Thousands of candle lights in the bamboo lamp (Azumino Kami Akari/安曇野神竹灯, Hodaka Shrine/穂高神社)

In the beginning of December, the festival called Kami Akari (神竹灯) held at Hodaka shrine (穂高神社) in Azumino city.

Kami akari means "Lights of god".

The candles are present from the god in far mountain, Sobo yama mountain in Takeda city, Oita prefecture. The god's name is Toyotama hime (豊玉姫).

Oita prefecture is in Kyushu island, the south island in Japan.





This festival had started five years ago, and there are 8,000 lamps in the shrine this year.
As I wrote in past article in my blog, the people have relationships with Kyushu island.
The ancestor came from Kyushu island.

Kamikouchi （上高地）, the beautiful mountain field guarded by ancient ocean god (Boat festival held at Myoujin pond / 明神池, Hodaka temple / 穂高神社)

Not only watching the lights, people were praying at main shrine.
I did, too!

In closer look, the lamps were like this.

There was small sized shrine here.

The picture and texts are carved to bamboo.

As the lights were not electric, so I thought they are soft and gentle.

As it was so beautiful, I felt like hard to leave the place.

It's getting cold in this few days in Japan.
Please take care not to catch a cold.

Thank you for reading!
Have a nice weekend!

穂高神社, 安曇野, 神竹灯

Do you know wasabi and how they grown? (Daiou Wasabi-en / 大王わさび園)

When eating Japanese food, you may be see green paste added to plates.
They are called "Wasabi (わさび/山葵)".

Wasabi, Japanese horseradish needs a lot of clean water.
There are many wasabi farms in Japan, and there are 3 famous places.
Hikimi in Shimane prefecture, Utogi in Shizuoka prefecture, and Azumino in Nagano prefecture.

I went to Azumino, Daiou Wasabi-en (大王わさび園).
Azumino is a largest wasabi producing place in Japan.

As wasabi is pastel green color when eating, but it is root vegetable.
It looks like this after harvested.

After peeling coats, grate them and it becomes commonly seen wasabi.

This day was cloudy cold day, but can see inside of the farm.
Clean water streams could seen every where in this farm.

Stream are all spring water from Japan Alps.
120,000 tons of water springs water goes through this farm everyday.
This volume of water is same as 230000 people's using a day!!

The leaves of wasabi.

As this place was also famous for ancient king.
He was said so huge and strong.
There were small shrine and sandal for him.

As he was too strong, central king of Japan in that age have on him, and sent large forces to this land. The king of Azumino fought bravery, but got killed at last.

People lives here still remember and enshrines him.

The caves were here and could get inside.

Inside of the cave was like this.

Small shrine was on large rocks.

This day may be the last which I could see red leaves of this year.

The baby wasabis.

There were statue of wasabi.
The ice cream which this boy eating is wasabi flavor.

In the souvenir shop, you also can buy several size of wasabis.

You also can buy grater here, too.

This graters were made of shark's skin.

How about buying them for souvenir?

Thank you for reading!
Have a nice weekend!

わさび, 山葵, ワサビ, 大王わさび園, 安曇野,