{"id":4007,"date":"2009-10-15T23:08:10","date_gmt":"2009-10-16T03:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/?p=4007"},"modified":"2009-10-15T23:08:10","modified_gmt":"2009-10-16T03:08:10","slug":"more-ueno-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/2009\/10\/15\/more-ueno-park\/","title":{"rendered":"More Ueno Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Sept 20) Various other attractions in Ueno Park. I think I managed to cover about half of it.
\n
\nThe Benzaiten, a temple to Benten the goddess of the arts, sits on an artificial island in the middle of a large pond filled with butterbur plants. The island is reached by a long causeway lined with vendor booths.
\n\"Benzaiten<\/p>\n

\"Benzaiten<\/p>\n

\"Benzaiten\"<\/p>\n

\"Benzaiten<\/p>\n

Like Akanko<\/a>, Ueno Park has an Inari Shrine, which is also entered through a long series of torii<\/em>. In this case the steps go down the hill, not up it, and the shrine itself is much larger and fancier than the Akanko version.
\n\"Inari<\/p>\n

\"Inari<\/p>\n

\"Inari<\/p>\n

Ueno used to have its own Daibutsu (giant bronze Buddha) but it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1923. The face is all that remains.
\n\"Great<\/p>\n

The Toshogu is a shrine dedicated to Ieyasu Tokugawa, the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate. You may recall that he has a much bigger and fancier shrine in Nikko<\/a>. This shrine, in his capital city, was built first. The big one in Nikko was built in its present form by his grandson.
\n\"Toshogu<\/p>\n

The shrine’s main building seems to be undergoing renovation. They’ve put up a facade to show what it is supposed to look like.
\n\"Shrine<\/p>\n

\"Toshogu<\/p>\n

\"Kodomo<\/p>\n

The Kannondo is a temple to Kannon<\/a>, the goddess of mercy.
\n\"Kannondo\"<\/p>\n

Inside the temple (no photography allowed) is an alter covered with all sorts of dolls. Women who are having trouble conceiving a child come here to pray to Kannon. If their prayers are answered they are supposed to come back and leave a doll.<\/p>\n

\"Buddhist<\/p>\n

The Royal Ueno Museum is showing a special exhibit of cultural treasures from Tibet, many of them spectacular. No photography allowed, unfortunately.
\n\"Tibet<\/p>\n

The grave of the Shogotai soldiers, who made a last stand on Ueno Hill in May 1868, after the city fell to the imperial forces.
\n\"Shogitai<\/p>\n

\"Battle<\/p>\n

It is interesting that there are so many monuments to people who died trying to preserve the Shogunate, a lost cause that does not seem very worthy. I doubt that you would find many people in Japan who think that the Meiji Restoration was a bad idea.<\/p>\n

I think the die-hard defenders of the Shogunate are admired because the exhibited makoto<\/em> (sincerity, fidelity) one of the prime Japanese virtues. In Japan it is considered more admirable to die fighting for a bad cause than to support a good cause halfheartedly. <\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

All posts from this trip.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Sept 20) Various other attractions in Ueno Park. I think I managed to cover about half of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,174],"tags":[308],"class_list":["post-4007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan-vacation","category-photos","tag-hokkaido-trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4007"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4031,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4007\/revisions\/4031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}