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This
year, some of our club members, together with our Malaysian
hobbyist friends, visited the All Japan Ranchu Show 2007. We
were very honoured to be hosted by Suzaka-san, who had
personally made very detail arrangements to ensure that our
trip would be full of opportunities to see and learn about
ranchu.
Mountaineous terrain with high quality water, fresh air and
beautiful landscape are the hallmarks of Nagano (長野) - hometown
of Suzaka-san. It is not surprising that Nagano is famous
for producing one of the best apples, persimmons and pears in Japan.
Inevitably, the ranchu of
Nagano is also blessed with the natural gift of good water
quality. With more than 40 years experience keeping the
ranchu, Suzaka-san has perfected ways to groom and breed
beautiful ranchus in this cold prefecture. |
beautiful Nagano |
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maples aplenty |
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Matsumoto Castle |
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The Niōmon Gate
of Zenkō-ji |
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another
serene setup in Zenkō-ji |
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Besides
ranchu, Suzaka-san was also very proud to show us around
Nagano's city, he had thoughtfully planned the trip with
sightseeing to the
Matsumoto-jō
(松本城))
castle
- one of
Japan's most beautiful original castle and the famous
Buddhist temple
Zenkō-ji
(善光寺).
We also visited the winter
Olympics stadium and were impressed with the Japanese spirit
of passion and perfection - they had actually
planned and prepared for the hosting of the 1998 Winter Olympics
10 years before the games!
The ranchu
excursion escalated to the excitement of joining some of the
Japanese hobbyists in Nagano to bench in their fishes. We
took the same chartered bus with this group of Nagano
hobbyist at 5am to the show location in Tokyo, where the
best ranchus of the world congregated in the 52nd
All Japan Ranchu Show. The event was attended by more than a thousand ranchu fanciers
throughout Japan. We can really feel the atmosphere of
suspense and euphoria in this big annual event even as
spectators.
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famous apples of Nagano
autumn colours in abundance
awesome chrysanthemum in Matsumoto garden
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All
the excitement had not ended just yet. Suzaka-san had
arranged for his close contacts to bring us to the home of
various well known hobbyists in Hamamatsu. We had benefited
tremendously in learning how Japanese hobbyists groom their ranchus. The
ranchu trip was rounded up with visiting a very
interesting ranchu auction, set against the backdrop of
majestic Mount Fuji!
We would
like to thank Suzaka-san for endowing us with the best of
Japanese hospitality. It was indeed an eye opener and a
valuable lesson for us all. We had a great time in relaxing
onsens and feasting on extraordinary Japanese cuisines.
And of course, "eye-feasting" on beautiful sceneries and
ranchus too.
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ranchu auction
and Mount Fuji |
More
photographs