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Glover Garden is located on the side of Minamiyamate hill, overlooking Nagasaki harbor, it was completed in 1863 by Hidenoshin Koyama, and is the oldest Western style house surviving in Japan. It is a very important cultural asset, and one of Nagasaki's most popular attractions. The house is also known as the "Madame Butterfly House", with statues of Puccini and diva Miura Tamaki standing in the garden near the house.
Nagasaki is the capital of Nagasaki prefecture in Japan, and the second city that was nuclear bombed, 3 days after Hiroshima. There is a Peace Memorial park, like in Hiroshima, and you will see the Peace memorial statue, fountain of peace, and the bell of Nagasaki there, as well as the Atomic bomb museum. It would be great if you could make time to pay a visit to the Dejima Wharf, which was built in commemoration of the exchange between Japan and Netherlands for 400 years.
The history of anime begins at the start of the 20th century, when at that time, Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques that were being explored in the West. The very first popular anime was Astro Boy, in 1963, starting a whole new universe in animation. After Astro Boy, anime continued to develop and generating unique genres, like mecha, and the extremely popular Mazinger Z. This industry continued to grow, in the 80's there was a boom and the Gundam franchise begun, and in the 90's and 2000's, the acceptance increased worldwide, and the anime movie "Spirited Away" won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003.
Todai-ji is a Buddhist temple in the city of Nara, Japan, it houses a colossal statue of the Buddha Vairocana, known in Japanese simply as the Daibutsu, and is the headquarters of the Kegon school of Buddhism. The Buddha statue is 14.98m in height and weights 500 metric tonnes. There is a tradition that says those who pass through a hole in the base, which is the same size as the nostrils, will be blessed with enlightenment in their next life.
Katana means sword in Japanese, and is also used for a specific type of Japanese longsword started to be used after the 1400s. This sword is a single edge, with a curved shape, and were use by the samurai, usually paired with another sword, similar but shorter called wakisashi. The forging of this blade took a lot of work and 3 people, the smith who forged the rough shape, a second smith to fold the metal and a specialist polisher to finish it.
The word Samurai derives from the archaic Japanese verb 'samorau', which means 'to serve', and was the term for the military nobility in pre-industrial Japan. Most samurai were bound by a strict code of honor and were expected to set an example for those below them, and even though there is a romanticized characterizations of samurai behavior such as the writing of Bushido, like the shocking yet notable seppuku, where the disgraced samurai regained his honor by passing into death (suicide), studies of Kobudo and traditional Budo shows that samurai were as practical on the battlefield as any other warrior.
Itsukushima Shrine is a Shinto shrine located on the island of Itsukushima, in the Hiroshima Prefecture, and it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This shrine dates from the 6th century and it is built over the bay, and its gate, torii, is one of Japan's most popular attractions and classified as one of the Three Views of Japan.
Ukiyo-e is a type of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings, produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, which feature landscapes, theaters, pleasure quarters, etc. and is the main artistic genre of woodblock printing in Japan. This art form rose to popularity in the metropolitan culture of Edo (Tokyo), during the second half of the 17th century, starting with the single color works of Hishikawa Moronobu, around the 1670s. At the beginning, only India ink was used, but then some prints were manually colored with a brush, and in the 18th century, Suzuki Harunobu developed the technique of polychrome printing to produce nishiki-e.
Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, based on creating harmony with linear construction, color and rhythm. This art is very different from the western way of flower arrangement, which is mostly based on the quantity and the colors of the flowers; ikebana is all about the linear aspects, trying to imitate nature instead of copying it, basing the structure on 3 main points that symbolize heaven, earth, and humankind. It is common to see ikebana with only foliage and no flowers, or maybe a single flower with no foliage but with rocks, but paying a little bit of attention, we'll see the perfect harmony between the flower's color, the rock's shapes and color and the vase's color.
The Hiroshima Flower Festival is held every year from the 3rd to the 5th of May, and is the Festival for the world Peace from Hiroshima, since 1977. A parade and Yosakoi dancing by the citizens on Peace Boulevard, lot of stages, shops, small zoo and amusement attractions,concerts, dancing shows, fashion shows, talk shows, traditional and contemporary performances by citizens and other events are some of the activities to enjoy during this festival, where over a million people gather to celebrate.
My personal info:
Name : Mary Kate Campbell
Nick: Sakura
Age: 17
Born in: Windy city, Chicago
Hobbies: Manga, Anime, Japanese Culture
