Mr Blog is a fan of forward planning - thinking ahead and looking to the future are dying arts in the West. Not in Japan.
Ten minutes on a ferry takes you from the south coast of Japan to a small tropical island which has been inhabited for over 10,000 years, called Miyajima.
Miyajima is famed for the large, vermillion-coloured Torii gate that stands in the sea a few hundred metres from the shore. There has been a Torii gate there since the sixth century and the current structure, the 7th rennovation, was put in place in 1875. It is 16.8 m high and weighs 60 tons.
The trees that provided the wood are Camphor (because it resists insects and salt water erosion) and the particualr variety takes 500-600 years to grow big enough to use.
The Japanese decided in 1875 that, given it would need replacing in 500 years time they should do something about it in time. They planted replacement trees over 100 years ago so that they would be big enough, when the time came, to get the job done.
And Mr Blog thought Scottish Distilleries were forward thinking when they made 35 yr old single malts!
No comments:
Post a Comment