Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Kanji Practice

I often try and work out the meaning of the station names by reading the Kanji (Characters) and I now know most of the stations on the Yamanote line by the kanji without having to wait for the announcement or the English to appear.
But you can look at something for ages (like at least weekly on my last trip) and not register something.
Today I was going through Mejiro and saw the kanji as White eye 目 eye 白 white. In Japanese that is meshiro but they change the letter for compounds but I never can work out the rule, so it becomes Mejiro. This made me realise that my local station Meguro is 目 as well but I couldn't remember what the guro was. So on the way home I checked it out and it is 黒 , black (kuroi)

So there are two station called White eye and Black eye; needs some investigation!

Turns out the eyes belong to statues of Fudo, of the Sendai sect of Buddhism.
Ryusenji Temple in Meguro, is the oldest Fudo temple in Japan and counted as one of Japan’s three largest Fudo temples, one of five statues to guard Edo Castle.
Five temples were built in Edo (Tokyo) to house five sculptures of Fudō, each with eyes of a different color. The Mejiro station is named after the White-eyed Fudō and Meguro after the Black-eyed Fudō.
I have on my list of to-do things a Temple walk in Meguro so I will check it out.
The Information says that on 28th day of each month there is a festival at the shrine .
So I will blog that on 28th August.


The only other event of the day was I had my hair cut, and to kill some time I browsed in Seibu Department store and thought of Winter with these beautiful wool colours.


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