Pat's Blog

We three bloggers for Ashita Sanuki’s blog site were asked to cover events in Takamatsu’s Tamamo Park on Sunday. Hardly work, this was a pleasure for myself, my Chinese and Korean colleagues and we loved every minute of it.




That bonsai was practiced as an art form internationally I already knew, but what was surprising was the number of people who are deeply involved with this and is their passion.

http://www.internationalbonsai.com/





The countries represented were from many places in Europe, China, Asia, the US and Australia. They experienced training, demonstrations and as guests the warmth of the professional bonsai artists in Kagawa. The sub theme for the ASPAC event is ‘Friendship and a Better Future’ and in these shaky times, here-here to that …

http://www.aspac-takamatsu.jp

The exhibits were to put it simply, breathtaking. Some of the most beautiful bonsai I’ve ever seen. The BCI or Bonsai Club International were strongly represented with international groups and the parks and exhibition centers in very tasteful old Japanese buildings which were full of foreign guests. I took a photo of a bonsai group from South Africa at the entrance and met and interviewed many people from the US. Everyone praised the high standard of bonsai and the warmth of the welcome and the facilities. Even the small country Slovakia had a group turn up.

http://www.bonsai-bci.com/




The three main locations of this event are Tamamo Park right near the Takamatsu Central Station, Kozai a smaller town on the outskirts of Takamatsu renown for bonsai throughout Japan and the very beautiful and world famous Ritsurin Park in Takamatsu.

http://www.pref.kagawa.jp/ritsurin/index_e.html





My only wish is that I’d been allowed to take more photos of the actual bonsai themselves. I did hear one bonsai and not a very big one, sold for over 100,000,000 yen which is about a million $ US. Golly! Were all in the wrong business … This event will come back again everyone said and I’ll be the first in line to see it as it really is that good.
I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with more news from this interesting part of the world and please keep all those card and letters coming in.


  

Fall is here and it’s the perfect time to be out an about, so with camera and fellow blogger Cathy Hirano from Cathy’s Blog (please Google Cathy’s Blog Takamatsu and it’ll come up), we went out to cover one day of the 2 day annual event on October Sunday 16th.

Bushozan is an easy 320-yen commute from Takamatsu Chikko Station, just across the road from Takamatsu JR Central Station and then by the Kotoden train, which is something between a train and a tramcar. A leisurely twenty minutes and we were both at the Bushozan Station and in time for the parade and festivities. The previous evening there’d been a fireworks display.




Cathy will explain more about the historical aspects of this great festival and I went mainly to look at the color, samurai sword fights, chambara the staple of all samurai movies, also costumes, hairstyles and pageantry. The locals were clearly in a festival mood and so I’ve tried to capture a bit of this with photos as an incentive for yourselves to visit, so please enjoy them and let me know if you’d like more specific details.






The Daimyo’s (Feudal Lord) times must have been colorful if not a little precarious given the moody samurai strolling about and not taking any cheek from anyone. There’s a strong ambience of things past in Bushozan with it’s beautiful temple, Edo period buildings and of course the Daimyo’s visit to the same of which the parade is a reenactment. A couple of professional actors from Kyoto were there on the day to show swordsmanship in the streets. They were accompanied by a great many locals dressed up in period costumes and including a couple of foreign residents, which was nice to see. I asked them where they’d gotten the period costumes and they’d previously rented from Eiga Mura (Movie Village) in Kyoto but now had another source.

It all looked pretty convincing to me, with guttural insults and curses, loud shouts, grunts all with swishing of swords.





I was very taken in by the Samurai’s use of firearms and couldn’t help but wonder what an awesome sight the first firearms must have been to these people when they first arrived in Japan.




The Japanese quickly copied and then refined them of course and made them a part of their armory. This must have really been a game changer in those times. It’s pretty hard to duck a gunshot or deflect with a sword so it’s my guess that whoever got them first called the shots pardon the pun. No speed loading though with a fizzling rope as the lighter.

The festival is a must see for any foreign tourists, runs a full two days and the parade finishes up in the new and very beautiful Bushozan park.








Please check out Cathy’s blog for more on this and I’ll be back soon so keep all those cards n’ letters coming in! The comments box has been very lonely lately …