Well, here I am sitting in front of the keyboard again, shaken, and somewhat stirred. Yes, I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later and it happened this morning just before 8am…an earthquake. It was centred around 30kms away from here and was quite shallow, which meant that, even though it wasn’t overly strong on the richter scale (5.5), the movement was strong. Luckily I had just finished my morning cup of tea, so my caffeine levels were up and I was able to get moving quite fast!!

My first thought was to get the cats to safety (because I knew Craig was already moving towards the back door), which for Serena and Ziggy wasn’t too difficult, since they are used to having harnesses on and their leads are set up outside (although Ziggy was somewhat panicked and hard to hold on to). Zowie was another issue – while we have a cat carrier, it was upstairs, in a locked cupboard. Thankfully it wasn’t too serious or too long, so it didn’t become an issue. We also realised we were underprepared for such an event and will have to put together an emergency box, just in case.

The house rode it out quite well and I noticed just before the shaking stopped the whole house moved underneath me which was unnerving but showed the rubber footing worked. The light in the kitchen was swinging freely and it could have meant that other things might have moved as much and taken a tumble, but not much did. All pictures remained on the walls, with some a little skewed; Gamera and another of my figurines took a tumble off the speakers; the fan took a fall; the metal cat in the window of the staircase area took a tumble; and the light fitting in room 1 was left askew.

We found out that our upper kitchen cupboards have a special locking device to stop them from opening in the event of an earthquake (discovered when we couldn’t open them after it had all finished…) and the gas automatically turns off at the meter box if an earthquake is over 5 in magnitude (which I found out when I went to have a shower an hour later and there was no hot water). Very much a learning experience. I also learned that the worst thing was not knowing how strong it was going to get and how long it would go (I suspect it was around 15 seconds). After it stopped, it was then a case of – was that a precursor…?

Moving backwards in time to the happier times of the week, we had some of our neighbours over for a brunch on Sunday, 10 June. There is no concept of brunch here, so it took a while to explain it, but they did enjoy the meal – a vegan brunch, of course. Before we ate, we showed them around the minshuku part of our home, which they really liked. They asked if we would have Japanese guests if they wanted to stay – which has been asked before and we have, of course, answered in the affirmative.

When we sat down to actually eat, the two women started picking up the chopstick rests (fish we had bought in Japan years ago) and looking them over. Turns out they were actually made by them!!! Three of our four guests work in the pottery behind our home (relatives of the owner, who live onsite) and they had fired them and hand painted them. They even found a slight defect on one of the fish, which was so small we had never noticed it. They seemed somewhat perturbed by this as they go through a very strict quality control before sale. Anyway, it seems we had bought homing fish, determined to return to where they came from 😊. We also had one other set of rests which they identified as theirs as well.

 Homing fish?

On Friday we went to the first of two festivals we attended this week. Known as the Aoba Matsuri, it was held at the large Buddhist temple closest to our home. It is held on the 15^th of June to commemorate the founder of Shingon Buddhism, Kōbō Daishi (Kukai, who I have previously mentioned), and to celebrate the return of those who have just finished weeks of shugendō training on Mt. Ōmine in Nara. Shugendō means ‘the way to spiritual power through discipline’ and involves the monks undertaking rituals of courage and hardship in nature to develop themselves, such as climbing overhanging rocks using only a chain, or dangling head first over a 60 metre cliff! If only I could be a part of that, because I so love to hang over the edges of cliffs, etc…

 Bonfire covered early on

The actual ceremony was slightly different to what we expected, which may have been due to the heavy rain that had been falling early in the day, but it was still great, with the culmination of all the rites being the lighting of a bonfire. The procession to the area where the fire was lit involved the head monk walking with his assistants past all of the monks who had been through shugendō, who were lining the way and blowing into conch shell trumpets. These trumpets were blown so as to hit three separate notes and were quite loud.

Prior to lighting the fire there were some Buddhist rites, undertaken by the head monk, and then some other rites involving a long handled axe, a small sword, some wooden blocks and a bow and arrows. The latter was knocked and shot at each of the four corners of the clearing (literally – arrows which had small rubber balls on the tips were actually shot off). Then the fire was lit, with much ceremony. I don’t know what was actually on the inside of the bonfire – the outside was covered in green pine cuttings – but it took off and became very hot with lots of smoke very quickly. They were both fanning the fire, with very large fans, and throwing water on it, perhaps to make sure it kept going long enough.

Once it was fully ablaze they threw on wooden blocks with wishes written on them and then the monks came over to the crowd and asked for items to take to the fire. I had no idea what they were going to do until one man handed over his carry bag and his hat, which they took over to the fire. My first thought was that it was something the man wanted thrown on the holy fire, but it turned out that the monk just waved it around in front of the fire while chanting. After that, everyone started handing over their bags, along with both Craig and I. So, we have now had our respective bags blessed by the monks using the holy fire (hopefully this will help move our licence application along!). It really was a spectacle and definitely worth going to – in fact I would go again if the opportunity arises.

On Sunday just past, we went to the Ajisai (Hydrangea) Matsuri at Fujinomori Jinja. The shrine has two large gardens filled with hydrangeas, which were beautiful to see, but the main reason we went there was because the taiko group we were considering joining was going to perform (it is their home shrine). (OMG, as I’m writing this a small aftershock just happened…)

Ok, so I’m back at the keyboard. I decided to give up following that aftershock yesterday, it was getting late and I decided to have a cooling (relaxing) beverage and check on the kids. It had been around 8½ hrs between the quakes, so the kids had relaxed and then when the aftershock happened it set them off again. Overnight we had five more aftershocks with the biggest at around 12:30 am. This one got us out of bed. Anyway, apart from Godzilla and one of his mates falling off the speakers, everything was ok, however this really scared the kids and Zowie went under the couch, where he stayed for the next 10 hours. Now, even the sound and rumble of the trains going through the tunnels is scaring him. Unfortunately, the aftermath of the first quake was four dead and a fair amount of damage. All of the people were killed by something falling on them, either a wall or a bookcase.

Returning to the matsuri, the first performance of the day was a Bugaku dance, which involves very slow and precise movements. To me, it is somewhat reminiscent of the movements in Noh performances. The dancers wear intricate traditional Buddhist costumes, which usually include equally beautiful masks. After this, there was a demonstration of traditional sword making, using a hand pumped bellows and fire pit – hard work!

Next, there was a Kemari ball game, the object of which is to keep a ball off the ground, with players kicking it so it stays in the air. They call out to let each other know who is going to kick it next, although that doesn’t always work! This game harks back to the middle of the 7^th century CE. The players here appeared to be Shinto priests (I recognised some of them) and they were wearing their traditional clothing, which appeared at times to make it a bit harder! It looked like fun, somewhat physical and it was fun to watch.

Finally, the taiko group played. We knew the songs they played from having been to a few of their rehearsals. It was a warm day and you could see they were getting quite hot – it was outside, although they were on a raised dais with a roof. Interestingly, despite my wish to play taiko here, seeing them perform made me realise that I would prefer to be with a group that had either a larger repertoire, or that changed what they played each year – and funnily enough, I realised I do enjoy a certain amount of improvisation!!!!

…and on that beat, it’s cheers for now!

 Me trying to blend in…

 Lotus flowers very soon!

Following my offer of assistance a glove arrives!!

A statue without pants (><)