LUNCH IN IZUMISANO ,ON THE WAY TO OSAKA -JAPAN JOURNEY

BLOG POST 2
As we were speeding towards Osaka I was talking to my guide about Japan , she was around 35 and looked 25 ,apparently she was not married ,had an affair but broke it as it was too much of an effort Growing number of Japanese women are now postponing or forgoing marriage, as they want to escape domestic drudgery.
The percentage of women who work in Japan is higher than ever, yet cultural norms have not caught up and Japanese wives and mothers are still typically expected to bear the brunt of the housework, child care and help their aging relatives
So they are increasingly opting out of marriage altogether, focusing on their work and newfound freedoms
Statistics reveal that in 2015 one in seven women remained unmarried by 50 years , in women aged 35 to 39, the percentage was even higher
At present the norms have changed so much that businesses cater to single women in particular. There are single karaoke salons featuring women-only zones, restaurants designed for solo diners, and apartment complexes that target women looking to buy or rent homes on their own. Travel companies book tours for single women, and photo studios offer sessions in which women can don wedding dresses and pose for solo bridal portraits.

Our guide said shrugging her pretty shoulders “when I have a good job and am enjoying my life why should I get married ?”I tried to give a covert meaningful glance at my husband and the other two male members as we come from a country where single women norm is still a novelty but they all conveniently were admiring the landscape around us. LOL !
I felt if this is the mood of women and though some men want to pitch in and help more, employees are still expected to devote most of their waking hours to the company, making it difficult for many husbands to participate much on the home front, no wonder the birth rate was declining .
We stopped at a place called Izumisano for lunch

The restaurant was very small almost like an Indian dabha

There were frames of Indian idols on the walls along with an elephant figurine outside

We sat down at the tables, only we  two were non vegetarians and the other two couples were vegetarians
Immediately covers of yellow towels were placed before each one of us ,we were told they were Oshibori, these were hot towels offered to clean our hands

The practice of offering a wet cloth to guests apparently dates back to the Heian period in Japan when households would provide a wet cloth for visitors to clean their hands before entering the home. I was reminded of our Indian custom of washing the feet and hands with water kept in a bucket before stepping into a house
Throughout our travel in Japan we found these towels hot ones when it was cold and cold when weather was hot. Some places had special herbal smelling towels and were invariably pristine white

 We were supposed to unwrap the little white towel, use it carefully to wipe hands and could place them against our eyes or temple to refresh before the meal. Luckily we were used to getting these towels in a few airline flights so managed this ritual gracefully
We were given menu cards with the items printed on them and prices given,this lunch we had to pay and the travel agency would be giving us the rest of the meals till we returned ,though we were fore warned that Japan was a costly country ,we reeled under the shock of the bill for rice and chicken curry

Our guide and driver were having their Japanese food and using the chopsticks very dextrously , around 25 billion pairs of Waribashi  (disposable chopsticks) are used in Japan each year, equivalent to the timber needed to build 17,000 homes

  I found them loudly slurping their soup and found out that it indicated their appreciation for the soup
I came out of the restaurant and saw to my surprise  delicious food items displayed in glass cases outside ,I was wondering as to why intricate food bowls were displayed which would invariably perish and have to be thrown away at the end of the day

This I came to know was sampuru  or “sample,” this waxy, fake food now being made of vinyl resin and silicone has been around for nearly 100 years and, over time, has evolved beyond restaurant windows.

This plastic food is exquisitely created in Tokyo in a place called Kappabashi, in fact those samples are very costly

A simple cup of green tea is 3,600 yen and a single Onigiri rice ball is 7,000 yen. Full main dishes go up into the equivalent of hundreds of dollars, like 52,600 yen for a platter of sushi for four.

