🌸🍵BYE BYE BLOSSOMS🍯😋
there comes a time
even in blossoming Kyōto...
sick of it
或時は花の都にも倦にけり
-Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶), 1795.
Trans. David G. Lanoue.
A little wind and rain, and sakura season draws to a close...but not before we toast the blossoms goodbye.
👃BOOGER BANQUET🥴
Tamaruya's (田丸弥) bite-sized, muscovado flavoured 'hanakuso' (花供曽), take inspiration from a similar sweet sold at Shinnyo-dō (真如堂).
The temple transforms kagami mochi offered at New Year into small rice crackers for Buddha's Birthday (April 8th).
These threads will help explain what exactly kagami mochi (鏡餅) is, and why Buddha's Birthday (花祭り) is important.
🍊Kagami mochi-
https://twitter.com/camelliakyoto/status/1477868988961275904?s=20&t=Z58r61vvvBdY7Nxdqm_qlw
👶Hana Matsuri-
https://twitter.com/camelliakyoto/status/1512223283420094468?s=20&t=Z58r61vvvBdY7Nxdqm_qlw
🍚MIRROR RICE CAKES🍊 Kagami mochi (鏡餅) is a New Year decoration, consisting of 2 fat rice cakes...one (smaller) placed upon the other (slightly larger). It's common to adorn the mochi with a bitter orange, and with other auspicious symbols (such as skewered dried persimmons).
For Buddha's Birthday Shinnyo-dō displays its large painting of Buddha's death, and offerings called 'hanakugo' (花供御) are made.
The cut up and baked kagami-mochi pieces are sold at this time, and eaten by the faithful as a prayer for good health.
The rice crackers were originally known as 'hanakugo', after the ritual offerings, but because of their shape and colour people began to jokingly refer to them as 'hanakuso' and the name stuck.
Elegantly written as '花供曽', 'hanakuso' means BOOGERS!👃😵💫
🌩️SPRING STORMS🌱
Toraya's (とらや) 'shunrai' (春雷 'spring thunder') can be imagined one of two ways...
⚡️A parched and cracked earth waiting for the first spring storms to bring the rain.
...or...
🌧️A spring-tinged ground cracking open with the first signs of new life🙌
There was a charming belief that the first spring lightning (初雷 'hatsurai') awoke hibernating insects in the ground, and thus it was also called 'mushidashi-no-kaminari' (虫出しの雷 'surfacing insect lightning').
Between March and May storms were known as 'shunrai' (春雷).
🛤️THE INCLINE🌸
Keage Incline (蹴上) is one of the most popular places to see cherry blossoms in Kyōto.
It was at Keage (蹴上) that boats were carried a short distance by rail down a steep incline from the Lake Biwa Canal (琵琶湖疏水) into the city's canal network.
#Japan #Kyoto #京都 #cherryblossoms #桜 #blossoms #蹴上 #Keage #LakeBiwaCanal #琵琶湖疏水
🚣 🛤️ 🌊
➡️https://twitter.com/camelliakyoto/status/1433587421090758656?s=20&t=mB-vMvoN7AMPhmCWzkxKEg
🌊AQUEDUCT & SUGAR HIGHS🌉 One of the most photographed places in Kyōto is not a temple, shrine or garden, but the simple brick aqueduct (水路閣 'suirokaku') that cuts through the grounds of Nanzen-ji (南禅寺), disappearing into forest as quickly as it emerges. #Kyoto #Japan
'Sakura shigure' (桜しぐれ) symbolises an explosion of cherry blossoms in miniature.
'しぐれ' can be translated as 'drizzle' or 'showery sky', but here suggests trees heavy with blossoms, the petals gently tumbling down with the breeze.
The crunchy sweets are sakura flavoured😋
#Kyoto #japanesesweets #sweets #sakura #桜 #cherryblossoms #京都
Camellia Tea Ceremony