Nara Houses

Japan is well-known for its excellent public transportation system, but something I’ve been realizing recently is that if you want to see the really beautiful parts of the country, you need a car. Every time I head out into the Nara countryside, I’m amazed at how beautiful the old houses and countryside are. These houses are all in and around the city of Gojo.

Nara New Year’s

On  New Year’s day, my in-laws went to visit some local shrines near their house, and I went along to take photos. I found the tiny rural temples really interesting – it’s a huge change from the crowds in the big-city shrines.

More photos after the jump.

Thousand-tatami Cliff in Shirahama

The senjojiki (thousand tatami mat cliff) in Shirahama. Shirahama is a popular tourist resort in Wakayama prefecture and these cliffs are a popular tourist attraction. The rock is very soft, and thousands of visitors have carved their names in it.

Hina Doll at the Awashima Shrine in Wakayama

Hina doll at Awashima Jinja in Wakayama prefecture. Many Japanese people believe that dolls have souls, so instead of throwing them in the garbage, they take them to a shrine where they are blessed and ritually burned or thrown into the sea.

Other posts with pictures of Awashima Jinja:

http://qjphotos.wordpress.com/?s=awashima

Shinmachi Juku

Gojo is a small city in Nara Prefecture, about an hour and a half from Osaka by train、and is on the way to the famous monastery-mountain Mt. Koya. Well-off the beaten tourist track, it gets few visitors, but if you’re ever in the area, you might want to stop off and see the Shinmachi area, a semi-preserved area with a lot of nice old buildings.

The area has 77 buildings which have been preserved from the Edo Period (1603 to 1868) and 19 from the Meiji Period (1868-1912). It used to part of the Kishuu Kaido, a highway that ran between Wakayama and Osaka. Around 1960, however, a highway was built nearby, and people gradually stopped coming to the area.