Wherever we traveled in Japan we found these Sampura displayed and we found it very easy to select a piece and ask for that item

TRAVEL FROM BEIJING TO OSAKA - JAPAN JOURNEY

JAPAN HERE WE COME , BLOG POST 1
Since a very long time I had been dreaming of seeing Japan which for me meant pretty cherry blossoms ,beautiful gardens , graceful Ikebana , colorful Kimonos ,intricate hand held ivory fans and a famous Hindi song  from movie “ Love in Tokyo "
Finally the day came and we booked for a combined tour to China and Japan through SOTC, last June
We had to fly out of Beijing to Kansai International airport
Once the security was done, we happily roamed around in the Beijing airport ,I noticed a lot of  Chinese school kids with backpacks and passports in their hands very sincerely following their group leaders

When the call came for us to get into the Air China flight, we got in and as we were settling down we suddenly realized that we had forgotten our small laptop and dongle in the tray while going through the security check .
It always is better that we remain very alert while going through the security checks as we literally have to strip ourselves during the check ,if only we had realized before getting into the flight ,but alas it was not to be! we consoled ourselves that it was a very old one
 Kansai International Airport is located on an artificial island in Osaka Bay about 40 km from central Osaka where our hotel was booked.
 Like dozens of airports already built on land reclaimed from water, since it opened in 1994, Kansai has sunk 38 feet , a thought which was quite scary as we stepped off the plane after a 6 and half hours flight.

Kansai International Airport is the world's first offshore airport and is built on a completely man-made island. With multiple 4,000-meter-long runways, it meets the global standards of a truly 24-hour operational airport. It handles flights connecting 23 countries and 82 cities, 194.6 regular service flights per day, and roughly 28 million travelers per year .

The immigration and customs clearance process was quite fast and efficient and we could see that most of the tourists were Chinese coming for a holiday to Japan

There were trains from the airport along with shuttle services and cabs
As we came out, our lady guide and a middle aged male driver were waiting for us ,as soon as they saw us they bowed ,we found that bowing is the way of greeting for the Japanese ,we were then guided to the currency exchange counter ,1 Japanese Yen equals  0.71  Indian Rupee

We were a group of 3 couples , one from Mumbai ,the other from Chennai and we from Hyderabad ,all of us had traveled vastly and one couple from Mumbai were seeing Japan for the second time after nearly 30 years .
The vehicle was a 10- seater Toyota Hi-Ace, which was going to be our  mode of transport throughout Japan  ,we put our luggage in the back and settled down for the 50 minutes journey to Osaka hotel

In Japanese, the name “Japan” is Nihon or Nippon, which means “Land of the Rising sun” as it was once believed that Japan was the first country to see the sun rise in the East in the morning
 Japan consists of 6852 islands,  so it is an island nation typically referred to as an archipelago,

The four biggest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which together makes up about 97% of the total land area. While only 430 of those islands are inhabited — Honshu is considered the main island. The archipelago stretches about 1,869 miles or the length of the East Coast of the United States.

Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world with men living to 81 years old and women living to almost 88 years old. The Japanese live on average four years longer than Americans.
Japan is one of the few countries in the world where the elderly outnumber the young and twenty-one percent of the Japanese population is elderly (over the age of 65), the highest proportion in the world. There are more elderly than there are children in Japan today.

It is said that the Japanese have such a low birth rate that there are more adult diapers sold than baby diapers
Periods between March to May and October to November are best suited for tourists as they are filled with calm days and comfortable temperatures
Spring is Japan's most famous season, and is symbolized by the iconic sakura (cherry blossoms), Trees in the south begin to bloom in mid-March.

 The blossoms peak marches steadily north, concluding in the country’s northern reaches in May .The trees bloom for about a week in each location. .As we had gone in June we had missed the sakura unfortunately

 Japanese have largely originated from southeast Asia and Indonesia. Due to country’s “Sakoku” self-imposed embargo period where no outsiders were allowed in the country at all, Japan has not had much migration, as a result they are quite homogenous with little genetic influence from other places.
According to research, their skin is more resistant to aging, their porcelain skin tends to be clear and smooth and remains so for longer as a result we often underestimate the ages of many people there
Japanese tend to be of a short stature and slim build compared to people from other parts of the world. The average height for men in Japan is 171.2 cm compared to 178.2 cm in the USA.
The Japanese face is generally longer and wider, their eyes are often bigger and angled downwards
Japanese people value harmony and uniformity, hence when they dress up, they aim to blend in with the majority. People find it difficult to sometimes distinguish Chinese and Japanese

