Mount Chokai this morning

The view of Mount Chokai is excellent this morning.

Amahage alert!

On the evening of January 6th, we went to a small onsen ryokan in Torisaki district, at the very north western tip of Yamagata Prefecture.  Three small meals were arranged in front of the kamidana.  Amahage, Yuza-machi's New Year demons, were coming!

I saw this traditional event for the first time in 1992, when I worked in Yuza as an Assistant English Teacher on the JET Programme and spotted some information about this year's event on Yamagata's tourist portal here.  Amahage are similar to Namahage, which are found in nearby Akita Prefecture.  In 1992, they came for naughty children and lazy people.  As the members of Yuza Sashiko who were with us are very industrious, we felt quite safe, but...

 We could hear the drum nearby, announcing the Amahage's arrival.  They travel on foot.

The Amahage feast!

On the way out, they spotted Yuza Sashiko members...

Maybe we all didn't sew enough sashiko!  I'd lost my voice the day before, so I couldn't even scream or shout properly.  But we escaped!

One of the Amahage's shimenawa ropes was given to the ryokan, for good luck in 2017.

Here are the ropes from previous years.

A TV crew were following them around.

It is lucky to keep a bundle of the 'lost' straw.

A lucky escape!

The tradition is reminiscent of many of our New Year good luck traditions, such as the Hooden Horse in Kent.  The first photo set is from the 2007 Plough Tour in Speldhurst and the horse is with Hartley Morris Men.

From the Plough Tour 2009, two pubs near Chiddingstone Causeway.

Meeting old friends around Yuza

One of the really nice things about coming back to Yuza is meeting friends when we've got out of touch.  Before the internet, keeping in touch with many Japanese friends was difficult for me, because I can't read and write Japanese and many of them can't write a lot of English easily.  Also I moved house several times over the last few years.  I was so happy to meet Kyoko Abe again when we came back to the Sanno Club after lunch on Thursday.  Kyoko retired as a teacher when I lived in Yuza and we used to share our interest in lace crochet!  Following crochet patterns was how I started to understand Japanese craft book diagrams.  We lost touch since about 2000.

Kyoko gave me many pieces of kimono fabric in the 1990s, and a lot of the centre squares in my 'Time and Again' quilt were her fabrics.  She recongised them like old friends - the grey one with the pink and white squares was from her.

She told me this pink kimono silk was made into a blouse.

This wool muslin with the asanoha pattern, one of my favorite fabrics in the quilt, was one of her family's fabrics.

I am sure this silk was her's too.

This piece came from the end of a kimono tanmono (roll) and shows the shading at the end, plus part of the manufacturer's name.

She was very interested in all our work.  The 3-D balls in sashiko are one of Yuza Sashiko's specialities - they have a play ball inside.

I hope I can meet Kyoko again next time I visit Yuza.  She gave me many of her family's kimono, which have such an interesting history, and I have used them in my kimono talks so many times.  So I would like to say a big THANK YOU to Kyoko Abe!

Other friends I haven't seen for a long time include Keiko Abe, who started me off with Koginzashi, and Takahashi Obiya, who runs the shop where I learned to sew kimono.  These are all people I feel gave me a significant direction change with the work I do.  It's great to meet them again after so long.  I bought some tenugui towels at the Obiya shop this time and I'm planning to use them in quilts.  The Utamaro bijin ukiyo-e handkerchief I used for 'Shonai no Yume', my second quilt, came from Obiya too.

Wednesday around Yuza

After visiting the exhibition at the Sanno Club in the morning, we explored various places around Yuza with my friend from Yuza Board of Education, Hideo Abe (he's now the teaching supervisor for the JET teacher, and perfect for the job).  First we went to the Aoyama House, one of my favourite old houses around Yuza and always on the 'must-see' list.  There are photos of my visit in May here.  The house is always decorated appropriately for the season, so now the summer screens are installed instead of the paper shoji in some rooms.

The summer noren are gauzy, probably asa (hemp).

The kakejiku scrolls are chosen for a feeling of coolness, like this waterfall.

This beautiful summer irotomesode kimono seemed to be in perfect condition, despite being 100 years old.

 

The Aoyama house was used recently for some of the locations in the first part of the movie remake of 'Oshin'.  There were some clothes where you could dress up like someone out of the movie.  The straw raincoats are so heavy.

 I dressed Emily for the part.

The house has a very fine example of a typical Shonai roof style.

In one of the kura, there was an exhibition of c1900 summer kimono.

 Emily in the garden.

We visited a small but perfect private garden that is open to the public, near Uwadera village.

 I love the purple hydrangeas, a flower that always makes me think of summer in Japan.

There was a bees' nest in one of the trees.

We visited the shrine at Uwadera, where I last went for the festival at the beginning of May.  It was so quiet this time.  When it was the festival, there were thousands of people there.

This lizard was enjoying the sunshine.

The way the corners are made on a shrine veranda (hisashi) is interesting - the boards are arranged rather like sunrays (an idea for a quilt corner?)

The rafter construction is also magnificent. The carvings are some of the best in this region.  

These smaller shrines were at the edge of the forest, near the main shrine.

The main shrine building or haiden.  You can really believe you have gone back in time 200 years here.  It was recently used for a movie location - the shoot took place last month.

Hideo told us that the director shot one of the fight sequences under the veranda.

 You can read more about Japanese shrines here.

At  Kataribenoyakata, a restored minka farmhouse - more photos from my last trip here.

At Maruike-sama, the blue pool near Mount Chokai - we went there in May too.  This time, there were so many mosquitoes and buyo (the Japanese version of the Scottish midge!) that we couldn't stay long.

We also had a short visit to the shrine at Fukura, where Glyn and I watched the Hanagasa mai festival last May.

Finally we watched the sun set at the Sixteen Disciples of Buddha - Juroku rakan iwa at Fukura.  I found this info on another blog with gives more details of the history (and more visible disciples too) - click here.

Hideo and I made the comment that, in life, sometimes 'you only come this way once'.  Although I lived in Yuza for a year and have visited many times, I have never seen the Juroku rakan looking so beautiful in the sunset.