Archive for February 2009

Shooting 70,000 cormorants in Shiga

NHK TV Otsu reported that from April 2009, Shiga will restart the shooting of cormorant birds called kawau. They found that the kawau population in Shiga has almost doubled since last year to a whopping 74,000 birds. Most of them live on Chikubushima island where they have devastated the trees with their droppings and nests. The once picturesque and lush green island is going bald and brown.

Shiga wants to reduce the kawau population to 4,000 birds in 5 years. Wow, where will all those dead birds go? In the lake??

New blog for shiga-ken.com

I’ve created this new blog at shiga-ken.com. The former blog was hosted at PHOTOGUIDE.JP (my sister site). So now this blog is totally dedicated to Shiga Prefecture.

Most of the previous entries have been moved over to this new blog. All the entries are in categories, mostly according to the city or town.

This blog system is easier to use, so hopefully I’ll be able to write more often.

PhotoGuide Japan, Best of Japan On the Web 2009 by Japanzine

Sister site PhotoGuide Japan was selected by Japanzine magazine as one of the “Best of Japan On the Web 2009″ sites under the Photo Gallery category. http://www.japanzine.jp/article/jz/1974/best-of-japan-on-the-web-2009

Taga Taisha Setsubun

On Feb. 3, 2009, I went to see Setsubun mame-maki at Taga Taisha Shrine for the first time. They had an Oni demon dance group from Shimane-ken to act as the oni. They wore a gorgeous costume and they were the best-looking oni I ever saw for Setsubun.

See my video and photos:

Video link: http://youtu.be/41epqjNMG8s

Photos:
http://photoguide.jp/pix/thumbnails.php?album=727

Kyorinbo in Japan Times

The Japan Times newspaper (Feb. 15, 2009) had a good article about Kyorinbo temple and how it was restored. This is one temple I still haven’t visited. Hope to go sometime this year. 

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fv20090215a1.html