Field Trip to Asuka

Today I went on a field trip to Asuka the most "traditional looking" part of Japan. I'm not even kidding--the teacher stressed how zoning laws here are insane, not to mention all the various tombs and archeological finds that pop up all of the time!

Asuka is a little town in Nara Prefecture, known for it's historical significance and burial mounds. Lots of burial mounds and tombs!

We started off from the train station by renting bikes. Oh man, was I nervous due to my limited action on bikes in rural areas with pedestrians (though I must say that I'm used to bikes in rural areas with whizzing cars and tractors)! I plunked my backpack into the bike basket and we were off!!

First we stopped by the Tomb of Emperor Kinmei and one of his wives (the Princess Kitashi) where I also took some photos of the local nature.

Following that, we took a look at the Saruishi or "Monkey Stones". We're not actually sure what they are or when they were made or who made them, but local tradition has turned them into fertility gods? Yeah, and a couple of years ago, some kids tried to vandalize them and were caught, so now they're all caged up. Actually, almost everything we went to in Asuka was pretty caged up. It was like being in a historical zoo of sorts. :)

The scenery in Asuka is just amazing. As we biked through, I found myself fully immersing myself in the lush greenness of the paddies, the smell of earth as the wind swept through my hair, and the lazy glory one takes in warm sunshine. The weather was perfect. I cannot stress that hard enough. It was the perfect spring day (despite still being winter!). I was filled to the brim with peace and contentment. I also got somewhat of a homesick longing for the fields of my hometown. There's only so much city a girl can take before she misses the lushness of her childhood, you know.

The first plum blossoms of the season!

Oh man, Japan's still on the honor system! How great is that?

We stopped by the Kameishi, or Turtle Stone--a giant stone shaped like a turtle. Originally it was said to be facing East, but currently, it's facing Southwestish. Legend says that if the stone ever fully turns to the West, the world will end and Japan will sink into the sea.

It's HUGE. I wish my lens was wide enough to capture it!! :(

And let's not forget the glorious nature of the mountains:

For lunch, Okaasan graciously packed me an obento:

It looked like onion rings but was really the best tasting fried squid I've had in my life!

Then, after lunch, we visited a kofun, or tomb. I don't think anyone was ever really interned in there (you know how people sometimes run out of funding for some projects? Well what happened also involved an attempt to overthrow the government, so it ended pretty badly for the family who was trying to create this tomb).

The Japanese tombs are of a very interesting nature. For one thing, there were regulations on how large your tomb could be depending on how important you were. For another thing, the Japanese Imperial Agency controls a ton of the tombs and mounds and won't let them be excavated (mostly because during the Meiji Period (1868-1912) the tombs were "reorganized" in such a way that the more important emperors got larger tombs and the less important emperors got smaller tombs. Now no one knows who is buried where and the JIA won't let themselves be wrong, according to my teacher).  Basically, tombs were made of stone and then covered by large mounds of dirt and more stones. I really don't want to get into too much detail because I'm still a little shaky on what's what in Japanese tombs, but the loophole was--only grave size was regulated, not mound size. And, once you had your mound, usually the excavated parts where the mound dirt had come from was filled in with rain water to create a moat that was then used to regulate the surrounding rice paddies.

Sans actual moat in this one (because you can enter it and it's for tourism, so no water)

After the tomb, we went to explore what I found a fascinating way of ruin preservation. Where we went was the ruins of the Asuka Itabuki Palace. However the ruins had been recovered up after excavation and a mock outline of what the ruins looked like was on top. I thought that was an excellent idea for preserving something for the public and still allowing them to access it!

Following that, we went to Asukadera, a local Buddhist temple which houses the oldest Buddha statue in Japan! What I really liked about this statue was how it was "two faced"--from one side he looks kind, and the other strict. This Buddha is Shakka, the original Buddha and teacher.

"Nice Side"

"Stern Side"

Then we took the train home.