The main Kōshin belief that survived from an original complex faith, is the concept that three worms, called Sanshi (三尸), live in everyone’s body. The Sanshi keep track of the good deeds and particularly the bad deeds of the person they inhabit. On the night called Kōshin-Machi (which happens each 60 days), while the person sleeps, the Sanshis leave the body and go to Ten-Tei(天帝), the Heavenly god, to report about the deeds of that person.

Ten-Tei will then decide to punish bad people, making them ill, shortening their lifetime and in extreme cases putting an end to their lives. Believers of Kōshin will try to live a life without bad deeds, but those who have reason to fear will try to stay awake during Kōshin nights, as the only way to prevent the Sanshi from leaving the body and reporting to Ten-Tei.

Which (of course) lead to festivals every 60 days where people attempted to stay up for the entire day to stop the worms from leaving their bodies.

Below is a very old, traditional Koshin shrine near our home.

This faith is also affiliated with the 3 monkeys (seen in the middle bottom):

Three monkeys covering eyes, mouth and ears with their hands are the best known symbols of Kōshin faith. They are Mizaru (not see), Iwazaru (not say) and Kikazaru (not hear). It is not very clear why the three monkeys became part of Kōshin belief, but is assumed that it is because like the monkeys, the Sanshis and Ten-Tei are not to see, hear, or tell the bad deeds of a person.

Statues of Shōmen-Kongō with the three monkeys have existed in temples and shrines since the Edo era. Sometimes carved stones called Kōshin-tō were placed around a dwelling for protection. Such stones can present diverse forms, from having only Chinese characters (kanji) to including a depiction of Shōmen- Kongō with one, two or three monkeys.

So many layers to Japan’s complex history, hidden from the Gaijin.

Surrounded by a beautiful cemetery, the history makes an interesting story. Hidden in the back corner is the cemetery of the fallen 22, who attempted an uprising in 1936 and are often celebrated by the anti-foreigner, nationalistic Japan parties.

The February 26 Incident (二・二六事件 Niniroku Jiken^?) (also known as the 2-26 Incident) was an attempted coup d’état in Japan on 26 February 1936. It was organized by a group of young Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) officers with the goal of purging the government and military leadership of their factional rivals and ideological opponents.

Although the rebels succeeded in assassinating several leading officials and in occupying the government center of Tokyo, they failed to assassinate Prime Minister Keisuke Okada or secure control of the Imperial Palace. Their supporters in the army made attempts to capitalize on their actions, but divisions within the military, combined with Imperial anger at the coup, meant they were unable to achieve a change of government. Facing overwhelming opposition as the army moved against them, the rebels surrendered on 29 February.^[3]

Unlike earlier examples of political violence by young officers, the coup attempt had severe consequences. After a series of closed trials, 19 of the uprising’s leaders were executed for mutiny and another 40 imprisoned. The radical Kōdō-ha faction lost its influence within the army, the period of “government by assassination” came to a close, and the military increased its control over the civilian government.

If you read the entire background, it is the classic story of the under-privileged rising up against ruling class, in this case coloured by a nationalistic zeal, an Emperor, westerners and socialism. I cannot help but sympathize with the meritocracy elements of their campaign even if it is at odds with their allegiance to the Emperor.

Their well tended grave. Luckily, there were not ultra-nationalists at the site to protest our being there.

The grave across from this one, with beautiful blooming Azaleas.

The other interesting thing about the site is the state of the original cemetery. Fenced off and difficult to see, the original cemetery is surrounded by monuments to the elements and the (rich) family entombed. However, the site has fallen into disrepair which seems at odds with the Japanese respect for ancestors.

Of note, the monuments are all individual pieces of stone, balanced on top of each other. Only a few have fallen over during the various earthquakes. A testament to 1,000 year old craftsmanship.

An interesting hidden find.

Located on a side street near Hiroo station, tucked under hundred year old trees.

The courtyard houses the temple building and several smaller shrines.

Including the chozuya, for purifying yourself before entering the shrine.

I liked this request outside the temple …

As mentioned, it is a dragon temple. Etched into the wooden roof is the most magnificent dragon. Step to a different side and the entire picture changes.

