Adventures of Fluttsi (Fluttershy) in Japan (Pic heavy) New pics added 1st May

[Jinxxy]

These are my favorite types of posts in ponyland I swear. I love it! It makes me feel like less of a crazy person that I need to take a pony with me when I travel :p

Looked like you had an amazing vacation

[Taffeta]

Yep, that is exactly what they do

See, in Japan it's customary to take off shoes when you enter a house, a temple, or in fact, a castle. You either have to carry the shoes in a bag or leave them on shelves outside before you can enter. So you will be inside a castle in your sock feet or bare feet. And going up means steep steps...on a smooth wooden floor The steps at Osaka and Hiroshima weren't so bad, being that they were rebuilt castles, but the ones at Himeji and especially at Hikone were quite steep...and sometimes you had to duck to avoid hitting your head on low beams.

Fluttsi was therefore better off inside my bag during these adventures...

@jinxxy - I wish it had been a holiday! I was there for research fieldwork, so there was some library time and much photographing of warrior sites/graves/imperial graves as well. I actually do have a couple of pictures of Fluttsi at warrior/imperial graves, so I guess she learned something about mediaeval Japanese society as well...

But I think ponies make great travel companions

I haven't posted any of the pictures from Kyoto yet. I was there the most time so most of my Fluttsi pictures are from Kyoto, but I don't want to explode this thread.

[Lhianneth]

Yep, that is exactly what they do

See, in Japan it's customary to take off shoes when you enter a house, a temple, or in fact, a castle. You either have to carry the shoes in a bag or leave them on shelves outside before you can enter. So you will be inside a castle in your sock feet or bare feet. And going up means steep steps...on a smooth wooden floor The steps at Osaka and Hiroshima weren't so bad, being that they were rebuilt castles, but the ones at Himeji and especially at Hikone were quite steep...and sometimes you had to duck to avoid hitting your head on low beams.

Fluttsi was therefore better off inside my bag during these adventures...

@jinxxy - I wish it had been a holiday! I was there for research fieldwork, so there was some library time and much photographing of warrior sites/graves/imperial graves as well. I actually do have a couple of pictures of Fluttsi at warrior/imperial graves, so I guess she learned something about mediaeval Japanese society as well...

But I think ponies make great travel companions

I haven't posted any of the pictures from Kyoto yet. I was there the most time so most of my Fluttsi pictures are from Kyoto, but I don't want to explode this thread.

I think you and my partner would get on quite well, actually. He loves that sort of research, though it's not his formal field of study. He was actually sad about Himeji for that reason, because while it was a very important strategic position, it didn't have a lot of history in the way of famous battles.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see the ones that had seen lots of action that trip (he's been multiple times before he and I went together), so Himeji-jo was a serious highlight! And we found a random hole-in-the-wall ramen joint playing Bollywood hits that had delicious tsukemen, so that was also nice.

I look forward to seeing the rest of your highlights for the trip, including Fluttsi at the various grave sites! They're always so fascinating!

[Taffeta]

Awesome
My own research predates Japanese castles and so there's very little from the time period remaining. That's why I got so excited to go to Shimonoseki where the big Dannoura battle was fought. I study 12th century Japan, so yeah. There's a lot more focus on the Warring States :/ The Warring States castles that saw most of the action also got burned down, though and have either been rebuilt in the modern age or left to grass (like Azuchi, which is just ruins on a mountain where they warn you about falling rocks and snakes).

I know Fluttsi visited Shigehira's grave in Kizu and GoShirakawa's at Hosshouji in Kyoto. I found those images, here they are

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Kizu - grave of Taira no Shigehira. Shigehira was executed in 1185 following his family's complete defeat at the battle of Dannoura. He was a prisoner of war for about a year before that, and was put to death for burning down the city of Nara and its temples in 1180. He was only in his late twenties when he died.



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GoShirakawa was the Retired Emperor from the 1160s through till his death in 1192 (when he was in his sixties). He was a political macchiavelli type and manipulated his way through a very potent political climate to ultimately come out on top.

Most imperial graves are behind wooden gates like that. I ended up playing imperial grave bingo with the number of Emperors I tracked down xD.

[Lhianneth]

Imperial Grave Bingo sounds like a great way to do a cross-country (or at least, cross-capitals) trek.

[Taffeta]

Imperial Grave Bingo sounds like a great way to do a cross-country (or at least, cross-capitals) trek.

I know, right? It also means I have a reason to go back, as I gotta catch them all now I have almost a complete set for the 12th century, but still need Sutoku's actual grave (rather than the grave of his hair ) and Horikawa's grave (which I somehow missed at Ryouanji :'() to really call bingo on the 12th century. For the time period I study, though, I got everyone except Sutoku's actual grave. I thought that wasn't bad, as I tracked down Shirakawa, Toba, Konoe, Go Shirakawa, Nijou, Rokujou, Takakura, Antoku and Go Toba and some of them were in really obscure locations (bearing in mind I cannot navigate). Just Sutoku's real grave missing to complete the set.

Sutoku is on Shikoku, and I went near to it when a family friend took me to Takamatsu to see the Yashima battle site and such - but it was just too far out of range in the wrong direction to include it on what was a long day trip from Kyoto. So for another time. At least I did get to visit the grave of his hair and the shrine where he is a god in Kyoto.

...Reading back over what I just wrote, I am a geek. Sigh.

I will try and get some of Fluttsi's Kyoto images (including a lot of sakura related images) together in the next week or two.

[Artemesia's Garden]

Looks like a wonderful trip, Taffeta. Thank you for sharing your lovely journal!