Treasure Island

This afternoon, I visited Takeshima Island, off the coast of Gamagori, which is a short train ride from my home city of Toyohashi. The island is tiny - it is possible to walk all the way around it in just half an hour - but it is home to over 238 species of temperate plant species. The island was declared a national natural treasure in 1930.

A 387 metre long bridge links Takeshima Island to the mainland. Just before the bridge meets the island, it passes beneath a stone torii and I've read that this is the only place in Japan where a bridge runs through a torii gate.

No one lives on Takeshima Island. The only building is the Yaotomi Shrine at the very top of the island. The shrine is dedicated to Benzaiten, goddess of music, eloquence, wealth and good fortune. She is also one of Japan's "Seven Lucky Gods", whom I mentioned in a previous post.

The shrine was founded by Fujiwara no Shunzei in 1181 and it is said that worshipping at the shrine will provide good luck in marriage and childbirth. Since I'm due to become an uncle in the next few months, I'm hoping that Benzaiten's blessings will reach halfway around the world to my brother and his wife.

The Secret of Monkey Island

Today was a national holiday in Japan to mark Shunbun no Hi - the Vernal Equinox - and, as a result, I had the day off work. I took advantage of my free day to go to Inuyama and visit the castle.

Inuyama is one of the oldest castles in Japan and one of 12 still in existence that were built before the Edo period.

The steps inside the castle are very steep. On entering the castle, it is necessary to remove shoes, which makes the ascent treacherous since socks don't grip very well on polished wooden floors. It's even more unnerving on a day like today when very strong, very cold winds are rushing through the open windows. The views from the top are worth the climb, though.

Having descended from the castle and having fortified myself with some fried chicken, I trekked eastwards to the Inuyama Monkey Park.

The Monkey Park is a combined amusement park - with ferris wheel, roller coaster and various other rides - and primate zoo.

With some species, visitors to the park are allowed to enter the enclosure and see the animals up close.

With the squirrel monkeys, this wasn't much of a problem, since they are timid creatures and had a tendency to run for cover whenever a child toddled over yelling 'Kawaii!' at them (which happened quite often).

The ring-tailed lemurs, on the other hand, were far less shy.

Umbrellas are provided for visitors to shelter under, but it's more than a little disconcerting when a lemur launches itself through the air and lands with a thumb on the umbrella's canopy right above your head.

It's even more disconcerting when the lemurs realise they can clamber under the umbrella as well...

It was a really cool experience, though...

On the way back to the station, I stopped off at Inuyama Naritasan Temple. The temple is dedicated to Fudo-Myo-o ('Immovable Wisdom'). Among other activities, the temple performs a prayer for vehicles. Cars line up in the car park in front of the temple to receive the blessing of traffic safety from the temple's patron deity.

All in all, it's fair to say that Inuyama is a great place in which to spend one's day off.

Judicious Imitation

Because a number of people have been asking to read my short stories, I've decided to start a new fiction blog where I'll provide links to some of my older stories and, hopefully, some new ones too.

The new blog - Judicious Imitation - can be found here:
http://judiciousimitation.blogspot.jp.

One Month Anniversary

As of today, I have been in Toyohashi for one month. The time has flown by and it feels like only yesterday that I was saying goodbye to my parents at Birmingham International Airport. Since then, I have met so many new people, seen and done and eaten so many new things and the adventure has still only just begun. There's an entire country waiting to be explored.

I feel really lucky to be living in Toyohashi. When I was offered the teaching position four months or so ago, I had never even heard of this city, but I took a leap of faith and I don't regret it for an instant. The community here is great and really welcoming and the city itself... well, the best word I can come up with to describe it is 'comfortable'. It is neither too big nor too small. It is, as Goldilocks might put it, just right.

I'm looking forward to many more months of living here.

A Skulk of Foxes

Yesterday, I got the chance to visit Toyokawa-Inari, which is one of the main shrines to the goddess Inari in Japan (the others being Fushimi-Inari in Kyoto, which I've visited, and Yutoku-Inari in Saga, which I haven't).

Inari is the Shinto goddess of foxes, so there were a few fox statues (kitsune) dotted around.

Actually, there were quite a lot.

In addition to foxes, Inari is also goddess of fertility, rice, tea, sake, agriculture and industry and, because of her association with industry, there are an abundance of banners around the shrine, each displaying the name of a business hoping for Inari's blessing. (If you visit Fushimi-Inari, you'll see something similar, with the names of businesses written on the many, many torii gates.) 

Inari is also linked with Daikokuten, the cheerful guy pictured below. He is one of Japan's "Seven Lucky Gods", about whom I will no doubt write more in a later post.

A Day at the Aquarium and Other Stories

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Since arriving in Japan, life has been a bit hectic and I haven't had much time to just sit down and write. So, without further ado, let's correct that.

Last weekend, I was back in Nagoya, catching up with my fellow trainees who, like me, are trainees no longer. They, like me, have all started work at their respective schools and all had interesting stories to tell, none of which I will be sharing here.

The location of our reunion was the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium.

I'm a bit of a fan of aquariums and Nagoya is one of the better ones with a good selection of things to look at.

The highlight for me was the dolphin show. I didn't know dolphins were even capable of half of the tricks they performed.

After leaving the aquarium, we decided to explore the port area a bit more and ended up wandering through something called "Woods of the World", which includes trees from all the ports around the world that ships from Nagoya travel to. We were not alone in our explorations, however, since the woods had been overrun by dozens of cats (I may be exaggerating slightly).

The following day, I was back in Toyohashi doing grocery shopping and other chores, but I did find time to visit Mukaiyama Ume Garden to see the plum blossoms. According to my city guide, it's the largest plum garden in the eastern Mikawa region.

That's all for now. In my next blog post, we'll talk about foxes...