Kurobera is the furthest a person can go from the city of Tokyo. “It is a place that has never seen a convenience store, a place that cell phones don’t work. People work in the fields all day and practice an ancient form of the Noh at night. Family names: Fujiwara, Miahara, date back to the Heike, over 800 years. Recent archeological digs show that people have lived here since the Jyomon.
Now there are less then 10 residents year round. The youngest, 71, you can see dancing in this video.”

This reminds me of a scene in Spirited Away when Chihiro and her parents found the deserted theme park. But Dewa Sanzan are the three sacred mountains in Yamagata Perfecture and is very real. The three mountains are named Haguro-san, Gas-San, Yudono-San and is a center for worship for a Shugendo, a folk religion that goes through extreme physical endurance and religious devotions.

It’s remoteness is a big reason for it’s preservation.

How to get there?

Regular buses from Tsuruoka (鶴岡; ~40 min; ¥800) connect to Haguro-machi (羽黒町), get off at the “Haguro Center” (羽黒センター) stop for the trailhead. Some buses also continue all the way to the top, taking an extra 10 minutes.

The bus stop is right in front of the Tsuruoka train station. There are 4 different stops served by multiple bus lines, so be careful about which bus you board. You may wish to ask the driver: “Haguro-san ni ikimasu-ka?” (Do you go to Haguro-san?)

Here is the bus schedule:

Tsuruoka – Haguro Center – Haguro-San (peak)

6:02 AM – 6:35 AM – 6:50 AM

7:02 AM – 7:35 AM – 7:50 AM

7:52 AM – 8:30 AM – 8:45 AM

9:22 AM – 10:00 AM – 10:15 AM

10:37 AM – 11:15 AM – 11:30 AM

11:42 AM – 12:20 PM – 12:30 PM

12:52 PM – 1:30 PM – 1:45 PM

2:27 PM – 3:05 PM – 3:20 PM

3:52 PM – 4:30 PM – 4:45 PM

5:27 PM – 6:05 PM

Haguro-San (peak) – Haguro Center – Tsuruoka

9:00 AM – 9:15 AM – 9:50 AM

10:30 AM – 10:45 AM – 11:20 AM

11:50 AM – 12:05 PM – 12:40 PM

1:00 PM – 1:15 PM – 1:50 PM

2:15 PM – 2:30 PM – 3:05 PM

3:50 PM – 4:05 PM – 4:40 PM

5:00 PM – 5:15 PM – 5:50 PM

5:15 PM – 5:30 PM – 6:05 PM

Less frequent buses also connect Yudono-san to Yamagata.

NOTE: Once you get to Tsuruoka, do not expect to find much English. Your journey will be a lot easier if you speak Japanese or have someone with you who does.

For more information on traveling to Dewa Sanzan.

In Enoshima, Kamakura, despite the big buddhist influences Shinto is very much a big part of the town’s culture and beliefs. This is a video of a matsuri that happened where it was part of pleasing the gods procession

The pagan ritual of Hallow’s Day has spread its wings to the East. Why not? Dressing up as ghouls and monsters have it’s appeal. If you’re in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo this month, you might want check out the Halloween Parade that is held yearly. This year, the halloween parade is from the 18th of October to 26th of October 2008. Below are some details to help you get there:

Access: Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line Roppongi Station
Date: October 25, 2008
Time: 11 a.m. – 1 p.m

Check out the ruckus;

Event website

Mount Takasaki houses over 1500 wild monkeys and they live in a colony. The monkeys are fed regularly by park wardens so that they would not disrupt the local farmers nearby by wrecking their crops. But these quirky creatures are very entertaining to see especially when they live together in the park. A visit to Mount Takasaki is best combined with visiting the nearby aquarium, Umitamago Aquarium.

Check out this clip of a feeding time with the monkeys

Takasakiyama Monkey Park can be reached in a 10 minute bus ride from central Beppu (Beppu Station or Beppu Kitahama). Get off at “Takasakiyama” bus stop.

The “Monkey Marine Ticket” for 2200 Yen consists of a round trip from Beppu to the monkey park and admission to the monkey park and nearby Umitamago Aquarium.

