Ullambana Photoblog

Tonight Tanaka-sensei lead the session as Eda-sensei was away (probably at the airport picking visitors up). It was a loooong session on Kihon. From a little bit of footwork, to men/kote/do/kote-men/kote-men-do-uchi at sanhyoushi/ichihyoushi (3 / 1 steps/beats)... and then rounds of kirikaeshi, debana waza, suriage waza... To the ending 10 mins of mawari-keiko...
I was so focus today. Apart from the slight hiccups of getting hit by just standing there after a cut, I cut pretty precise with my back straight. My 3-month-old shinai got some splinters finally... But I am not sure if my power control is getting better or worst (or was it just because of the lack of maintaince.?)...

__________________

And, something completely kendo unrelated... (but I thought some foreigners will be interested to know a bit of my local customs...)

It's Ullambana Festival this week, something like a ..."Ghost fest". Today while having nothing in particular to do (waiting for some response from an interview...) - My grandma grabbed me to go to a few bows....



1) ...My late-grandfather's urn is kept at Yuenyuen Temple, a big, typical HK temple (yet not too traditional) that ran in a amalgamation of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucism)


2) Overlooking the district of Tseun Wan with the view of a ...kitcsh idol set...


3) First of all, we need to contribute some insent sticks to all the free spirits (who happened to got out of hell at this period of time....uhmm...)


4) Posh people get better decorations around their ancestor's name.


5) My grandma here searching for grandfather's name at one of the stalls, set up especially for this event (it's numbered, don't worry :D)... Yeah, bow to the name and off we go...


6) Obviously because of safety concern, the paper-money-burning task is now located outside the stalls, and we have to do it directly at the incinerator.


7) I have no idea why I snapped this pic, but I think some people are over-doing... I think some people suddenly find out it's too hard to set that red box (of paper-clothings, assorted paper items, etc) in fire, they just trash the whole thing into the deep, hot, smoky and smelling incinerator.


8) Yeah that's it - quite entertaining as I haven't had this sort of activity for 5 year, since I weren't home. Not everybody practise this, but probably because there's someone dear passed away recently, we are just following the usual procedures to go.

It super-rained on our way back (hence it didn't rain when I go for kendo!). The above pic is taken on the bus before going in to a tunnel.

[end]