Tuesday, June 29, 2010

At the Historical Village of Hokkaido

The Hokkaido Historical Village is about a 20 minute walk from where Buzz and Yukari live. It is in Nopporo Forest Park where Ruben and Phil went jogging several days ago. The Village, on about 135 acres, is really an open air museum. There are about 60 typical structures from the mid-19th to 20th century.














The Shinano Shinto Shrine. It is the original building from 1887, rebuilt in this setting.

Every Shinto Shrine houses a diety. Apparently the diety in this one was respresented by a mirror. (Interesting existential implications.) However, the mirror was removed when the structure was rebuilt. Ruben and Buzz seem satisfied with the camera being their mirror.

3 comments:

Jake said...

Cool! Great pics Dad! Keep em up! Dont fuss over them too much though...its the moment, not the mirror that counts!

Phil and Ruben in Hokkaido, Japan said...

Thanks, Jake. Sage advice. You reflect my view as well. Dad

DWTX-Liberal said...

Phil, Ruben, Ren et al,
Thanks for keeping us informed. Most of my information about Japan and Hokkaido come from several detective novel series that take place in ancient Japan. One is the Sano Ichiro series Japan by Laura Jo Rowland that takes place around 1700 Japan. Her Novel, "The Snow Empress" takes place in Ezogashima (aka Hokkaido)http://www.laurajohrowland.com/snowempress.html
Then there is the series by Lensey Namioka that takes place around 1600. The book that takes place on Ezo is The Coming of the Bear (Zenta and Matsuzo Mystery) that examins the conflict between the Japanese and the native Ainu people of Hokkaido. http://www.lensey.com/samurai.html
Both of those novels take place during the winter so they probably do not reflect the summer splendor that you are experiencing.

Will y'all be going to Honshu on your journey?
Looking forward to hearing more from you and Ruben.