Jindaiji Temple in Chofu, a city of western Tokyo

Soba restaurants along the street

Main hall of Jindaiji Temple

Some of my guests want to skip the highlights of Tokyo, such as the Imperial Palace, Asakusa Sensoji Temple and Meiji Shrine, and see local and interesting places their guide books don't cover. Jindaiji is almost the perfect place to go. My guests were very pleased with the temple and the area around it.
 The 1,200 year old Buddhist temple is 20 minutes by train and 15 minutes by bus away from Shinjuku, and is popular among pilgrims. After visiting the temple tourists often enjoy going to a Japanese soba noodle restaurant but this might be a problem. It's hard to decide which  restaurant go to because there are more than 20 along the street in front of the temple.
 It was a warm and lovely day on November 12 th when I arranged an excursion to show my guests, Heidi and Glenn from Perth, Australia, around Jindaiji. When I met them at their hotel, Glenn appeared wearing a colorful short-sleeved shirt and rubber sandals with bare feet, I smiled at him and asked him to at least put on a jacket.
 He took a lot of photos and Heidi wrote down on the name of the temple, perhaps to show and tell their five grownup children and friends. We really enjoyed the crimson leaves of autumn and, of course, hot soba noodles topped with two deep fried shrimp in a cozy traditional restaurant.

Its beautiful garden

The gods of bounty, Daikoku and Ebisu



Our soba restaurant



Hot soba with deep fried shrimps



Ikebana: the Japanese art of flower arrangement

  After seeing an ikebana exhibition at a department store in Tokyo I attended a class offered by Sogetsu, one of the major ikebana schools I learned for about seven years before.

 In a standard way, ikebana learners choose  two kinds of materials --flowers, branches leaves or grasses--for their works. Ikebana is often a very simple form of decoration and flowers are not the main material used, in marked contrast to the Western decorative art of flower arranging.  This is because ikebana originated as an offering to Buddha by the Buddhist monks. Eventually ikebana developed into an art.

 Sogetsu is a very modern and young school of ikebana, but Ikenobo, another major school,  has a long history and is a very authentic one. Ikenobo is a monk's name, which reminds us that the school was originally related to Buddhist monks.

 Apart from ikebana offered by religious people, ikebana is generally put on an alcove called a toknoma, in a Japanese-style room, and a hanging scroll is also typically put up. A half-sized tatami of tokonoma should be clean and tidy because it is believed to be a spiritual center of the house so a simple ikebana arrangement is preferable.
Although the ikebana works of the exhibition I saw this day were highly elaborate, the teacher's demonstration in the class was very simple but beautiful. I followed her style and have done one myself.

Choose two kinds of matreials




And then decide which vase you use

 

I've done it.







Ikebana and a scroll in tokonoma