Kadomatsu at Shinpukuji Temple

Kadomatsu at Shinpukuji Temple

A few days ago I woke up to my cell phone ringing and it was Mr. Tanaka on the other end.  He said to my surprise, “Peter, you have today off.”  I said thanked him and hung up.  I was not expecting that because my last day off was 5 days ago.  The funny thing was that I actually thought to myself, “wait, isn’t it a little too early for another day off?”  That kind of tells you how I’ve gotten so accustomed to working all the time.  Anyhow, I didn’t question it and gladly took it.  It was a relaxing day for me and I got to do some post writing (the previous post) and some personal things done.  I was really enjoying it…

At around 5pm Mr. Tanaka calls me into the living room and tells me that Mr. Tohru Suzuki of Daiju-en asked (ordered) if I can help him at Shinpukuji Temple the following day.  Mr. Omura is the owner of the temple and keeps his very high quality Bonsai collection there and is one of Daiju-en’s best customers.  I’ve worked there before and said, “great! What will I be doing?”  Mr. Tanaka looked at me and said, “you’re going to help them build a large Kadomatsu.  It’s going to be very hard work.”  Then he added, “I’m staying here and it’s just you going.”  I laughed and said no problem.  In this post I’m going to tell you all about my day at the temple, what a Kadomatsu is, how we built the Kadomatsu and how a tough day turned out to be quite educational.  Don’t worry, I did all the heavy lifting so all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the pictures.  ;o) For those that know what a kadomatsu is, Shinpukuji Temple held a Guinness world record for tallest kadomatsu two years ago…

So what is this Kadomatsu?

In Japan, before the New Years, people like to make or purchase Kadomatsu to put in the entrance of their homes.  In my case, the kadomatsu was built for the entrance of Shinpukuji Temple.  Kadomatsu has a religious meaning to them but I’m not going to get  to much into the details of it.

Wondering around the Shinpukuji Temple grounds

The following morning, Mr Suzuki, Uch Sempai and myself arrived at the temple early and had a chance to roam around before the work began.  The following are some shots I took of the temples and surrounding grounds.  Shinpukuji Temple is on a small mountain that Mr. Omura’s family have lived on for many generations.