Kurashiki (Okayama)

Japanese  ⇒ Nippon burari SHOT
Kurashiki is a historic city located in Okayama Prefecture, Japan.
Kurashiki bikan district with traditional white-walled, black-tiled warehouses and lined weeping willows.

We can enjoy the Kurashiki River cruise by a traditional river boat.

Leisurely trip down the Kurashiki River seeing the historical Bikan district.

Nakabashi Bridge, a stone bridge at the center of the Bikan district.

The Bikan district at dusk

The Ohara Museum of Art established in 1930 by Magosaburo Ohara.

The entrance of the Ohara Museum of Art

The Main Gallery displays world-renowned masterpieces such as El Greco's The Annunciation and Claude Monet's Water Lilies.

Heading to the Annex Gallery via the Shinkei-en Garden.

The Shinkei-en Garden is a Japanese garden with 56-tatami hall and a tea-ceremony room.

The Japanese garden in the Shinkei-en Garden

The Annex Gallery

The Craft Art Gallery and the Asiatic Art Gallery, renovated former rice warehouses as a gallery.

The Ohara Museum of Art lighted up

The Kurashiki Ivy Square, former site of a cotton mill factory, is now a complex of brick buildings included a hotel, restaurants and museums.

Before the cotton mill factory, the site was used as Daikannsyo, a direct representative office of the Shogunate under the Edo period.

The Kurashiki Ivy Square Hotel covered in ivy

The courtyard in Kurashiki Ivy Square Hotel

Kurabo Memorial Museum, a museum which illustrates the history of the Kurashiki Boseki (Kurashiki spinning mill) company.

Kurabo Memorial Museum

The Alley to Kurashiki River from The Ivy Square

The Ivy Square in dusk

End of Kurashiki.      return to List of scenic sites visited

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Shinhama Duck Hunting Ground (Chiba)

Japanese  ⇒ Nippon burari SHOT

Shinhama-Kamoba is a duck hunting ground for Imperial Household Agency, located in Shinhama, Ichikawa city, Chiba prefecture.

Main gate of Shinhama-Kamoba

Shinhama-Kamoba: total area approximately 27,000 ㎡, pond for ducks approximately 13,000 ㎡

(Copy from Google)

Map

(Copy from Google)

video (1 min 22 sec)            Inside view 01

Reception house built in Meiji period

Under the hunting period from mid-November to mid-February, invited guests are entertained with duck hunting.

Lounge for guests      Here visitors get explanation and watch the video about facilities and duck hunting methods.

Sade-ami for hunting ducks      It's made of soft silks so as not to hurt ducks.

(left) Esa-kago, a basket for a bait       (right) Kamotame-kago, a basket for keeping ducks hunted

Lounge for the Imperial Family, next to the lounge for guests

Landscape seen from the lounge for the Imperial Family

Fireplace in the garden       Visitors warm up around its charcoal fire.

Scenery spreading in front of the reception house

video (52 sec)       Scenery spreading in front of the reception house

The ducks captured here release them all after bird banding.

As wild ducks are so vigilant to man, the pond with ducks is surrounded with bamboo groves which is said to shut off signs of man.

There is the pond with ducks in the left of the bamboo grove.

Hiki-bori, one of duck hunting facilities.  There are fifteen Hiki-bori around the pond with ducks.

Oh-nozoki, one of duck hunting facilities.  It's for observation of ducks in a pond.

Also Oh-nozoki is a facility to feed and train decoy ducks for duck hunting.

Trainer gives a bait to decoy ducks while beating a hanging board.
By repeating it, they learn its sound and come closer as soon as the board is beaten.

Oh-damari, a pond with ducks, as seen from a slit-shaped observation window in Oh-nozoki.

Dense bamboo bushes around facilities where man works.

Ko-nozoki on Hiki-bori, a facility with a peeping hole to observe ducks without being noticed by them.

Inside of Ko-nozoki

There are peeping holes on the wooden window.

Hiki-bori (a waterway for duck hunting) can be observed through a peeping hole.

Hiki-bori, a waterway for hunting.     Duck-hunters stand by on the both banks of a waterway.

Hiki-bori, a waterway, is hock-shaped and connected to Oh-damari, a pond with ducks.

On each side of a waterway hunters capture wild ducks coming in after decoy ducks with Sade-ami, a net for duck hunting.

video (29 sec)   The trained decoy ducks bring wild ducks into a waterway.

Because decoy ducks can't fly up, wild ducks which fly away can be easily captured with the net.

The bait for ducks is a Japanese millet.

Decoy ducks are picking up scattered baits on the water for a long time.

video (21 sec)       Ducks diving into water for picking up baits

After ducks enter the waterway, its gate is closed not to escape.

Ducks on the waterway as seen from the peeping hole in Ko-nozoki.

Party room in the reception house, where luncheon party is held after duck hunting and release.

All the captured ducks are released, reared ducks are used for cooking.

Some flowers in Shinhama-Kamoba

Two brochures handed from the staff of Imperial Household Agency

End of Shinhama Duck Hunting Ground.      return to List of scenic sites visited

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