 Plain, simple and subtle colors are the key to typical Japanese attire. Wearing suits is very common in Japan with white shirts and black ties.
I was surprised to see many Japanese wearing masks this was much before the corona pandemic and found that it was the flu season, so sick or not, everybody was wearing a mask to avoid catching and spreading the virus.
As soon as we got into the van our guide told us that seat belt was compulsory specially on high roads
Working hours in Japan are from 9 am to 6 pm,  they have a 5 day week , 21 days holiday in a year , however most of the employees stay beyond their duty hours to work , retirement age was 65 yrs
Men pay dowry to women and were supposed to provide a house for his bride
Due to the high work pressure diabetes is more common in Japan along with suicides
Of all professions doctors and lawyers are more highly paid , Men are more dominant and inherit the ancestral property
Health insurance is 8000 yen ,as the birth rate had come down drastically ,each child is given 4000 yen since last few yrs to encourage child births
We saw many fields  and came to know that major crops preferred and produced are rice, potato, pumpkin, onions and cabbage
 We were passing by houses and in certain places apartments. In Japan a mansion is typically a concrete apartment/ condominium complex of three or more floors. Buildings with at least five floors usually have elevators, and more modern buildings often have a main entrance with auto-lock doors.

An apāto (apartment) is the Japanese term for a two-storey apartment building, usually made of wood and iron. Each housing unit is generally small, and many apāto use an elevated mezzanine or “loft” as sleeping space.

 Because the structure is wooden, insulation and soundproofing tend to be poorer than mansion apartments.
Loud TV/stereo or voice, parties, use of musical instruments, banging the doors, and showers or laundry late at night are all considered noise that may lead to troubles with neighbours.
Tatami flooring is available in some mansion and apāto properties and  others have wooden flooring

Most Japanese residential buildings do not have central heating, and are very cold in the winter.  Air conditioning units have modes for both cooling and heating. Electrical space heaters and standing fans are used where there is no air-conditioning.
 In winter some people sit with their legs under a kotatsu , a Japanese heated coffee table for warmth ,though it doesn’t heat the entire room the Kotatsu provides warmth for people sitting at the table

BODH GAYA AND SARNATH THE HOLY TRIAD –PILGRIMAGE INDIA

BLOG POST 5
After visiting the temples of Gaya, we decided to see Bodh Gaya where our hotel was located. Compared to Gaya which was comparatively crowded and had many Hindu temples, Bodh Gaya was relatively clean and well maintained.
 It is famous as the place where Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and has remained the object of pilgrimage and veneration for both Hindus and Buddhists.
For Buddhists, Bodh Gaya is the most important of the main four pilgrimage sites related to life of Gautam Buddha, the other three being Kushinagar , Lumbini, and Sarnath .
Traditionally, Buddha was born in 563 BC, on Baisakhi  Purnima. As Siddhartha, he renounced his family at the age of 29 and traveled and meditated in search of truth.

After practicing self-mortification for six years at Urubela in Gaya, he gave up that practice because it did not give him salvation.
Then he discovered the Noble Eight-fold path without help from anyone and practiced it and attained Buddhatva
His disciples began to visit the place during the full moon in the month of Baisakhi (April–May), as per the Hindu calendar. Over time, the place became known as Bodh Gaya, the day of enlightenment as Buddha Purnima, and the tree as the Bodhi Tree.
The history of Bodh Gaya is documented by many inscriptions and pilgrimage accounts. Foremost among these are accounts of the Chinese pilgrims Faxian in 5th century and Xuanzang in 7th century.
About 200 years after Buddha attained Enlightenment,Buddhist  Emperor Ashoka visited Bodh Gaya in order to establish a monastery and shrine on the holy site.

After building the temple, Emperor Ashoka sent his heirs to Sri Lanka and various parts of India to spread Buddhism. He also sent a sapling of the original tree to Sri Lanka.
 When Muslim invaders destroyed the temple along with the original tree, a sapling from the Sri Lankan tree was brought back to Mahabodhi to grow.
 In 2002, Mahabodhi Temple became a UNESCO World heritage site

We went  to the temple as the sun was setting , we were not allowed to take our car maybe to avoid traffic congestion ,so we took a quaint auto called phat phati  we could not take our cell phones inside the temple but were offered lockers

The Mahabodhi Temple is also known as the great awakening temple  and is one of the oldest brick temples in India ,stretching over 5 hectares
The temple is 55 metres in height. Its pyramidal tower has several layers of niches, arch motifs, and fine engravings.

