Wednesday 3 November 2010

Daisen Park Craft Fair

This Sunday we visited a craft fair in Daisen Park situated in Sakai city which is in the southern area of Osaka prefecture. Despite being a rainy day there were many visitors to the fair and many stalls, mostly selling various hand made ceramic and glass goods. Their were some really well made items on display but most were quite expensive and so we only ended up buying a couple of nice hand made rice bowls, but it was an interesting place to visit.

After the craft fair we took a wander around the park, one of my my favourite pastimes! sometimes I feel as if I am old before my time and can imagine myself in 30 years time doing exactly the same things that I do now. The park is also home to Sakai City Museum, which charts the history of the area. The city is known for its burial grounds which are shaped like a keyhole (called 'kofun'), and contains on of the largest graves in the world, known as the 'Daisen Kofun', thought to be the grave of Emperor Nintoku dating back to the 5th Century.


Daisen Park craft fair.


Despite the bad weather the lemonade was still popular!


The park's inhabitants.


Daisen Kofun

12 comments:

  1. You know it seems quite strange seeing something which resembles a craft fair out in Japan... don't know why.

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  2. maybe it seems like a very English tradition!

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  3. Hello Paul!
    How are you?
    How was your visit at my family house?
    Did you talk about こふん with my dad?
    He is an expert of こふん!

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  4. So the picture of the giant keyhole surrounded by water is the burial grounds is it? For a moment I thought that was "one of the largest graves in the world"...

    Why are they shaped that way? I'm not too hot on history but 5th Century seems too early for keys and locks for it to be based on them.

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  6. The burial grounds are even more amazing if you look at them from google maps satellite view!

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  7. Heh. The blog is still going! Way to go. I've got a lot of reading to catch up on.....

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  8. To Kumi: We had great fun at your family house, the food was lovely! I didn't ask about kofun but it was nice to meet your dad as well.

    To James: I haven't done too much research into Kofuns, just going by what Wikipedia say's but maybe the shape is just keyhole shaped but not actually based on a keyhole, if that makes sense!

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  9. Love the stone pigs! (catching up on the blog)

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  10. Andrew: I was especially fond of the boars (I think they are boars rather than pigs). glad to hear you are still reading!

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  11. hello. I'm Ngân
    Could I use your Craft Park images for Fiuzu.com
    Fiuzu makes sure that your images will be kept original and the author as well as images URL will be showed on Fiuzu.com.
    we appreciate you help. thank you very much. We look forward to hearing from you. :D

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment Ngan, please feel free to use the photos for your site, except for the last one of the Daisen Kofun. I don't have copyright for that particular image. all others I took myself so are okay.

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