Samurai House

I visited an old house that used to be of a samurai family in Kanazawa. The house was established by Nomura Denbei who served the local lord, Maeda Toshiie in late 16th century. The house is in the area I visited last year. The family was allowed to occupy this house for 10 generations until the 1871.

Here's the actual armor Nomura Denbei wore when he served in a war in 1582.

Tokonoma was simple, yet very elegant and nice.

Here's Butsudan where the family worshipped their ancestors.

This map shows the territorial situation in Japan in 1586. At the time, the ruler of Japan wasToyotomi Hideyoshi.

Katayamazu Onsen

Last night, I stayed at an onsen hotel in Katayamazu, Ishikawa Prefecture. The hotel - Kasuikyo stood right by Shibayama Lagoon. The hot spring was very nice and the dinner was fantastic at the resort hotel.

Hot water spring of Katayamazu was discovered in 1653, but the development as a resort did not happen until late in the ninteenth century.

The hotel I stayed is the semi-circular 8-story building on the center-right.

Benzaiten (or Benten-sama) is celebrated in the Ukimido (floating shrine). The legend says that a terrible dragon came to this region every night to destroy houses and kill people. The Benten-sama appeared and saved the village.


Old photos from earlier twentieth century were displayed at the hotel - show earlier days of the onsen resort:

An old bus

The resort in early the early days.

Shibayama Lagoon seen from my airplane leaving near-by Komatsu Airport for Tokyo this afternoon.

Mout Haku or Haku-san, the highest mountain in Ishikawa as seen from my airplane window.

Okinawa

Okinawa was the place I visited last week. It is approximately 1,000 nautical miles from Tokyo and it is 26 degrees latitude, almost as far south as Hawaii. But, when we got there, the temperature was only about 10 deg. C. (50 deg. F.) - very cold for the region. Obviously, I did not bother going to the beach. Here are some interesting things I saw there.

Local watermelons and muskmelons were sold right next to apples from Aomori.

Local vegetable, goya.

Local bananas (Shima-Banana).

Posters warning children not to touch un-exploded bombs were numerous. Amazingly, bombs from World War II are still found in tens every year in Okinawa.

Kodaira Furusato Mura

On Saturday, I briefly visited Kodaira Furusato Mura (Kodaira Hometown Village) where an old community was re-created. It is located right by the bike/walk trail I mentioned in my blog last spring.

At the entrance, an old post office with a red roof that was built in 1908 stands. This building was in operation until 1983. The red circular post box used to be very common in Japan.

Here are some old farming equipment that were in an old farm house.

An old well.

A water wheel.

A scarecrow with ""Henohenomoheji" face.

The ways we do things are so different from the times of these items.