Lotus flower in Nara

The lotus flower are in full bloom now at Kikoji-temple in Nara city. There are many kind of lotus.

Lotus came over from the Asian Continent to Japan in old days.
It has much to do with Buddhism. Lotus bear from muddy water and bloom clean,beautiful flowers. It symbolize wisdom and mercy of Buddha.
Lotus flower reminds me of a story for children of Japan.   Lotus flower, mercy and wisdom of Buddha appear in the story.

The story begins like this " One day Buddha was walking around a lotus pond in heaven. All lotus flowers are pure white and there is sweet fragrance  from the golden heart of lotus flower around there. It's just in the morning in heaven now and Buddha looked down from among lotus leaves in that pond. There is bottom of hell just far below lotus pond of heaven. So you  can see clearly hell through the pond water like crystal.

Let me continue this story.
Buddha sees Kandata, who is so villain.  He is struggling in hell with a lot of villains.
He has done only one good thing  though he is a villain. He has helped life of a spider long ago.  Remembering it, Buddha decides to get him heaven and hung a thread from heaven to hell in the  far below.
Kandata starts to climb up the thread hardly. Keeping climbing the thread for long time, he looked down below accidentally. A large number of villains are climbing up the thread,  following him.

He freezed because he thought the thread will be broken  by weight of a large number of villains.
So he shouted at those followers  loudly "This thread is for only me. Get down! Get down!"

Right after the shouting, the thread snaped at just a little upper part of his grip.
He and all villains fell down into the dark hell far below.
While here in heaven which is fragrant with lotus flowers.

Yes, this story is well-known " The thread" written by Akutagawa Ryunosuke.

        47 stone image of Buddha are following lotus. Some kind of Buddha are engraved on stones

Here in Nara, many lotus flowers color World Heritage Site.

Lotus leaves shed raindrops well. Raindrops roll on lotus leaves as you know and fall down with dirt of leaves. So lotus leaves always clean though they are planted in muddy pond. This effect of self-cleaning is applied to the newest technique that guard roof or walls of buildings from dirt adhesion, according to a paper.
                                                                        
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                 .Don't feel sick looking at this photo.
The eclosion of cicada.

It came out of below the earth on the next night after typhoon hit Japan. It's good the eclosion was not took place on the night of typhoon.

             Splitting shell's back, it started to come out from the upper half of the body.

I found it at the stairs build by cement in our garden not trees  at night.
Cicada live for 3or 17 years . This is longer life among insects. But cicada live only short period after coming out of below the earth. So  it recalls sense of mortality to people in Japan before.  Cicada representative of pathos.
While in China, cicada is symbol of revival, I heard.

After coming out all the body, it grabs the shell with its forelegs to stretch wings.

It took about 30 minutes from the upper picture to the bottom picture. And the next morning it had already flown away ,leaving the shell and it must be the one of them that are singing loudly in our garden now.

                         
                 Thank you for visiting my blog.

               Secretly   :      Mizutani small shrine among deep forest in Nara Park. Lotus Flowers are blooming near here,too.

                  
                   Hello   :   We were met by him at Mizutani small shrine. They are hosts of the forest in Nara Park.








                    

Do you like Japanese Green Tea?

Green tea has been mixed up with  Japanese life deeply from long long ago. Maybe I can't  live without green tea.

After driving  hillside of south edge of Kyoto prefecture along Wazuka river for about 30 minutes, we can see the vast Japanese tea field ,which is home of Uji-cya is called Wazuka Chagenkyo. Uji-cya is one of excellent Japanese green teas in Japan. Tea-field expands  on slopes and  stretchs about 6km both sides of the river.  Ridges of tea-trees look like green waves or patchwork. This tea fields  in Wazuka-cyo were  listed in  Cultural Scenery of Kyoto  lately. 

dynamic shape

 From late spring to early summer farmers pick shoots of tea trees. They steam them and dry while shaping like needle. This is Sencha-tea( a kind of  green tea). Sencha-tea is roasted. This is Houjicha-tea(a kind of green tea) The shoots are  grown underneath a cover  and are steamed , dried and grinded into green powder.This is Matcha-tea( a kind of green tea). We use it at tea ceremony.

 Unfortunately  when we visited there, tea-picking was almost over.
Speaking of tea-picking, there is a tea-picking song. This song expresses a scene of tea-picking of farmers. When I was a child, this song was in the  music-textbook of elementary school. We learned it. 

 Many Japanese  beautiful scenes in the four seasons were expressed  by beautiful Japanese words were in the textbook in those days.  I like these songs. Some words of them may not be used now,I wonder? And I wonder how many songs are left in a textbook now?  We used to play Otedama,singing  this song.



These leaves will be picked  for pet- bottles from now.



The trees this side are cut green leaves and its brownish is tea trees.

At first, a high priest of the temple near here planted seeds of Green tea at Wazuka in Kamakura era.( about 800 years ago). During Edo era( about 400 years ago),this place became dominion of Imperial House and those tea were delivered for Kyoto Imperial Palace.





Persimmon trees are left among tea  trees. This is feature here .


Farmers cut trees of mountains by hatchets and cultivated there and planted tea trees. When vitality of tea trees declined, they replaced to vigorous trees. They repeated this unremittingly from ancestor to descendant. Green tea field blend with farmers village. So we can see here where green tea field unifies the life of farmers. That is to say , here is a typical Satoyama (in Japanese).




Scene of Satoyama




We had a cup of Sencha tea (a kind of green tea) at the  information. Its color was greenish golden and tasted a little bit sweet.




tea leaves



In this season farmers cut tea-trees low so that they can work easily. Those leaves are not processed for tea.

 



Big patchwork


                      
                              


extra appearance from Nara park