Analog Digitization: Akita!! あぁ来た..

I must first apologize for the extremely delayed post.. after all I did plan to blog every night during the trip, but it seems that the schedule was extremely packed.. On the second night, we checked in at our hotel at a midnight. Yes, midnight.. One quick soak in the onsen and off to bed. Practically every night we had about 5 hours of sleep.. Some less, as they had what we call HTHT, heart to heart talk.. usually only applies to girls :P

In any case, back to the topic.. Yes, on the second day we left for Akita prefecture. But before that, we made a quick stop at Cuhsonji in Hiraizumi, Iwate. It recently managed to be conferred as a UNESCO world heritage site.. Its a pretty place, apart from the fact that its really crowded.. which totally spoils the atmosphere. I like my temples to be serene, quite and deserted.. not like Disneyland.. It makes for bad photographs. And yes, I have many bad photographs. Many. You see, the problem is like we don't have much time at each place we visit, and the fact that we get caught in traffic jams makes things worse. How am I suppose to take pretty pictures when the moment I take my eyes away, my entire group disappears?! Sheesh.. or in Japanese, まったくだ！

We photographers need time to shoot. Not only time to shoot, but time to absorb the sights and sounds in order to identify what makes the place, the place. And that is not something done in 10 min..

Hidden Shrine, Chusonji

Hiraizumi, Iwate, Japan

Me in front of the museum at Chusonji, because someone wanted to play with my camera..

Standard tourist/brochure shot of Chusonji, except that as you can see.. its flooded with people..

An altar along a path

Omikuji, Chusonji

Hiraizumi, Akita, Japan

Omikuji, known as fortune telling paper in English. I thought they only tie up the bad ones..

The building where they used to keep all the scriptures.. I don't think they keep it there any more..

View from the half way point of Chusonji, yes, it is situated on top of a pretty steep hill..

Lunch at base camp

After lunch, we moved on to Akita International University.. Damn.. the architecture there looks so pretty.. makes NUS/NTU look like a slump.. and SMU outdated.. Really, we should invest more in quality construction.

Akita International University Entrance

Lecture Block

More pretty buildings

Admin Block, looks likes the school Card Captor Sakura attends.. haha

Library

Interesting roof construction. The whole place smells of Ikea.. haha.

Japanese construction tend to use a lot of wood due to the large amount of forests they have. Apparently after WWII, the government thought they would need a lot of wood for construction and went on a massive pine/cedar tree planting spree.. Of course, then came along concrete.. Did I mentioned how I love those pre-fab concrete blocks?? Singapore construction should really learn form this.. With the kind of labourers we are hiring to build buildings, if they can't layer cement over bricks nicely and smoothly without making it patchy or uneven, they would be better off using pre fab concrete slabs.. Looks so much prettier..

And did I mention how pretty their library is? Its not like its their national library or their prefectural library.. Its a pretty deserted library in a relatively unknown university in the middle of no where and we have a library that probably looks more epic than our national library.. What else can I say. Reminds me of this museum at the base of Kirishima, Kagoshima which was practically in the middle of no man's land and it was one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen.. Man! The Japanese sure love to leave hidden gems here and there.. Like Pokemon, gotta find them all!! haha

Very pretty library.. I could study in here all day.. Our local libraries should look like this.

Trouble getting A for exams? Cannot concentrate at home? Here is the place for you!! Even high school kids come here to mug..

Skylight, Library, Akita International University

Akita, Japan

Japanese Mentality, Library, Akita International University

Akita, Japan

Our guide from the university giving us a farewell speech.
We had some group interaction with some of the students studying there, but there isn't much to say about that..
See the 2 pretty girls in yukata on the right? They are our group leaders!! The one in right is the leader, we call her GYM or Guan Yin Ma also known as the Goddess of Mercy because she looks like one.. hahaha. On her left is her assistant. They're both from the NUS Sado club.. Why they call it that, I wonder..

After that, we moved into town for the Akita Kanto Festival. We don't really have festivals in Singapore.. I think its because it hurts our productivity.. But the closes thing we have I guess is called a pasar malam.. There, their matsuri is like our pasar malam x 20. They even close a stretch of their main road, as wide and as long as Orchard road for the whole evening just for this event.

Japan has bus lanes too!!

Starting point of the festival

Prefectural or City Hall I think..

Banners flapping in the wind

Pretty girls and a random guy :P

During the main event, men try to balance these poles and see who can hold them up the longest!! Supposed to help increase their harvest..


Participants marching to the main venue to the sound of flutes and the beat of drums. As you can see, this team is from Japan Post!! Haha.. Nice!! I love their postal symbol..

Musik Lorry

They sell loads of food and stuff at the matsuri.. But I think Kakigori is the most natsukashii!!! Kakigori is shaved ice with flavoured syrup and natsukashii is nostalgic.. Dai suki desu!!