Posted by Jackie Hewett on Thu 17th January 2008 at 01:19 AM, Filed in Far East, January
Like many Thai locations, you’ll find ‘Bosang’ spelt in several different ways, including Bor Sang and Bo Sang. But however you spell it, the place is now synonymous with umbrellas, and making/selling them provides a livelihood for many of the villagers.
Bosang is only 9 kilometers outside Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, according to various legends, is a place where umbrellas have been made for centuries. Some claim the craft migrated here from China, others from Burma.
For two or three days every January the village holds a festival celebrating their local craft. In 2008, 2009 and 2010 the festival is being held on the 18th, 19th and 20th of January (It usually falls on the third week-end in January).
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This festival started in 1963 in Harbin (the capital city of the Heilongjiand Province in northeast China), this festival lasts over a month starting on January 5th. Some exhibits start to go up as early as November depending on the weather in which case they can be viewed early. There were a number of interruptions during the cultural revolution, but the event was resumed in 1985 and has been annual ever since. Today many ice sculpture experts and artists from America, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Russia and China congregate in Harbin to participate in competitions and network with each other.
The arctic (Siberian) climate provides the perfect environment with plenty of snow and ice for the festival ice artworks, which are combined with coloured lights and music. There are other forms of entertainment too such as ice-skating, ice hockey, skiing and sledding and many weddings and parties are held too.
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Posted by Jackie Hewett on Tue 10th July 2007 at 03:43 AM, Filed in Far East, August
If pyrotechnics are your thing you should put a visit to Tondabayashi City on 1st August on your ‘to do’ list. They claim to host the largest annual firework display with some 100,000 fireworks let off in just one hour – usually starting at about 19.45. The grand finale sees some 7000 fireworks launched simultaneously.
The event started in 1953 at the request of the founder of the PL religious group (or Church of Perfect Liberty) and is staged on the area known as the PL Hills. The Japanese word for firework is ‘Hanabi’, and they even have a hanabi ‘season’ – basically every summer lakes, rivers and even ski resorts all over Japan let off a barrage of explosions with up to 5,000 displays taking place throughout July and August. About 250 of these are large scale events and 50 are held around Tokyo. The Tondabayashi display is famed for its ‘Niagara’ which rises to some 50 meters and stretches nearly a kilometre across the sky to represent a waterfall.
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Posted by Jackie Hewett on Wed 2nd May 2007 at 02:26 AM, Filed in Far East, May
To westerners Japanese culture can seem quite alien and incomprehensible, possibly never more so than when they embark, as they frequently do, on a festival. This nation of usually conformist, and by UK standards shy, people seem to need the slimmest pretext to get their kit off and run around half naked beating drums.
If you are interested in visiting Japan there are some good reasons to time your visit for April / May.
One being Sanja Maturi in May, which is the one of the largest Matsuri parades in Japan. During a Matsuri, Shinto followers bear shrines, called mikoshi, on their shoulders using two poles. Frequently the mikoshi look like lavishly decorated miniature buildings, sometimes complete with verandas, pillars and railings. They can require dozens of people to carry each one. The mikoshi are taken from a permanent shrine and carried on a ‘tour’ around the neighbourhood, sometimes via a dip in a pool, lake or river, before being returned to the originating shrine. The mikoshi contain kami (or deities) and the procession is meant to bring luck and good fortune. It is believed that the rougher the journey the kami experiences the better the fortune is bestowed, so bearers often sway the heavy mikoshi precariously from side to side which can be a dangerous occupation for bearer and spectator.
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This is one of the nicest hotels I have stayed in – ever!
Sayan is very close to the cultural Balinese town of Ubud and the hotel is set in an exquisite location, in a valley with a river at the bottom and terraced rice paddies across the valley. My lasting impression of the hotel is that is it very sympathetically designed to fit in with the surroundings and everywhere you go in the hotel you seem to hear trickling water, whether from the river at the bottom of the valley, or the man-made ‘river’ at the back of the main part of the hotel.
Along with our driver we were a bit bemused on arrival because we couldn’t see the hotel, and weren’t sure we were in the right place! We quickly discovered the hotel is below you – accessed by a wooden walkway that leads to a large circular lotus flower pond which is actually on the roof of the hotel. You walk down some steps through the middle of the pond, past reception and down to a lounge and bar area that manages to be both colonial and modern at the same time.
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