Category: Photos & Flicks

Last Sunday saw the unofficial start of Nagano’s most important festival — the Zenkoji Go-kai-chyou. This festival is held only once every seven years at Zenkoji Temple, when a sacred statue of Buddha is revealed to the public. I’m still trying to put together background information on the festival and on Zenkoji, so I’m going to save that for a later post.
The event on Sunday was to celebrate the delivery of a wooden pillar from Matsushiro (a neighboring city) to Zenkoji. The pillar plays a central role in the Go-kai-chyou festival.
I’ve posted photos of the procession and the subsequent ceremony at Zenkoji, along with some videos and sound clips. The video clips will be up on the Photos & Flicks page for a limited time.
The photos are here.

I had a four-day break from work last weekend, so I took a trip up to Hirosaki, a medium-sized city near the northern tip of Honshu, the main island of Japan.
To get there, I bought a special ticket called the seishun juuhachi kippu, which is only offered during periods that coincide with student holidays. For about US$100, the ticket gives you five nonconsecutive days of unlimited travel on local trains. Cheap, but slow. Travel between Nagano and Hirosaki took 15 hours each way. But I had time to spare, I love riding trains, and the scenery was great.
I rode on six different trains, taking me through many cities and towns along the way:
Nagano –> Arai
Arai –> Niigata
Niigata –> Murakami
Murakami –> Sakata
Sakata –> Akita
Akita –> Hirosaki
Much of the trip between Niigata and Akita was right along the coast of the Sea of Japan. The weather was spectacular and the views were great as the trains traveled through small coastal villages.
Through the mountains between Nagano and Arai, and then again between Akita and Hirosaki, there was still a lot of snow. In Hirosaki, banks of snow remained, but it was melting quickly in the warm, spring sunshine.
I visited Hirosaki because it’s where my great-grandfather lived in the last years of the 1800s. There is a museum in Hirosaki that contains family photos, letters, diaries and more. My grandmother visited the city in 1991 along with her four children for the dedication of the museum. I’ll be posting more about this part of my visit to Hirosaki soon.
I’ve added two photo albums of the trip:
Local trains to Hirosaki:
I love trains.
Nagano to Hirosaki:
Scenery as seen from many trains, and photos of Hirosaki.
I’ve also added nine video clips taken during the trip.

Went to Matsumoto last night for a party at a small bar near the station. DJs, dancing and drinking. Caught the 8:40pm local train from Nagano with Rachel. Angelique came north from Shio Jiri, and we met up with Dean in Matsumoto.
Matsumoto Party photos here.