Once we got inside, our travel fatigue disappeared and the serenity seemed to encircle us. There was pleasant wind blowing, everything in contrast to the strict and tight security outside was surprisingly accessible!

There were crowds of people but something seemed to tell everyone to stay calm and quiet because this is a holy place
As we engaged a guide to show us around, we could garner more information from him
The first thing we did was take a kora, a walk around the stupa, the area had 3 levels to do the kora, first 2 levels we could walk with shoes on but the inner area where there is the Bodhi tree, we removed the shoes.
I was looking around at the statues and sculptures of Goddess Laxmi, Surya God, several chariots and Garuda could be seen in the railing around the temple, apparently only the railing remained of the original temple

We could see monks, nuns and tourists meditating everywhere on the grounds or circumambulating the temple. Stray dogs were sleeping snuggled up to people , many of them were wearing white robes and were sitting with mosquito nets around them probably to escape the ever present mosquito menace

We then went to see the golden Buddha statue made of yellow sand stone and  encased in glass

As there were many people we could not sit inside in front of the statue but there were plenty of places near the ancient Bodhi tree where Buddha achieved enlightenment
There was a lotus pond in the temple, closer to the Bodhi tree. The passage running around the pond had many stone lotuses carved. Our guide told us that Buddha spent seven weeks of his life meditating in this region.

 He performed walking meditation, by walking 18 steps back and forth, till this day the stone lotuses hold faded foot prints of Lord Buddha and were decorated with flowers

The highest form of ritual in this temple is to walk around the  Bodhi tree and offer prostrations one lakh times, at a stretch. We could see several monks raptly performing this ritual. Just sitting and going around the temple premises gave me a magical feel
The Bodhi tree was directly behind the main shrine, to the west.

The shrine  faced east, which was the direction Buddha was facing when he was meditating under the tree on the Vajrasana or diamond throne

We came out of the temple our hearts filled with intense peace
We next visited the Great Buddha Statue one of the favorite places in Bodh Gaya. The magnificent figure was 80 feet high, resembling Lord Buddha in his meditation pose known as the mudra on top of a blooming lotus, carved from red granite and sandstone. This statue is the tallest one and the first Buddha installed in India

It was commissioned to signify the meeting place of Buddha with his disciples. There was a beautiful garden with a long walkway

The construction of the towering Buddha took 7 years to complete, involving more than 12,000 masons and was consecrated on November 18, in 1989 by the fourteenth Dalai Lama.
The statue, facing East is best visited in morning, when the sunlight falls directly over it and creates a wonderful effect. The mammoth statue of Lord Buddha could be seen from far

 The Chinese Temple in Gaya stands nearby the Mahabodhi Temple and is a spectacular Buddhist temple built by Chinese-Buddhist monks.  The architecture is an amalgamation of the beautiful Indian and Chinese designs, especially the temple exterior, which resembles a Chinese monastery.

The Buddha statue inside the Chinese Temple is more than 200 years old and is believed to have been made and imported from China. The temple has three marvelous golden statues of Lord Buddha. Another attraction to the temple is the rich and detailed travelogues drawn by Chinese religious scholars who traveled to India for the pursuit of spirituality and wisdom.
Our next agenda was to visit Sarnath which is located just 12 km from Varanasi, it is popular because this is where Gautama Buddha first taught the Dharma after his enlightenment and gave his famous first sermon at the deer park here in Isipatana.
 In the 3rd century BC, Emperor Ashoka erected magnificent stupas and monasteries here, as well as an engraved pillar.
When Chinese traveller Xuan Zang dropped by in AD 640, Sarnath boasted a 100m-high stupa and 1500 monks were living in large monasteries. However, soon after, Buddhism went into decline, and when Muslim invaders ransacked the city in late 12th century, Sarnath totally  disappeared altogether. It was only ‘rediscovered’ by British archaeologists in 1835.
Most of Sarnath could be covered on foot, we carried umbrellas to protect ourselves from the heat

The Chaukhandi Stupa originally constructed in 5th century AD is regarded as one of the most divine and important monuments of the Buddhist culture. This stupa has been built on the exact spot where the great Lord Buddha first met his five ascetics whom he preached his first teachings.
The structure which stands atop a terraced rectangular plinth, is capped by an relatively new octagonal Mughal tower. It was built by Akbar in 1589 AD to commemorate his father Humayun’s visit to the site.

