Original article and photos moved here.

As Johnny Hillwalker would say 99% of Japan is Buddhist and 99% of Japan is Shinto. I doubt his numbers are accurate but bottom line is most Japanese have two religions, Shinto and something else. Their version of Buddhism is twice removed, meaning Buddhism started in India, got picked up and altered in Tibet & China & Korea, and then picked up in Japan and altered substantially again to a version that would be unacceptable to the folks that embraced it before.

Shinto is spirit worship. Almost every neighborhood you walk through is going to have a nearby Shinto shrine (and perhaps something just sitting on the sidewalk). Shinto is a pretty swinging belief system. A temple might have it's major spirit who's dedicated to business success, health, women, whatever, but that spirit will always have friends. So.. there will be mini shrines within the big shrine.. you know, so when friends (other spirits) visit they have some place to chill.

I don't want to get into the whole thing, but Buddhism and Shinto usually go and in hand here (like Buddhism and Dao in China). In Japan though, Buddhism is mostly concerned with what happens to you after you die. You go the Buddhist Temple to honor dead ancestors, have funerals, and such. You go to a Shinto Shrine to ask for favors. Many folks also have Buddhist shrines in the home to honor dead relatives.

The Torii (like a little gate), from yesterday's photo that I was in, is a sure sign of a Shinto shrine. Here's a little one from Nara.

Nice pictures, never made it down to that part of the country. I did however spend a fair amount of time in Nagano Pref. visiting the different onzens.
Natto aru?
umai jan na! Naru heso!

Nice pics. How come the weather is always drab when you go on vacation?

DMS wrote:


Work.

This vacation should have been in March or April but I had a huge project that was behind schedule and needed finished. So, I finished it and told Buffy she needed to give me a week window pronto or I was going to go somewhere by myself. The selection of location and the reservations happened all of three weeks before getting on the plane. ... which is fairly close to how most of my vacations happen.

My fall vacation usually happens whenever I'm pretty certain that the state budget is going to be completed.

It's rainy season in Japan right now, which SUCKS. The temperature is fine, only like 70-73 degrees but it's like 99% humidity, so it's sweat city. The rain is off and on. It's roughly comparable to my Yangshuo (China) visit last October (plus rain, minus rice burning), but not even close to the absolute HELL of the trip to New Oreans I made with Robb, Favetti, Rickmode & Jimness one year (it was like 100-105 degrees and 99% humidity).

I see what you mean. Keep posting those pics and stories tho. How is the hotel? What do you have for breakfast and stuff. You watched any japanese tv yet.

all the hotels in Japan are like this!!!!!
http://www.yesicanusechopsticks.com/capsule/morephotos.htm

Not really but this is a real budget kind of room:laugh:


Or you can go to a love hotel

DMS wrote:


I'll finish the pics & stories eventually, like usual.

Since Buffy was going on this trip we got an actual hotel. By myself I would have stayed at a hostel. You actually meet interesting people at hostels, rarely happens at hotels. Anyway...

The hotel was very nice... the Hotel Monterey Kyoto. Hotel Monterey is a fairly big chain. It's very snazzy throughout and even has a Christian chapel INSIDE the hotel (getting married in a Christian church is all the rage in Japan, even if neither of the parties is Christian). The hotel service is painfully attentive with all the bowing, "arigatou gozaimasu!", and such. The rooms are... tiny... but I think you get that throughout Japan unless you go really big budget.

The rack rate for the room was somewhere around $250 a night, but I paid nowhere near that. What happened was that I could absolutely NOT find two f***ing round trips for less than $4000 that week. ... BUT .... I could find two round trips and hotel rooms for $3000. Go figure. I took it. Still an expensive trip though.

Breakfast can be a tough one during a trip, especially somewhere like Japan. When you wake up, you NEED to eat. If you don't know a place locally to eat, you eat at the hotel. Hotel food in Japan, and other places, is ridiculously expensive. I don't like to break my budget on one meal, even IF it is the "most important meal of the day".

I brought a jar of peanut butter and plastic utensils. I found a nearby grocer that sold bananas. Done. Breakfast for less than a dollar a day, or at least enough to tide you over until you get out and find some real local food. That's how I roll bitches.

The only TV I watched was in the morning and generally it was BBC World. Unfortunately, all they wanted to talk about was Zimbabwe 24x7. What is the deal with that? You'd think it was still a colony. FUCK ZIMBABWE! I brought X-Files Season One on DVD.

Ojive wrote:


Love hotels are a way of life. The houses are small here, even for well off folks. The young ones AND the old ones living with family got to get their groove on somewhere. It's a useful adaptation to population density.... and for business men with money to burn.

JBMoney wrote:


Hotels are the way I roll bitches. Who wants to meet interesting people when on vacation anyway? Not me, I like to stay in my own bubble and keep the conversation elevator style.

^^
|||
Cruise Princess