. I walked for 15 minutes from Kyoto Station and got to the temple. Kara-mon was decorated with gold and colorful wood curvings.

There were many people taking photos and I joined them.
I had another plan today to go to Toji to visit Kobo Market. Kobo is the nickname of a famous Buddhism priest, Kukai who founded Shingon-shu (one of the major Buddhism sect). He was not only a great priest but also loved by common people. He traveled around Japan and there remains many stories that he made miracles all over Japan. People loved him a lot and called him Kobo-san.He died on 21st, and the market is open every 21st of the month to commemorate the day.
I took Kintetsu train to Toji Station and went to Toji. There were many shops of antiques, clothes, food, etc.

five layered pagoda of Toji Temple

Kobo market

The market was very crowded and there were many shops in the precincts and around the temple. I enjoyed browsing and
got dashimaki-tamago sandwich at the shop
on the way back to Kyoto Station.

I ate it for lunch in Shinkansen. It tasted very good.

Saga Festival and Mifune Festival (2)

I came back to Arashiyama and went to see
Mifune Festival. Mifune means three ships.
The festival was held on the Oi river. I went to Togetsukyo bridge, crossed the bridge, and went to the path beside the river.
There were a woman and two girls dressed in Heian period(8～12 century) kimono.The woman played a role of a famous Heian period writer, Seishonagon. Girls were dressed as servants of aristocrats in the era.

Two  ships were decorated with a dragon head and a lucky bird head at the head of the ships, and one ship was with  purple cloth on the roof.

The woman dressed as Seisho-nagon and two girls dressed as servants put some ogi (paper folded fans)away on the river one by one. I heard that festival had over 60 years history. I think it is a very long history, but in Kyoto, 60years history is said to be not so long compared with other festivals like Aoi Matsuri and Gion Matsuri with their over one thousand years history.

 The people on the boat could collect the fans on the river.

festival performers

It was a very fine day and I enjoyed the historic festival very much.

Saga Festival and Mifune Festival

We had two festivals in Saga Arashiyama today, May 20. One was Saga Festival and the other was Mifune Festival.
Saga Festival is the festival of Atago Shrine
and Nonomiya Shrine.Today’s event was the former festival and they will have the latter one next Sunday.
I went to Otagi-Nenbutsuji to see Gohyaku-rakan(500 stone figures of Rakan, the apprentice of Buddha). Along the path to go there long bamboo sticks were erected by
volunteer people for the festival.

Before I went to Otagi Nenbutsuji temple, I visited Danrinji Temple near Nison-in Temple. Danrinji Temple is a small temple now, but it was a very large temple in 

9 century when it was founded. So it has a very long history and historical treasure.

In its garden, we can find the eggs of Moriao-gaeru(Moriao frog) on the tree.

Moriao frog is a unique frog which bears its eggs on the trees. I heard that we can see the frogs in the pond under the tree in summer.

After visiting Danrinji Temple, I went to OtagiNenbutsuji Temple, where you can find 1200 stone statues. The temple is located at the foot of the Atago Mountain and it takes 30 minutes walk, but It's worth walking there because you can meet many unique stone statues.

On the way to come home, I visited the old Japanese style cafe and had green tea and sweets.

The cafe was very comfortable and sweets were very tasty.

Uzumasa Eiga-mura and Oil Shop in Nijo

Today my husband and I  went to UzumasaEiga-mura. It is a movie studio and they still make films (mainly historic dramars )there. We can see the movie set
and some attractions.
We enjoyed seeing drama sets, and Ninj

a show.

Ninja show stage

Most of sets are for Edo period, but there are also sets for early Showa era. We were born in the middle of Showa era, so they reminded us of our childhood.

After we visited Uzumasa movie studio, we took JR train to Nijo and walked to the oil shop named Yamanaka oil shop. I bought a bottle of olive oil and had lunch at the cafe which was remodeled from old oil warehouse.

Visiting Bakeries in Uzumasa

  I like bread very much. I have a favorite bakery in Yokohama, but I haven't found favorite one in Kyoto yet.
  I heard that there are many good bakeries in Kyoto, because a lot of people living in Kyoto love bread, and each of them has  his or her favorite bakery. I wanted to find my favorite one, so I decided to explore Kyoto to find my favorite bakery.
  I wanted to find one near my house in Arashiyama, but I couldn't.Then I took
JR train  to Uzumasa next station and went to five bakeries.
  First I went north and visited two bakeries.

At Taro Bakery, I ate potato bread and egg sandwich for lunch.
Both of bakeries were very good, but I wanted to quest more bakeries and I went south to the shopping street near Uzumasa movie studio.It is very famous for the Jidaigeki (Japanese periodical play) films shooting site.
I was surprised to find that there were three bakeries almost side by side.
They all seemed being flourish, so I assumed that I could buy delicious bread at all three bakeries.

On the shopping street, I found a statue of Dai- majin (the character of old movie,50years ago, in which the stone statue of “Dai-majin”(the gardian angel of village farmers) came to life to protect villagers.)

I bought variety of bread and
took Randen train to Arashiyama.
I was happy because I could find fine bakeries, but I haven't be able to decide which one to choose as my favorite bakery.

I bought curry bread and buck wheat bread at Weltz

I got bagguet and french toast at the Yellow Deli

Glass Beads

My hobby is making glass beads.I´ve recently been into making glass beads called yabane-moyo(the pattern of feathers on Japanese arrow).I´d like to tell you how to make yabane-pattern glass beads.

We make glass beads from glass sticks. We melt them and make lace patterned sticks.
Then cut them in same length and put them on the round glass beads.

These are my work of art.

Bamboo Grove in Sagano

Last time I visited bamboo grove in Sagano at 8:00, there had already been some
people walking on the path. This time I visited there at 6:00. As I expected there were only a few people walking dogs, etc. and I could see the beautiful scenery: a path between the bamboo groves without people!

I enjoyed  silent and refined time.