The sweets are named after the sixth month in the traditional calendar.
'Minazuki' (水無月) can be translated as the 'Month of Water', referring to the flooding of the fields in preparation for the planting of rice seedlings.
Minatsuki/minazuki (水無月) are made from 'uirō-mochi' (外郎餠), a steamed cake of rice or bracken flour and sugar.
The sweets are traditionally topped with a layer of red beans, cut into triangles, and wrapped in bamboo leaves.
🧊A SLICE OF ICE📐
One sweet that arrives just in time for the fierce summer heat is 'minatsuki' (水無月 aka 'minazuki').
Like many of Kyōto's mid-year confections, minatsuki are not themselves cooling, but were designed to turn our thoughts to ice and shade.
#和菓子 #wagashi
Growing from muddy pond beds into beautiful flowers, lotuses have long been symbols of wisdom and renewal.
It is said that Buddha could walk from birth, and everywhere he went lotus flowers bloomed from his footprints👣
There are over 800 varieties of the plant😇
One interesting feature, just outside the grounds of Yakushi-ji, is a black post box.
In Kyōto and Nara it is common to find subdued colours close to important heritage sites. Even convenience stores are obliged to tone down their bright signs.
Most temples in Japan have incense for worshippers to make offerings.
Leave a donation, take the stick (or bundle of sticks), and light it from the flame provided.
Do not light from another, already burning incense.
Place the incense in the cauldron or stand provided, and pray.
Yakushi-ji's Tō-tō (東塔), dating to 730, is considered to be one of Japan's most beautiful pagodas.
Art historian Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908) described the 34m tall structure as 'frozen music'...alluding to the pagoda's 'rhythmical symmetry' and to the fretwork of the finial.