Kamakura’s defining feature is, today as in the past, the presence of the great Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū Shinto shrine at its center. An unusual feature of the shrine is its 1.8 km sandō (参道, sandō?) (approach), which runs all the way to the the ocean in Yuigahama and doubles as Wakamiya Ōji Avenue, the city’s main street. Built by Minamoto no Yoritomo as an imitation of Kyoto’s Suzaku Ōji (朱雀大路, Suzaku Ōji?), Wakamiya Ōji used to be much wider, delimited on both sides by a 3 m deep canal and flanked by pine trees (see the Edo period print).

How to get there?
The East Japan Railway Company’s Yokosuka Line has three stations within the city. Ōfuna Station is the northernmost. Next is Kita-Kamakura Station. In the center of the city is Kamakura Station, the central railway station in the city.

Kamakura Station is the terminal for the Enoshima Electric Railway. This narrow-gauge railway runs westward to Fujisawa, and part of its route runs parallel to the seashore. After leaving Kamakura Station, trains make eight more station stops in the city. One of them is Hase Station, closest to Hase-dera and Kōtoku-in.

Okay, if you’re new in Japan, you might want to consider having someone take you around in a customized tour specifically for newbies. Tokyo can be an especially daunting place since it has a life of its own and English speakers may find it hard to even find the bathroom since mostly things are written in Japanese. So the Tokyo Trend Tours offers scouts who will take you around and help integrate you into the Japanese culture.

Among the things they will cover are:

* Fashion and youth culture
* Retail and shopping – from discount stores to showrooms to the flagship experience
* New products and concepts – from FMCG to luxury
* Network technology and mobile phones
* Marketing and advertising

I am not sure how much it is, I just thought it would be a great heads up for you guys who are interested in getting to know Tokyo a little better than your 100yen shops. Check out: Tokyo Trend Tours

The Great Boiling Valley (大涌谷, Ōwakudani?) is a volcanic valley with active sulphur vents and hot springs in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. A popular tourist site for its scenic views, volcanic activity, and especially, Kuro-tamago (黒玉子, Kuro-tamago?) — a local specialty of eggs hard-boiled in the hot springs. The boiled eggs turn black and smell slightly sulphuric; consuming the eggs is said to increase longevity.

Access to the Great Boiling Valley is via an aerial tram. There is also a road to a visitor’s center just below the Kuro-tamago hot springs site. Most visitors hike the roughly 1 kilometer trail to the actual site where the eggs are boiled to participate in the ritual egg eating. The aerial tram offers a stunning view of both Mount Fuji (on clear days) and the sulphur vents just below the visitor’s center. Present day activities surrounding sulphur vents are the result of massive land slides in the past, construction of concrete barriers and stabilization of the area have been under way for many decades.

Hōnen Matsuri (豊年祭, Hōnen Matsuri) (Japanese for Harvest Festival) is a fertility festival celebrated every year on March 15 in Japan. The most well-known of these festivals takes place in the town of Komaki, just north of Nagoya City. Hōnen means rich harvest in Japanese, while a matsuri is a festival or holiday. The Hōnen festival and ceremony celebrate the blessings of a bountiful harvest and all manner of prosperity and fertility.

The festival’s main features of interest are Shinto priests playing musical instruments, a parade of ceremonially-garbed participants, all-you-can-drink sake, and a 280 kg (620 pound), 2.5 meter (96 inch)-long wooden phallus. The wooden phallus is carried from a shrine called Shinmei Sha (in even-numbered years) on a large hill or from Kumano-sha Shrine (in odd-numbered years), to a shrine called Tagata Jinja.

The festival starts with celebration and preparation at 10 a.m. at Tagata Jinja, where all sorts of foods and souvenirs (mostly phallus-shaped or related) are sold. Sake is also passed out freely from large wooden barrels. At about 2pm everyone gathers at Shinmei Sha for the start of the procession. Shinto priests say prayers and make blessings on the participants and mikoshi which are to be carried along the parade route, as well as the large wooden phallus.

When the procession makes its way down to Tagata Jinja the phallus in its mikoshi is spun furiously before it is set down and more prayers are said. Everyone then gathers in the square outside Tagata Jinja and waits for the mochi nage, at which time the crowd is showered with small rice cakes which are thrown down by the officials from raised platforms. The festival concludes at about 4:30 p.m.

Here’s a geisha performance in Pontocho, Kyoto. Add that into your list of things to see when you visit Kyoto.