2011 was in the past and I was already in 2012. On top of that, I was blessed to be in my
favourite holiday destination – Japan.
After such a nice day
in the mountains and amazing food the first year of the year was going to be a
truly religious experience. I went with my friend to give the first pray of the
year in 2012. According to the tradition
we went to the most important shrine in Kurashiki called Achi-Jinja or 阿智神社 located
on the top of a hill called
Tsurugatayama or 鶴形山.
This hill is located
right in the middle of the cultural and touristic area called Bikan. Bikan due
to its beauty and proper has been used in many movies and series that are
uncommon on this side of the world.
View Achi Jinja - Kurashiki in a larger map
Bikan has also taken
as an inspiration for many cartoons like Rouroni Kenshin or Samurai X – no
doubt, because you can see some resemblance with the actual place and the one
on the cartoon, but then again during the Meiji Era almost every town looked
like this somehow. It’s a pity that places like this made of stone have slowly
disappeared around the country.
Turning back to the
first place I visited that day, we got to the place after some nice steps
you’ll have to walk up. Mind you, if you’ve got knee problems you should
reconsider this, but you can go by car and get there without any problems.
Of course that day it
was packed, many people had come from different places around the city and they
were all queuing up to get inside the shrine. Even to purify your hands and
mouth was going to be a bit crowded, but nothing to be scared of.
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| Achi-jinja in Kurashiki |
Once we got to the top
we prayed and that might have taken us at least 30 mins, but it felt good,
especially since many people were doing it and the weather and the purity of
the air felt great.
After praying we saw
that on the right hand side of the shrine there were a lot of people gathered
looking a ceremony. The ceremony itself is called Junihitoe and it's the process of wearing the twelve layers of robe (kimonos). This elaborated kimono is the old style and was wore by the high-classes back in the Heian Period, as well as the Empress. Actually I read somewhere that the last time this was wore on public by a Empress was in 1926 by Empress Kojun.
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| Miko-san in Achi Jinja in Kurashiki 2012 |
The name Junihitoe, basically translate into "twelve layers robe" and that gives you an idea of how big and beautiful she was that morning.
But the ceremony has 2
flute players on the side that play the flute with some intervals. They wore a
dark purple kimono and didn’t move until the very end when miko-san left the
place.
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| Shinto flute players in Achi-Jinja - Kurashiki |
The whole ritual is very
slow and the care taken by three other mikos is incredible. The two oldest
(experienced) ones were putting the different kimonos, while the youngest one
was waiting patiently until the new kimono had to be unfolded and to be used by
the other two miko-sans.
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| Junihitoe and Fan in Achi-jinja Kurashiki |
We got there late but
I reckon the whole ceremony lasts an hour or so. For those photographers who
like to snap every movement and every angle this ceremony is a must, since
everything is done slowly and at the end when the miko is wearing all layers
the scene in front of you is beautiful.
Then once she’s done all the 4 of them will leave the place in a very
elegant and beautiful fashion.
As she leaves she
hides her face using her well-decorated fan and she walks out and is led to an
open space where people can appreciate the beauty of all the different kimonos
she’s wearing at the same time.
Like I said before I
still don’t know how many layers she’s on at the end of the ceremony but I
wouldn’t be surprised if she’s wearing 12 kimonos.
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| Miko san leaving the stage in Achi Kurashiki |
Well I couldn't
believe we spent almost an hour and half in a Shinto shrine, jokily I told my
friend I would never spend so many time in a church.
Next we went to this
little shop (I’m sorry but I don’t know how else to call it like) There were
many mikos and all of them were wearing the typical white top and red hakama
(trousers) but they were also wearing a kind of crown. I think this crown is used only in very
important occasions like this one.
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| Complete Junihitoe outside Achi-Jinja in Kurashiki |
The roof of the shop
had a map of the Achi-Jinja a well as a round Chinese calendar and four
Senbazuru 千羽鶴is a group of thousand origami paper cranes
held together by strings.
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| Shinto shop with Chinese Calendar in Achi-jinja |
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| Shinto Priest in Achi-Jinja Kurashiki |
Bikan - Best preserved area of late Meiji Era in Japan
After that we had to go down to Bikan where my friend’s parents where waiting for us to go and have lunch so we walked a bit around Bikan and found so nice places like for example, the typical narrow streets (it’s a pity everything was closed due to NY) and we also saw a beautiful garden at the back of a restaurant that reminded me of the zen gardens in Kyoto.
But as we were leaving Bikan we came across this funny cat shop, where you could find anything for your cat and some stuff for your dog as well.
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| Cat shop - Bikan Area -Kurashiki |
Since many good restaurants were closed due to the date we went to a massive shopping centre in Kurashiki, I think it’s the only one actually.
Now that I remember
outside the shopping centre there were many Vikings statues. Please don’t ask
why, because till today nobody knows why. Once inside I spot the shop that
would bring my real-me a JUMP shop was in front of me, packed with young kids,
and adults.
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| Jump shop in Kurashiki |
Anime, manga, Japanese
animation call it like you want, this is great! I couldn't believe my eyes. I
seriously felt like I was in paradise. I
just didn’t want to buy the whole shop and the queue to pay was loooooong so I
decided to postpone the anime shopping spread for Tokyo.
Afterwards, we went to
have this great udon. I can tell you something now “never go for two portions
of udon” also “never challenge a hungry Japanese man”. Let’s say that I was
hungry and we got there and I see the portions so I made this daft mistake of
asking for two portions.
Bear in mind that I’m
a slow eater and now I know that everyone in Japan is a fast pace eater. My
udon were delicious but I couldn't finish them as quickly as my friend’s dad.
Actually he joked about saying: “Never mess around a hungry Japanese Manager” –
trust me lesson learnt!
Afterwards it was already late so we went back home for a well deserved rest and talk. It was also going to be my last day in West Japan as I was going to head to Shizuoka to meet another friend and spend a couple of days with her.
またね！
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