Peonies temple in Nara (Hase-Temple) in 2014,May

 

Hello,everyone.

I visited Hase-Temple in Nara last weekend.

As you know,this temple is established about 1300 years ago,

and it is famous for beautiful peonies in May.

Now is the best season to visit this temple.

Hope you'll enjoy this beautiful temple and peonies :)

 

And I plan to update my next post on May 18.

 

This temple is also famous for this five-stores pagoda.

There are a nice pine trees garden.

The scenery from this temple was so great.

 

Japanese yellow rose (Kerria)

Thank you for visiting my blog,

Hope you'll have a wonderful day!

Cherry blossoms in Kamigamo Shrine,Kyoto

 

Last, I want to tell you about this shrine (where spring poetry party was held) in Kyoto.

Kamigamo Shrine was coustructed about 1340 years ago.

  This shrine was designated a UNESCO World Heritage in 1994.

 This shrine enshrines the god of thunder,

so this shrine is famous for bringing us the benefit of keeping off every trouble or evil spirits.

I'm happy if you enjoy these pics below.

Full-blown cherry blossoms.

The entrance of Kamigamo Shrine.

This shrine keeps white horse.

There are many cherry trees in the wide ground of this shrine.

They were at their best.(Last weekend)

There were many visitors,many of them came to see cherry blossoms.

This is the garden where poetry party was held.

Usually this garden is not shown to the public.Today luckily we could manage to see it.

This is the main shrine building.

Everyone seemed to enjoy beautiful cherry trees.Some of them enjoy picnic under the full-blown trees.

Thank you for reading this post.
Please have a wonderful weekend!

Spring Poetry Reading Party "Kyokusui-no-Utage" in Kamigamo Shrine (2)

After the party is over,poets started to leave the garden.

I found Saiou-dai (woman who disguises herself as an imperial woman) coming toward us.

Please look at her kimono,she wears "Juni-hitoe" (twelve-layered ceremonial kimono).

"Junihitoe" is an extremely elegant and highly complex kimono that was only worn by court-ladies in Japan.

"Saiou" means unmarried court lady.
In ancient days,her role was to serve God in a shrine.
"Unmarried court woman" is requisite to be chosen as "Saiou". She needed to be innocent.
In such poetry reading party,her role is to announce the theme of the poetry on that day.
The girl left is Chigo (child of festivity).
I felt something mystical,holy atmosphere from them.
Luckily I managed to take photos of them.

The story still continue to the next....
Thank you for visiting my blog,
please have a nice weekend!