Once captured, the masters keep in close contact with their umi-u. They usually take the birds out of the cage and massage their heads or bellies so the umi-u will get accustomed to living with them. The least bit of the anger by a master will quickly be conveyed to the umi-u, so they must try to treat them as tenderly as possible. Early every morning, the umi-u is bound with hemp strings around their necks and let to bathe in the river. It takes about two weeks for wild cormorants to get accustomed to fresh water and to accommodate themselves to living on the land with their masters or the rest of the family.

It is during this training time that the Umi-u are fed with freshwater fish. The Umi-u do not catch fish in the river until they become adapted to their surroundings. The masters feed them by hand, but once trained the cormorants learn to catch fish together with other older cormorants. It takes about three years to train Umi-u. Trained cormorants are called Tooshi-u (passed through cormorants) and are from this point on treated in the same fashion as other senior cormorants. The average life expectancy of Tooshi-u is 14-15 years, but there is told of one exceptional bird that lived for 26 years.

Among The Western Hills
Beautiful photographs of Saga-Arashiyama region.

Jidai Matsuri ~ October 22nd
Festival of the Heian Jingu Shrine. In 1895, it was celebrated the 1,100th anniversary of the founding of the capital city, Heian-Kyo. The Heian Jingu Shrine was created in memory of this event, modeled after the Administration Hall at the Imperial Palace built in 794 A.D. and constructed on a reduced scale of five-eighths of the original. Since then the Jidai Matsuri has been observed annually on October 22 as the memorial day of moving the capital to Kyoto.





Historical overview of Heian-kyo:
Heian was established as Japan's capital in the year 794. Heian-kyo was a remarkably large area with a vast cityscape planned around the grounds of the old Imperial Palace, located in the north. It extended 5.2 km from north to south, and 4.7 km from east to west. On either side of the main road, Suzaku-oji (85 m wide), were areas called Sakyo and Ukyo, inhabited by up to 150,000 residents. The national markets in each of these areas were the largest in all of Japan, and a great number of commodities were brought in from all over. The government directly managed the manufacture of many handicrafts, and craftsmen who practiced the most advanced techniques of the time also gathered to live here.

Dai-dairi was where the the house of the Emperor and government offices were located, in the northern part of Heian-kyo. This was the political center of the nation where nobles, officers and soldiers, as well as the Emperor himself, worked. The surrounding area consisted mainly of the administrative offices, located on the neatly arranged streets.

"A natural medley of willows and cherry blossoms weave themselves into a brocade, the Heian-kyo" says a verse that expresses the cityscape of the most brilliant period of the Heian capital. However, from the middle of the 10th century, about 200 years after its foundation, the city gradually began to undergo change. Ukyo became less metropolitan, reverting back to a low-populated rural area of fields and gardens. Residents began to concentrate in the Sakyo area, and Heian-kyo mainly developed to the east of the Kamo River beyond the city proper, and also into the north. The city design of Heian-kyo lost its balanced shape and became known as "Kyoto" around the 11th or 12th century


Oi River photo source: http://web.kyoto-inet.or.jp/people/naradate/