Ushiku Winery 葡萄酒廠

Happy New Year !

I wish all of you good health and happiness.

This winery was built in 1903, architected by Okada Tokitaro born in 1859, Japanese who studied architecture at the university of London. 

Kamiya Denbei, founder born in 1856 started grape planting, wine-making and bottling with the help of know-how from Bordeaux. This office building has been kept well. 

Today, wine is called "wine". But for a long time, wine had been called "alcoholic grape drink" in Japanese for easy understanding, as no alcoholic had been made from grape.  

This is the two-story winery, also architected by Okada Tokitaro born in 1859, a Japanese who studied architecture at the university of London. 

The bricks were laid in the British style. Old western brick buildings were laid in this or the French one. He architected Mikasa hotel at Karuizawa in 1906, a famous summer resort near Tokyo. 

I was surprised at the bigness of barrels. Everyone who love wine would be satisfied to see these.

Cheers!

A Special Garden

This garden in Ushiku, a city north east of Tokyo, has a big pond, waterfalls and small islands with pine trees. I've heard a garden has two types. One is to see its beauty in front from the one viewpoint, the other is to walk in it and enjoy view changes which would be brought from different viewpoints.

When I visit here in end October, cosmoses were at their best. Many foreign tourists from such as Mainland China, Thailand and Malaysia took pictures with smiles. 

They were receiving a warm autumn sunshine and swaying in the wind.

The big buddha was looking down at us. Many visitors got in a lift inside and went up to the lookout floor which had three oblong windows on its chest. 

This must be a very special view. I've never seen such big lotus petals.

Highland On A Sunny Day

 The clouds over the mountains were likely to bring snow. It didn't on this day.

 Reindeer enjoyed the warm sunshine. It is a only one deer, the nose is covered with hair against cold weather.

 A cow is having grass in front of the two fir trees.

Do they know the arrival of snow?

Uesugi Shrine and Apples in Yamagata

The harvest time came in October at Yamagata in the northern Japan.

 This was the first time for me to taste sweet apples in the orchard.

 I visited Uesugi shrine at Yonezawa.

The gate architecture is beautiful.

 A garden in the shrine area. You can see a small waterfall.

This is a typical Japanese old house.

Matsushima

 In Matsushima, you can see many small islands and rocks covered with pine trees. Long time ago, people in the Kyoto palace reading poems describing beautiful views of Matsushima yearned to visit here. 

 The splendor of this scenery had had a great and long influence on Japanese literature and beauty standards. Having seen many Japanese style gardens, I feel there are three important beauty factors: water, rocks and pine trees. Sometimes white sand was substituted for water.  Matsushima seems to have been a splendid model for garden designers. The left building seems to be positioned aiming at making this view more beautiful.

 The architecture is quite excellent. Every carpenters did their best for this.

The sea and the sky keep pine islands together.

Zuiganji Temple revisited 瑞严寺

 Zuiganji Temple built 400 years ago is one of the most popular view spots in the northern Japan. When I visited this temple 10 years ago, there were many big cedar trees both sides of this road. Their roots were covered with the seawater brought by the tsunami in 2011. 240 cedars were not able to overcome the salt damage and were cut down. Young cedars were planted after this damage.

The green moss was fortunately outside of the seawater coming in.  The color is very impressive.

 The seawater did not reach this gate. You can still see some big cedars standing. I enjoyed the atmosphere having been kept over centuries.

 This is inside of the temple filled with quietness.

 Roof tiles and white walls are beautiful under the autumn sunshine.

 This is a traditional rock garden. A group of moss is an island and the sand expresses the sea.

Preserved Machines Of Hitachi Copper Mine 日鑛紀念館

 This is an iron tower built above the first shaft to transport workers and copper pyrites. Hitachi mining company started excavating this shaft in 1906. It was used until 1981 for 75 years.　第一竪井

 This small electric train was used to carry them.

 This Japanese style house was a office. You can see this type gate in a Japanese garden or in a Ninja movie.　日式木造門，還能在台灣看到。

 This wooden house was built in 1918 to install a big compressor, which sent air to rock drills. This is a big gear wheel for a winch. 

 The belt between two wheels are amazingly big. 巨型壓縮機把空氣送到多數的鑿岩機。

This is the winch for the first shaft. The black motor before you was made by GM in the US.

Unexpected Time Slip

These shops were built at a turnpike travel center near Tokyo, based on an architecture 200 years ago. They sell foods in those days such as Kabayaki (broiled eel in soy sauce), Torinabe (chicken soup), Soba (buckwheat noodle) and variety of souvenirs. If some Ninja worked here and showed their skilled performance, I could be more satisfied. haha!

Trip to Ancient times: Jomon period 縄文時代

The archaeological research center held an exhibition.

 I joined a backyard tour to see Jomon earthenware made 3000 ~ 12000 years ago. When I see these vessels, I always feel the big difference between later Japanese designs we see in Kyoto and this Jomon.

 This was made 4000 years ago. The design is curious. Some says Jomon people shaped snakes on a vessel. Many ancient people around the world felt mysterious power in snakes.

 This must be a human face. Does he wear glasses?

 What is this? For a long time these earthen vessels were treated only as historical records to think about people's life at the time. Recently scholars have realized they are art . 

Do you know this instrument 2000 years ago? This is a fire maker.

This man pushes down the horizontal bar to revolve the perpendicular one. Revolving power is made with a wound string. A board on the floor is burned by friction heat. I tried it, too. It's not easy to make a fire.