It is said that Inari (the god of harvests) was invoked as the guardian deity of the Shogun�fs villa, Azabu Fujimi Goten, during the Genroku period (1688-1703). It was formerly called Fujimi Inari or Chitose-dera Inari. The dragon drawn on seven consecutive panels on the main hall�fs ceiling is the final Japanese-style painting of the great master Takahashi Yuichi. Three towers dedicated to the repose of the souls of the departed (Minato City Cultural Assets) stand by a stone moat and the three monkeys (�gSee no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil�h) are carved on the front.

And more dragons carved into the entrance.

Amazing to find out what is tucked around a corner. A city full of hidden treasures.

A little different than the chaos of driving and parking in the UK.

They have a monument set up for Townsend Harris who played a pivotal role in Japanese – US relationships. Our guide Lilly provided colour to his life. While he did great things for the countries, he did it while ruining the life of a poor Japanese woman. She was a serving girl and in love with a carpenter (as the story goes), but Townsend wanted her for himself. Forced by the Japanese government to spend time with Townsend (either to improve relations between the countries or as a spy), she was forced to become his mistress only to be discarded when he left Japan;

She was labelled a “Toujin” (mistress of a foreigner), though she was not a mistress like “Chocho-san“.

Becoming a mistress of Western men was regarded as shame and Kichi was despised as “Toujin”. The disdain and prejudice of the society disturbed her seriously and she gradually indulged in alcohol. She could not live a peaceful family life with her beloved Tsurumatsu. She ruined a restaurant presented by a sympathetic patron and could not run a hair salon in Shimoda due to the disdain of local people. In her 40s, Kichi became homeless and killed herself by jumping into the Inouzawa River.
Toujin Okichi became a heroin of popular novels and her stories were staged many times. Though the truth still remains a mystery, her story was interpreted in various ways and exploited as a tourist attraction.

Read more here. The relationships was also incorrectly romanticized in a John Wayne movie.

As with all shrines, a cemetery accompanies it. Right beside the shrine is the grave of Fukuzawa Yukichi, the man on the 10,000 Y note ($100).

Fukuzawa Yukichi (福澤 諭吉^?, January 10, 1835 – February 3, 1901) was a Japanese author, Enlightenment writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneurand journalist who founded Keio-Gijuku University, the newspaper Jiji-Shinpo and the Institute for Study of Infectious Diseases. His ideas about government and social institutions made a lasting impression on a rapidly changing Japan during the Meiji Era. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern Japan. He is called a Japanese Voltaire.

It is also home to the oldest ginko tree in Tokyo with a girth of 10m and estimated age of 800+ years.

As one would expect, the cemetery is well tended with people decorating the statues and leaving behind flowers, offerings and other remembrances to honour the departed.

An interesting tour. Thanks for dropping by.

Different. Not something I would have expected to see in the city.

Away from the main house, lacking windows, big metal locked doors and often behind the gates.

One would think it was a good plan. The problem? Thieved learned that in the soft Japanese soil it is easy to dig your way in.

I have no idea why this one caught my eye in passing. I was walking from lunch and noticed the print on the front of this dress. Who/what is Felicity Catch and why grammar do time so bad?

And to answer your question: NO. My Japanese is not improving as evidenced by a recent conversation:

“I got this amazing sparking sake from Meidi-ya” (I pronounced meedie-ya)

“Where?”

“meedie-ya. You know the grocery store”

Laughs. “Oh you mean (pronounces it right). You have been saying that for a month and I had no idea what you were talking about”

The only good thing, I don’t write anything down in Japanese.

Standing at the bottom of the building where he “committed suicide”, we heard the story about how this Japanese film maker made fun of the establishment and organized crime:

On May 22, 1992, six days after the release of his anti-yakuza satire Minbō no Onna, Itami was attacked, beaten, and slashed on the face by five members of the Goto-gumi, a Shizuoka-based yakuza clan, who were angry at Itami’s film’s portrayal of yakuza members as craven, dishonorable bullies. This attack led to a government crackdown on the yakuza. His subsequent stay in a hospital inspired his next film Daibyonin, a grim satire on the Japanese health system.

Looking down the alley, our guide explained his “death”:

He purportedly committed suicide on December 20, 1997^[1] in Tokyo, by leaping from the roof of the building where his office was located, after a sex scandal he was allegedly involved in was picked up by the press. The suicide letter he reportedly left behind denied any involvement in such an affair.

