Bridging the Gap

~ I hope everyone had an "arrrright" Talk Like A Pirate day on Tuesday. The big news over here in Asia is the military coup d'etat that took over the government in Thailand. Apparently, the Thais are used to this (there's been 18 coups since the government was formed in 1932; the last was in 1991). Still, the situation in Thailand doesn't look good: all the foreign media has been shut down and the constitution has been suspended. I thought the whole point of a constitution was that it couldn't be suspended, but it seems that my belief was inaccurate.

^ These Thai citizens don't seem to have any problem with the nearby tank. Smile for the camera, kids!

Anyway, this post continues the tour that I took a couple of weeks ago. After eating a crabby lunch, my tour group was again loaded onto two segregated buses, which were then driven to a mountain observation point. The view was quite impressive and really put the surrounding terrain into perspective:

^ If you've ever heard that Japan is running out of land for people to live on, take it from me: it's not true. There's plenty of space, and besides, the population will soon be falling dramatically as the aging population dies off and insufficient children are born to replace them.

^ This large suspension bridge crossed a mountain gorge. According to a nearby sign, the bridge is 124 meters (407 feet) across and is suspended 35 meters (115 feet) from the ground. Dad, you'd have hated it.

^ "It all looks so different on this side!"

^ Beyond the bridge lay a mysterious path leading deeper into the woods. What could be beyond? On the right of the above picture, there's a map of the area showing several buildings, but I wasn't able to read the labels. That's a rather large orienteering mistake, wouldn't you say?

^ One of the first buildings that I (and some of the other tourists, apparently) came across was this small temple in the middle of the forest. Buddhist temples coexist with Shinto shrines in Japan; most Japanese are adherents of both religions, although most don't consider them to be "religions" in the same way that the average American would.

On maps, the symbol for "temple" looks like a reversed swastika. This throws off many tourists ("Nazis! I hate these guys!"), but the swastika was actually a corruption of the original symbol, which has long been in use in Asia. The correct word for the [reversed] symbol is manji. I learned that a long time ago from The Legend of Zelda (take that, Hillary!).

^ Inside the temple. It was extremely dark, but once illuminated by my camera flash, I was able to see these statutes ruminating on the altar, along with a colorful cloth on the upper-left.

^ The forest pathways were lined with Buddha statues, some larger that I am, some smaller than my hand and almost hidden among the trees. The statues were in various states of maintenance, some clearly well cared-for, and some falling apart. This one looks particularly smug, doesn't he? I guess he gets a lot of attention.

^ Some more statues, these ones looking a bit mossy. The rectangular one on the right was clean but clearly very old. The features on the carving were worn away almost completely and the writing below was almost invisible with age. I wonder how old these statues are?

^ This beautiful stone lantern was tucked away in a sculpted, statue-filled garden hidden in the trees. The upper part is hollow, and it must look very festive when lit, with the sculptures on each lantern panel illuminated by various openings.

^ This small shrine was on the side of another statue-lined pathway. With strange objects placed on the bottom and flowers in vases, clearly someone is very serious about this. Or are they? Let's take a closer look at the upper-left:

^ No matter how deep you go into cultural Japan, You. Just. Can't. Escape. Mickey.
~Oyasumi!