Tane District located in Nagahama City, Shiga Prefecture, is roughly the geographic center of Japan. To get the idea of the location; 180 minutes traveling by train from Tokyo, 65 minutes from Kyoto, 72 minutes from Nagoya, and 90 minutes from Fukui. The district is mostly rice fields surrounded by the cedar forest on the…
A stroll in the temple grounds is a relief from that of a bustling Tokyo streets, here at Kuhon-butsu temple there are various old trees such as a kaya estimated to be over 700 years old (a natural monument), and a huge Ginko tree (ichi, a natural monument) also referred to as a Bodhi tree,…
Here in Japan, almost every locale has at least one festival or matsuri in late summer/early autumn, usually related to the rice harvest. Even here in suburban Tokyo, where local shopping district holds such matsuri for two days, one for children and one for the real adult matsuri. It depends on the type of matsuri,…
