Bridge to Heaven

This is one of the famous sites in Japan. It is one of the 3 official beautiful sites of Japan. Literally translated the name is "the bridge to heaven". There are many haiku written by famous Japanese poets at this location. The proper way to view the bridge to heaven is demonstrated in the following video.

Rusting Bridge

As I promised in my previous post back in July, I took pictures of the bridge and am posting it below. I will take some more as the bridge rusts.

The Bridge and Natural Patina

I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new bridge. The scissor did not work well and that was a little funny. The consultant said "Look how the students use this bridge as though it has been here forever." He was truly excited and I have to say that he got me excited about a project being completed too. Most of the people including myself asked "why isn't the bridge painted?" They (the consultants) explained that the bridge will turn red (brown) as it rusts. I think they used the word "natural patina".

I asked someone about the strength of the bridge as it rusts and they said that it is built of a special steal that only rusts on the surface. I will take my camera to take pictures of the rust and will post the natural progression of the rust here from time to time.

I have to admit that it made me feel a little philosophical, thinking about my own mortality and the changes taking place in my own body. It was a Zen moment. (Click on the Zen Link)