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Grass slippers (草鞋) hanging at the door opening to the grounds of the Zenkoji (善光寺), a huge and busy temple in Nagano that is dedicated to all Buddhist sects cuz it houses several different Buddhas. I visited before catching the 3 pm train from Nagano to Takayama.
Dunno why devotees worship this "totem" pole
The bustlinng crowd inside the temple before I was told no photography was allowed.
Buddha's feet. Having them here is as good as having the Buddha here.
Temple grounds. Huge.
A baby Buddha with his pet raccoon. Hehe ... by the way, the Buddha offerings here are quite strange - from Doraemon to Hello Kitty to Stitch. Initially, I thought its because this is a baby Buddha, that's why, but today I was at the Guanyin temple in Kamakura and there were the same type of offerings to the Buddha. Hehe ... funny Japanese. 
No only the Chinese, the Japs are great at biking! Remember how they invaded Malaya silently on bikes during WWII *shudder* 
The futon I surfed in the apartment of Martin Lamothe, a traveler cum English teacher on the JET programme. I'm tempted to apply ... apparently one does not have to be a native speaker as long as he/she is proficient in English. Martin knows at least 1 Singaporean on JET.
Day 1 of the festival - 14 April - it was rainy the whole day. So the display of the ya-tai and performances on some of them had to be done at the storage room. There was supposed to be a night festival but it was cancelled due to wet weather, which is a shame :( 
The puppets in the ya-tai performances are mechanical ... like robots! Interesting.
So I visited the puppetry museum. The little guy in orange wrote the word. 
When they mentioned lion dances, I didn't quite imagine that the Japanese lion head looked like these ... quite menacing and scary actually.
Some pan fried bun with delicious fillings. I bought one with mushrooms ... yummy! Martin called these "festival food" - tid bits served in a carnivalesque atmosphere.
Rain or not, the show must go on. The God must come out of his shrine.
The Takayama spring festival (there are 2 each year, the other one's in autumn - October 9 & 10) is called the Sanno Matsuri and the deity associated with this festival resides at the Hie Shrine. Hence, during the 2-day festival, devotees would bring him on tour around Takayama. I would later find out that Takayama is the 'holy town" where the human soul begins and is redeemed. A temple built on grounds with the best feng shui in Takayama called the World Shrine performs such "cleansing" rituals.
The flute girls play a melancholic tune to which the lions dance, and the drum is being sounded too. All these in unison to clear the path of devils for the deity to pass through. The process is quite magical.
The lions will stop in front of shrines to pay respect to the resident deities. Other than that, they will also bless businesses at the their shops, much like what we have for Chinese New Year.
Interesting to see men clad in medieval garb. However, they were either middle-aged men or children. Very few are young men
The Takayama City Library where I sought refuge from the cold and rain, and to while away time hoping to communicate with some friends but alas! Gmail, Facebook, Ebuddy did not work. Luckily we also have Plurk!
There's a shop that create paper machier birds ... very pretty and quite affordable (100 yen per piece) but I didn't get any cuz I ... ermmm ... really don't fancy birds.
Train station at small town Obuse, 40 mins by train from Nagano city, where famous artist Hokusai had lived and where a museum housing his works could be found. Pretty amazing stuff. 
The youth hostel I stayed in Obuse for 2 nights. Chose to stay here cuz it's closer to the Jigokundani Snow Monkey Park.
View from the train from Tokyo to Nagano.
Weeping willow sakura in the garden of the Matsumoto Castle. Since I'd arrived in Obuse fairly early, I chose to head down to Matsumoto, about an hour ride on the express train from Nagano. The JR Pass is really handy!
View from the top of the Matsumoto Castle. However, this is about it. The most beautiful things here are actually free ... 
The public garden outside the "moat" (I think that's what it is ... but it looks like a river) with all the sakura in ful bloom is beautiful. In contrast, there's not much inside the castle to see unless you really appreciate ancient architecture. Otherwise, it's very crowded to the point of claustrophobic, and I had to queue some 20 mins or more to go to the next storey in the castle ... I eventually gave up.
The castle peeking from behind a wall of sakura in full bloom.
For some reason, this koi fish looked up at the right time! Click! 
