Kakuozan 覚王山 is the neighborhood I call home in Nagoya. It's also home to a famous Buddhist temple complex called Nittaiji 日泰寺, literally, Japan-Thailand Temple. The temple's name is such due to the fact that the Thai kingdom donated some of Bhudda's ashes here back in 1899. Also Kakuozan means "Mountain dedicated to the king"--and while the area is more hills than mountains, its still a lofty name that is matched by the area.
The neighborhood itself is rather eclectic, with all sorts of little shops, restaurants and galleries. The road leading up to the temple, Nittaiji-dori, sports most of these, but its also where the 3 season-changing outdoor fairs take place. The street is blocked off, and the air takes on a mix of traditional Japanese matsuri and Western block party atmosphere. There are plenty of foreigners like me living here, but the native Nihonjin in this part of Nagoya are well-heeled, and are very intent on welcoming the world to their doorsteps.
I also shot some video of the festival dances, take a look!
The neighborhood itself is rather eclectic, with all sorts of little shops, restaurants and galleries. The road leading up to the temple, Nittaiji-dori, sports most of these, but its also where the 3 season-changing outdoor fairs take place. The street is blocked off, and the air takes on a mix of traditional Japanese matsuri and Western block party atmosphere. There are plenty of foreigners like me living here, but the native Nihonjin in this part of Nagoya are well-heeled, and are very intent on welcoming the world to their doorsteps.
I also shot some video of the festival dances, take a look!
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This is an experiment of sorts to try to tie together my online identity and my offline personality. I've made plenty of business oriented sites, but I have never actually put together one for myself personally... With the advent of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace along with blog sites like Blogger and Twitter, I find that I have cut a wide swath here in the internet, in terms of being actively online, but there isn't one place to really tie that information together. So this will be an attempt at doing so.