It’s very clear today, so I’ve visited Takasumi jinja(高住神社) for Momijigari(紅葉狩) as usual.



It’s very clear today, so I’ve visited Takasumi jinja(高住神社) for Momijigari(紅葉狩) as usual.
Tonight is Izayoi (十六夜) this year. I took a picture of the Moon again. During the daytime it was cloudy with occasional showers, but at the night the Moon is clear.
The declaration of flowering(開花宣言). For what? For cherry blossoms in my garden this year he-he. I’ll show you the photo. See the right image, which has only one blossom open. Today was very sunny and it will be sunny tomorrow. So, the peak bloom date is soon.
On another right image you see plants like writing brushes, which are tsukushi(土筆). Tsukushi is one of spring greens and eatable. They say scrambled eggs with tsukushi are good though I don’t like them so much.
Yesterday, i.e. 2015 December 13, Hanyū Yuzuru(羽生結弦) had his third Grand Prix Final title in a row in Barcelona, Spain.
For the 2015–16 season, he used a certain music called Seimei for the free skating. The music was took from the film soundtrack of Onmyōji(陰陽師). I don’t love this as free skating music very much. Because I love it as the music of the ending dance of the film, and Hanyū’s skating broke the dance image though his skating was excellent.
Tonight is Nochi no tsuki (後の月). I took pictures of the Moon. At Sep. 27, I mean at Otsukimi this year, I failed to take pictures of dark patches on the Moon. One of my reasons of failures is that night was cloudy, but most biggest reason is my new digital camera, DSC-WX220, which I don’t use longer enough.
The ume (梅) blossoms are still in full bloom in my garden (fig.1 white, fig.2 red), but I can see peach and apricot blossoms here and there in my town after 桃の節句 (peach festival) (fig.3 ひな飾り by Tirol-Choco, it’s a chocolate box (^o^). ).
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All told, I wanted to recite one of spring poems and chose 春風 (Spring wind) by 白居易(樂天). How do you feel?
亦 薺 櫻 一
道 花 杏 枝
春 楡 桃 先
風 莢 梨 發
爲 深 次 苑
我 村 第 中
來 裏 開 梅
If you read the poem, read top to bottom and right to left.
Tonight is “Otsukimi“. Yesterday, I had very clear moon, but cloudy tonight (around 21:00).
We have a folklore that says a rabbit lives on the moon and it pounds mochi. A song for you about rabbits and the moon. I apologize for the noise in advance. After upgrading to Windows 8.1, I cannot use a genuine sound driver for NJ2100. The noise maybe depends on it.
Now, I can see beautiful Full Moon. But, almost Sep 9.
Today is Risshū(立秋), so I was going to clean the patrimonial graveyard in this morning. Actually, this is for Obon(お盆). Most of Japanese do the cleaning of the graveyard for Obon still now, but all of them do not do it on Risshū. It is my family custom.
It’s sunny day today. I cleaned the graveyard from 6:30 to 8:00. The period we feel cooler than around noon.
Today, Tanabata(七夕). But we have a rainy day.
Do you know Tanabata(七夕)? Tanabata(七夕) is one of our traditional annual events. Tanabata is たなばた(棚機) and it means a loom/looms. We usually use 七夕 as たなばた. 七夕 literally means “Evening of the seventh”, which was celebrated on July 7 of the traditional Japanese lunar-solar calendar originally though which is celebrated on July 7 of Gregorian calendar now. When we write 七夕, we also read it shichi-seki. Shichi is seven and seki is evening.
Tanabata(七夕) is a star festival. According to legend, Amanogawa(天の川) separates the lovers(Orihime and Hikoboshi), and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the June 7. If it rains on Tanabata(七夕), the two lovers have to wait until another year to meet. Amanogawa(天の川) is Milky Way, but it literally means Sky River. Yes, a river. So if it rains, the river swells. Hence, to hold this event on July 7 of Gregorian calendar is a little bit silly or very mean because the day is the midst of the rainy season in Japan. Besides, the seventh on Gregorian calendar doesn’t always have a first quarter moon. If it has a full moon, Tanabata(七夕) is in a real mess because it is a star festival.
When we shed old calender, such things like above happen more times. Tanabata(七夕) and Obon(お盆) were two big events in July of the traditional Japanese lunar-solar calendar. Now, this Gregorian calendar days, one is still in July and another is in August. The two event are still alive in Japan but they don’t have strong relations to Moon anymore.