After 2 years with the same theme, I decided to make a change. Please tell me what you think. I hope this new theme will showcase more of the articles on the front page so people can get a better idea what the article is about. The layout I think is a little more organised… Read More Site Update
Not far from Minowa station on the Hibiya line is a nondescript temple called 浄閑寺—Jokanji. From the street, it looks like many other Tokyo temples, but behind the new main building is an old cemetery that has one particular point of interest, a crypt and monument to twenty-five thousand prostitutes interred there. Being so close… Read More The Throw Away Temple – Dumping Ground of the Yoshiwara Prostitutes.
While readers of Japanese literature from the Heian and Kamakura periods often find it difficult to determine when a sexual encounter has actually taken place, there are certain textual indicators that writers can use to make it plain that something carnal has, in fact, occurred. Writers may speak of the night as “dreamlike,” or describe… Read More Forced Affection -Rape as the First Act of Romance in Heian Japan (an essay)
Browsing my photos over the weekend I realised one of the photos I posted last week has a connection with the diorama at the Edo museum I visited last year. I love it when I find these things. Original Meiji Period photo of Ginza The diorama of the same Ginza district from the Edo museum.… Read More Tokyo Ginza revisited.
I have a lot of old photos on my hard drive so I thought I would share some with you.
I visited Senso-ji earlier this month and it is by far the busiest temple I have been to. On a flyer I picked up it noted that 30 million people visit the temple every year, I reckon there were probably 10,000 people there on that day. Anyway, back on topic. I wonder how many people… Read More Senso-ji, Asakusa
