About two years ago, with my best friend Fran, I went to an island called 'Itsukushima', situated off the coast of Hiroshima. It is commonly known as Miya-jima. The island is very, I mean very famous for it's red rhine 'Itsukushima-jinja', with it's gate in the water(see the photo above), and is a UNESCO world heritage site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itsukushima
It is magnificent. The whole island is, in a way, a giant shrine. And the monkeys and deer roam freely. The deer, being the messengers of god in the Shinto religion, are considered sacred. Which I am afraid I have to say something about. I'd visited this shrine 2-3times. And on both occasions, I got attacked...... Grrrrrrrr ... The gods gang up on people and take the food away. And they smell too. hee hee.
One of the best things in my life happened here. As we walked through the shrine, we accidentally encountered a shintoist Wedding. There is nothing sentimental about the formal ceremony, I could see the groom was sweating out of stress. And all of a sudden a masked dancer appeared from nowhere, and started dancing. That's when I first encountered this long tradition (longer than Noh) BUGAKU. Bugaku is something that originates in Asia, not particularly in Japan. But strangely the tradition has only carried on in Japan, nowhere else.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagaku
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This dance is called Bugaku, and the character portrayed is Ryo-ou.
Well....... just found everything in my room so I thought I'd put it up here. Neat, no?
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