Hanazono ABC Park - Feb 4th 2011
by Glen Claydon
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Hanazono ABC Park - Feb 4th 2011The World > Asia > Japan > Hokkaido |
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Hanazono Ski resort is looking pretty sweet this year with all sorts of parks and snow features to keep everyone happy from the half pipe down to little "kids" jumps...fun fun
Gentemstick is a local Snowboard company with its roots in the Niseko region of Hokkaido, Japan which...
Last weekend Hanazono held a cross country mountain biking evenent with entrants coming from all over...
Summer is here in Niseko and the Hanazono activities center is about to open. Great to see new activi...
A regular morning with people taking a rest in Hanazono 308. Well not quite...on this day a local Sno...
After a lot of effort over a long period of time by a lot of people living the the Niseko area persis...
Spring in Niseko Hanazono and the park comes into it's own after the long winter. This panorama was s...
Hanazono's Half Pipe from the top ...not a massive pipe but over the last few years it has got better...
Taken not long before Hanazono closed for the day this pano captures the late afternoon spring condit...
Late afternoon in Hanazono Niseko ski resort on an epic bluebird day.
The eight islands of Japan sprang into existence through Divine Intervention.
The first two gods who came into existence were Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto, the Exalted Male and Exalted Female. It was their job to make the land for people to live on.
They went to the bridge between heaven and earth and, using a jewel-encrusted halberd, Izanagi and Izanami churned up the sea into a frothy foam. As salty drips of water fell from the tip of the halberd the first island was formed. Its name was Onogoro.
So far, so good. But when Izanagi and Izanami first met on their island, Izanami spoke to Isanagi without being spoken to first. Since she was the female, and this was improper, their first union created badly-formed offspring who were sent off into the sea in boats.
The next time they met, Izanagi was sure to speak first, ensuring the proper rules were followed, and this time they produced eight children, which became the islands of Japan.
I'm sure you did not fail to miss the significance of this myth for the establishment of Japanese formal society.
At present, Japan is the financial capital of Asia. It has the second largest economy in the world and the largest metropolitan area (Tokyo.)
Technically there are three thousand islands making up the Japanese archipelago. Izanagi and Izanami must have been busy little devils with their jewelled halberd...
Japan's culture is highly technical and organized. Everything sparkles and swooshes on silent, miniaturized mechanisms.
They're a world leader in robotics, and the Japanese have the longest life-expectancy on earth.
Text by Steve Smith.