Many consider his death suspicious. Citing unnamed sources, Jake Adelstein of Yomiuri Shimbun, who wrote a number of articles dealing with Japanese yakuza, directly accused Goto of murder. Adelstein stated that, according to his sources in the Japanese underworld, Juzo Itami was planning a new movie about Goto’s yakuza faction and its relationship with the religious groupSōka Gakkai and that “A gang of five of his people grabbed Itami and made him jump off a rooftop at gunpoint. That’s how he committed suicide.” According to Adelstein, Itami had said that his wife was aware of his alleged affair and that Itami’s purported suicide note was typed on a word processor.^[2] At the time, the police treated it as a possible homicide. Itami’s surviving family have never publicly commented on the circumstances surrounding his death.

We continued walking. I love the way that Japanese streets are filled with people’s pots filled with flowers and bushes. They may not have a yard, but they are trying.

In some cases, the grasses are overgrowing. An oddity in Japan. Why would someone leave their motorcycle like that? (even if it is broken).

Passing this shop I looked in, there was barely any room to move … He/she is certainly not pressing any clothes.

As we turned a corner our guide explained that the area we were in used to be a slum in Tokyo. The locals were cleaning it up and banding together, trying to stop developers who were buying up the buildings with a goal of tearing it all down and putting up high rises.

Down a stairwell was a tiny little statue, dedicated to a site where something happened .. at some point in history. Perhaps someone fell down the stairs and died, or an incident happened here. That history is lost to us gaijin, but it was amazing to see the statue hidden between the buildings.

And in every Tokyo cement crack, something is trying to grow.

Now that is initiative.

Perhaps one of the reasons why Tokyo is so safe (although I think it is more cultural, than due to police presence).

I am always driving past these fellows and I have yet to figure out what they do. They just stare at the passing cars, sometimes a whistle in their mouth just waiting to be blown. At other times holding their walkie-talkie and watching the traffic drive by.

Always staring. Never moving. I don’t understand. (smile)

Called a “love hotel” these feeders of the unseemly Japanese underbelly are quite common.

A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing couples privacy for sexual activities. The name originates from “Hotel Love” in Osaka which was built in 1968 and had a rotating sign.

This one is for the more “adventurous”. We were walking past it on a tour and I could not help but notice the nice grandmotherly woman on the other side of the street standing in her door.

How would you like to look at this every day? (it is in quite a nice neighbourhood). Supposedly there is a movement afoot to eject them.

Is the name some form of play on words?

The discrete front entrance.

Last shot. I wondered, is the new BMW a client or the owner?

In this case, something bad happened about 10 years ago … and no one has lived there since, except the every expanding vines.

Lesson #1: on currency

When we first moved to the UK I was advised to keep currency in whatever location you were planning to live in long term. I did not listen, and we moved some money with us from Canada to the UK.

Along came the economic crash, a 30% decline in the GBP and a painful lesson when we moved that money back to Canada.

This time around we opened up a multi-currency account and have kept money in the currency that it was originally “created”, only transferring between currencies when needed. A fortunate thing as the Japanese Yen has declined 25% against the Canadian/US dollar since we arrived.

Lesson #2: on moving currency

If you are moving a lot of money and planning on moving permanently, you are not an expat and this isn’t for you.

When we moved to Tokyo I was getting some pretty annoying “wire transfer” charges. Annoying is a euphemism for large. I switched to using checks. Simply deposit the check from your home country, pay a nominal fee, and wait (in my case, it magically leaves my Canadian account in 3 days but takes 28 days to appear in Japan). A flat rate and much lower cost.

Hopefully, these lessons will help a fellow expat.

The pink caught my eye.

The stairs lead to … ?

A wonderful trip.

In Canada, the opening time is 9am or 10am (If I remember correctly) and they are pretty regimented about that time. They do not open a minute early. Very rules orientated.

In Japan, the opening time is fluid. While the official opening time is 10am, this Saturday it was opened before 9. Depends on when they have finished loading the shelves and the length of the queue out front.

One of those “scratch your head” ones and as an aside, I think it is great.

When they transferred my blog from Live to WordPress (never should have used Windows Live Spaces) they put all old posts in “pending”. I am starting to go through them and put them back out there as a cousin is thinking about going into Sales and those posts are in the pending. They will show according to the original publishing date.

Just an FYI.

Urchins are usually nasty black things and very painful. We easily steered clear of many in the shallow water, but through the seaweed I saw this fellow. I have never seen anything like it and if colour indicated a warning, this must be a very dangerous urchin.

Never seen anything like it. Having a 70-200m lens on meant that I didn’t have to get too close.

One more shot, distorted by the sun cutting the water. As I got closer with the lens it moved to protect the center.

