Taking Tiger Mountain (by strategy)

[imomus]

On January 2nd 2010 we climbed Mount Shigi in Nara, Japan to celebrate the new astrological year of the tiger and 1300 years of Nara.

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It was in another tiger year that "multitasking" Prince Shotoku Taishi (apparently so intelligent he could understand ten conversations at once), was defending Buddhism against the Mononobe family. Prince Taishi called on Bishamonten, the Buddhist god of war, in the Hour of the Tiger, on the Day of the Tiger. It seemed to work; Taishi prevailed over the Mononobes. He built Shigisan Chogosonsiji Temple -- the tiger shrine -- on Mount Shigi in Bishamonten's honour. We climbed and we climbed, my how we climbed...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, video content! Thanks a lot for this. The missing image stabilizer helps feel the effort that is walking up that mountain, every step is visible as a slight bounce. I find video (compared to photographs) is a much more effective tool to invoke daydreams about being somewhere completely different (but maybe that's just my mind having become lazy about lying to my senses).

[(Anonymous)]

And let me add that, my god, it is a beautiful country.

[number18.livejournal.com]

This moment is bittersweet. I wonder what the next day will bring ...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It'll bring coffee at Muji, Maggie, if you check your email!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Cyborg Playgirl = Maggie = the maker of Broad & Market (http://cyborgmemoirs.com/street/), the Philly style blog. Twitter ego-surfing told me she was in Osaka, and in fact in Abeno, the same district I'm in, so I sent her a mail. But before she got it we met up anyway, in the doorway of a store in the Loop Centre:



PS: nice mismatched socks, Maggie!

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

thanks for name checking "Broad and Market".
Very cool/fun blog.

(the photo's bordering on priceless btw)

in the Loop Centre

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen a Pea jacket in years.


Your friends might want to adopt a pet from an expat Elizabeth Oliver in nearby Kameoka.

http://www.arkbark.net/?q=en/

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

if it comes to that then let it be.
walking up mountains.

what a wonderful day.

thanks for the video clip.

btw hows the clown chic thing working out for you? Looks pretty awsome these days... are the girls still shunning you? Or is it pure iki these days.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I've had some nice feedback from girls (and Hisae's mother!). On Christmas Day I was even presented with a cake decorated with the motto "All the girls love Momus!" But I've wrung many changes on that clown look since the self-disparaging entry. It's now clown-cyclist, or cyclist-raff, or handyman-spy, or shinto-muslim, or pirate-farmer.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

And mustn't forget Arctic-golfer!

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

;)

sounds good

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

I bet the view from that bridge spanning the lake was as breath-taking as it looks.

Kansai home movies

[funazushi.livejournal.com]

A little teaser for Kumakouji, I image that your're somewhat of a Buddhiphile. Can you guess where some of this Kansai footage was taken (aside from Kamakura)? By way of connection to the post, the watch I'm wearing is a Mao 100 year anniverary mock rolex. Taking Tiger Mountain by luxury goods.

Re: Kansai home movies

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

cool!

2 unrelated comments.

[(Anonymous)]

I must say i was quite unaware there was -buddhist- god of war!
It makes sense of course, established religions coming pragmatically to reflect as well as shape the societies they exist within etc

I wish there were tags in click opera, or systematic links between thematically grouped articles. I was thinking so yesterday when reading that interesting article on the 'window' social theory... 'now what was that other sociological idea blogged a while back? Oh Damn, lost in the information morass' . In my opinion this blog has become a truly worthwhile compendium of articles on certain subjects, only its too spread out.

Re: 2 unrelated comments.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Bishamonten is a syncretic Shinto-Buddhist variant on an Indian deity called Vaisravana. In Japan he becomes much more fierce.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

But the chinese new year isn't until February 14th! That's when the astrological change occur!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I said exactly that to Hisae during our climb. But the Japanese, being a sort of bridge culture between East and West, seem to celebrate the Chinese astrological year starting with the Western calendar year.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's very similar, in fact, to what they've done with Indian deity Vaisravana, turning him into Bishamonten!

In other words, "Japan" is a series of deliberate misunderstandings of things which originated in other cultures; "unreliable narrations", if you like. (And my Japanology is an unreliable narration of the operations of that unreliable narration!)

I think this is characteristic of nations with a sea around them. A sea is a kind of filter, a prism, a form of convenient forgetting as well as an import-export medium.

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

this my friend is where my extreme love/baffled/excitement comes from.

A place thats so focused on the smallest of details... and has the same enthusiasm (?) for changing anything that, just, well, can be changed for whatever reason...

blows my mind, and the clincher is, that it's done with a knowing smile... "yes, this is the way it is done, of course it is."

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I've often been fascinated by the amount of things considered japanese that actually came from China. Like Buddhism, powdered tea and miso for example.

Good thing the sea protected Japan from the Mongols.

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

tiger mountain (http://parslow.com/TigerMountain/)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Maoist gorgeousness!

do you know this sakamoto documentary?

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

Re: do you know this sakamoto documentary?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

No, I don't, but THANKS! I will watch it right now!

[(Anonymous)]

Why are some folks in the video wearing pollution masks when they're many miles from a city, up on a mountain?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Those are also used to stop colds and flu spreading.