In the garden adjacent to the stupa, there were lots of tourists in their colorful robes chanting Buddham Saranam Gacchami to make their journey successful
We could feel the divinity and piousness of the monument in the surrounding air. It left us contemplating as to how beautiful it would have looked in its best days
We then went to the Dharmekh stupa which we found very impressive.  Dating around 200 BC the pillar was 128 feet high, and 93 in diameter.

It was in a peaceful park containing monastery ruins, it marks the spot where the Buddha preached his first sermon. We could spot a few monks meditating around the compound. The entire complex was filled with lush green lawns and benches occupied with young couples

Nearby was my much awaited 3rd-century-BC Ashoka Pillar, engraved with an edict. It once had stood 15m tall and had the famous four-lion capital perched atop, sadly all that remained were five fragments of its base. A bull, a lion, an elephant and a horse were depicted on the base of the Ashoka Pillar which symbolizes the four different phases of Gautam Buddha's life.

However now the capitals are displayed in the archeological museum of Sarnath which is India's oldest archaeological museum
The museum was housed in a modern air-conditioned building and was cool after the intense heat outside.We left our cell phones in the car as they were not allowed in the museum. The museum had a legendary collection dating back to ancient times.

There were many galleries inside the museum and were given names on the basis of their exhibits.

Among the important exhibits in the museum were a huge stone umbrella, 2000 years old with ornate carvings of Buddhist symbols, two impressive life-size standing Bodhisattvas from the 2nd Century AD, a fifth-century figure of Buddha, sitting cross-legged with his hands in mudra gesture exuding calm and perfectly poised, and eyes downcast in deep meditation  and a halo.

Buddha was seated above six men, with the Wheel of Law in the middle signifying his first sermon.
We could see the very well-preserved, 3rd-century-BC lion capital from the Ashoka Pillar with the wheel beneath representing Buddha’s ‘wheel of dharma’ , The lion capital, is today the national emblem of India and also mark of Emperor Ashoka's visit to Sarnath. It is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India.

Our next visit was to Digamber Jain temple. Built in 1824 the temple houses a large image of Shreyanshnath, the 11th Jain Tirthankara who was born in a village near Sarnath

 and there were attractive frescoes depicting the life of Bhagwan Mahavir, founder of the Jain religion.

The path to this Jain temple was lined with gardens and greenery on both sides. According to history, four Tirthankaras were born close to Varanasi and therefore many Jain devotees visit Sarnath to pray.

Our final visit was to the now famous Thai temple .The temple was set amongst beautiful gardens and was being managed by Buddhist monks
We were told that Thai dignitaries had visited Sarnath in 1993 and they were the ones who built this beautiful temple which had beautiful green gardens.
We could see from the main road itself a huge 80 foot statue of Buddha, in standing position, it is a replica of the Bamiyan Buddha statue that was destroyed by Taliban in Bamiyan, Afghanistan in 2001 Seeing it somehow healed the anguish I had been harboring since I saw the visuals of destruction of the Bamiyan statue

There were three other statues of Buddha in the temple in different postures under a tree. Also called Wat Thai, the temple complex also included an old tree covered up with a shawl of gold leaf.
 Just before the entrance of the main temple, there were images of laughing Buddha which many of us love to keep on our desks

Another statue of Lord Buddha was in Bhumisparsha mudra where he is touching the earth to summon the mortal spirits could be seen in the temple.

There were beautiful fountains with gorgeous lotus flowers. Thai songs and slogans could be heard along with scenes of gurus preaching rapt disciples .

I felt going around the lanes of Gaya and Bodh Gaya, exploring its ancient temples and rich culture, with  a blend of Hinduism and Buddhism was a very cleansing spiritual journey for me .