I have no idea what this is .. but it looks like a cucumber or perhaps some sort of worm.

This millipede was BIG (and fast). He disappeared in seconds.

A lot of legs …

He/she/it was right beside the crabs. Spot the 3 crabs.

Finishing off with a few beautiful color shots, peaking out from under the water.

Amazing natural colors of this anemone, an inch under the water.

It was really hard to get shots of these corals as they were in shallow water and it kept ebbing and flowing.

A moment later I caught the water coming in.

How can I not finish with a starfish.

It was fun to explore the shore.

While eating lunch I saw this fellow wading out into the surf. I happened to have my 70-200mm lens on the 5D so I took a walk to down to observe. 3 shots …

Love the hat.

At the beach the tide slow recedes through the day revealing that which you were swimming over.

You can walk for 100’s of meters to the edge and the reef. It was fun to see what lurked below … and surprising. (Next post).

This is the Japanese bad boy (you must always remember to look up when in Tokyo).

(bottom right). Perhaps they took it literally and meant “bad boys” due to their over-use of hair gel and feminine disposition? Or perhaps they are bad boys because no boy band should number more than 5 (I counted 12). Perhaps the 3 in front are the bad boys as they did not get the pre-photo shoot memo on only wearing white.

Lost in translation …  Never ceases to make me smile.

With a hectic travel, work and family schedule I find myself reading more and more magazine content as it allows me to dive in and out. The content is very targeted, allowing me to read based upon my particular mood. Feel like learning, HBR. Gadget minded … T3. Love the application.

The interesting thing is that in the era of massive decline of the print industry, I have never had so many magazine subscriptions or spent so much money in my life. In the past, I was maxed out at 2 or 3 – now I have 12. A testament to usability and digital convenience.

Here is my Zinio list, in no particular order:

• Harvard Business Review
• Wired
• Mental Floss
• Esquire
• Men’s Journal
• Inc.
• Fast Company
• GEO
• PC Magazine
• geek
• Popular Science
• T3

My only gripe? I wish I was reading it on a Samsung Android 10 inch Note, not our corporate standard … The iPad.

I miss my Samsung tablet.

In Hong Kong they build buildings with bamboo scaffolds. In Canada, you climb up the sides of a scaffold. In Japan .. it as one would expect.

Amazing how this product looks suspiciously similar to the Dyson innovation. By Toto Japan. Mitsubishi has one too.

As seen in a Japanese parking lot. I have been warned, in a rather contradictory manner.

Fortunately, Fuji-san finally came out and I happened to have my camera (Configuration: Canon 5D Mark III, 50mm f/1.2, shot handheld HDR).

The rest of the view. At the bottom is a huge cemetery. I need to get there.

If you look into the background, you will notice that Tokyo is ringed by mountains.

I will miss the sunsets ……

Awhile back we were stuck in a rainstorm in Shibuya. I did not have my camera with me and have vowed that one day, I will get back to a very specific alley to get a shot in the rain as it was an amazing site.

That being said, a few shots in a similar vein, from the same area but on the wrong street (smile).

The trees have an interesting texture in black and white.

At a crossing. Not “the” crossing. But one of them.

And one oddity. I don’t know if I would buy from this shop. I found the name a bit creepy.

Up close.

I made a quick stop to pick up some sparkling sake at this shop. I have become a big fan of sparkling sake over the last couple weeks. It is a very light summer drink and perfect for sitting out on a deck or in a backyard with a low alcohol content (5%ish).

Reminds me of the wonderful sparkling cider that we happened across in Normandy.

To get to the cider I had to walk down this stairwell which was a case of the “old” and the “new”. On one side was a gleaming metal wall (protecting a construction site), on the other an old wall with a very old stone stairwell. It wasn’t until afterwards that I noticed the mirror at the top … in case you were walking around the corner too fast (smile).

One more old and new.

An interesting stroll. Need to do that more often.

Thanks for dropping by.

A few strong climbing roses.

On a different tangent, they have the oddest names for hair salons in Tokyo. I have yet to figure out how these two words relate to cutting hair (smile).

I would sign a petition to privatize the CBC. It is an out-dated institution where tax funding produces primarily low grade content in an inefficient manner … just like where the idea came from.

$1B better spent elsewhere.

I cannot imagine standing in a circle, holding hands and bouncing up and down to the cadence of a random teammate with people on my hockey team … ever.