There's a free performance to the public of melancholic traditional Japanese music, played by kimono-garbed musicians up in the castle.
One was so kawaii ...
The other was gaming ...
... and I got them to pose! Adding to my Japanese kids collection.
In the grounds of a shrine near where I stayed in Obuse.
I missed an earlier train to Yudanaka (where I was to transfer to a bus to the Jigokudani Monkey Park) so I hung out at the park in the grounds of the shrine. So were some old folks and they were playing a game that looked like a combination of pool and golf ... quite interesting! And not easy. This gentleman in blue urged me to try ... my aim was so off! But these old folks, they were perfect. Oh, those sticks are by no means lightweight either!
Haha ... snow monkeys come down from the surrounding mountains every morning to play, bask in the sun and enjoy the natural 'wild' onsen at the Jigokudani Monkey Park.
The mother was combing the lil un for lice when he suddenly screamed incessantly. So the mother hugged him close and rocked him till he calmed down.
The valley where the monkeys' natural onsen was.
Baby monkeys playing in the shrub-tree ... my lucky shot v(^___^*)v 
Sakura buds.
Red sakura just beginning to bloom!
One of the better meals I had once in a while ... the soba was so much that I skipped 2 meals later ...
Grass slippers (草鞋) hanging at the door opening to the grounds of the Zenkoji (善光寺), a huge and busy temple in Nagano that is dedicated to all Buddhist sects cuz it houses several different Buddhas. I visited before catching the 3 pm train from Nagano to Takayama.
Dunno why devotees worship this "totem" pole
The bustlinng crowd inside the temple before I was told no photography was allowed.
Buddha's feet. Having them here is as good as having the Buddha here.
Temple grounds. Huge.
A baby Buddha with his pet raccoon. Hehe ... by the way, the Buddha offerings here are quite strange - from Doraemon to Hello Kitty to Stitch. Initially, I thought its because this is a baby Buddha, that's why, but today I was at the Guanyin temple in Kamakura and there were the same type of offerings to the Buddha. Hehe ... funny Japanese. 
No only the Chinese, the Japs are great at biking! Remember how they invaded Malaya silently on bikes during WWII *shudder* 
The futon I surfed in the apartment of Martin Lamothe, a traveler cum English teacher on the JET programme. I'm tempted to apply ... apparently one does not have to be a native speaker as long as he/she is proficient in English. Martin knows at least 1 Singaporean on JET.
Day 1 of the festival - 14 April - it was rainy the whole day. So the display of the ya-tai and performances on some of them had to be done at the storage room. There was supposed to be a night festival but it was cancelled due to wet weather, which is a shame :( 
The puppets in the ya-tai performances are mechanical ... like robots! Interesting.
So I visited the puppetry museum. The little guy in orange wrote the word. 
When they mentioned lion dances, I didn't quite imagine that the Japanese lion head looked like these ... quite menacing and scary actually.
Some pan fried bun with delicious fillings. I bought one with mushrooms ... yummy! Martin called these "festival food" - tid bits served in a carnivalesque atmosphere.
Rain or not, the show must go on. The God must come out of his shrine.
The Takayama spring festival (there are 2 each year, the other one's in autumn - October 9 & 10) is called the Sanno Matsuri and the deity associated with this festival resides at the Hie Shrine. Hence, during the 2-day festival, devotees would bring him on tour around Takayama. I would later find out that Takayama is the 'holy town" where the human soul begins and is redeemed. A temple built on grounds with the best feng shui in Takayama called the World Shrine performs such "cleansing" rituals.
The flute girls play a melancholic tune to which the lions dance, and the drum is being sounded too. All these in unison to clear the path of devils for the deity to pass through. The process is quite magical.
The lions will stop in front of shrines to pay respect to the resident deities. Other than that, they will also bless businesses at the their shops, much like what we have for Chinese New Year.
Interesting to see men clad in medieval garb. However, they were either middle-aged men or children. Very few are young men
The Takayama City Library where I sought refuge from the cold and rain, and to while away time hoping to communicate with some friends but alas! Gmail, Facebook, Ebuddy did not work. Luckily we also have Plurk!
There's a shop that create paper machier birds ... very pretty and quite affordable (100 yen per piece) but I didn't get any cuz I ... ermmm ... really don't fancy birds.
