Wednesday 14 november 2018
Naoshima

To lighten the mood, and because I have too many photos of shrines, temples, and gardens, this post is a collection of various fluffy stuff I like. No history of Japan has been mangled in this episode.

I have a collection of gargoyle photos from trips to Europe, and I now have some furious additions. Here’s one:

from the roof of a temple.

I also have a collection of manhole cover photos, and I’ll share some swell new ones with you. I don’t know exactly what the men are doing to/with the bulls here:

but I like the detail anyway. This guy was all over Kurashiki:

but this one, also from Kurashiki, is prettier:

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At fhe serious risk of sacrilege, for which I apologize in advance, I’ll include a couple of shots from a Buddhist temple above the well-known Shinto shrine at Itsukushima. Someone was apparently concerned about the statues’ comfort, because many of them had hats:

I also liked this guy, who may be world-weary:

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We walked through a great open-air museum with typical traditional buildings. Sometimes the area is bothered by boars, so be careful:

And if you see a Bunraku puppet show, look out for this villain:

These two figures had us worried:

but frogs always make things OK:

So all is well.