Kegon Falls

Have you ever heard about Kegon Falls? Kegon Falls is one of the three most beautiful waterfalls in Japan. The water there flow from 97 meters in height. My friends and I went there for the SVP Homestay Program and the weather there was 0 Degree Celcius because it's winter. We took so many pictures because the view is so beautiful and amazing. To get into Kegon Falls, we need to use a lift and go down for around 16 floors. 

Despite all the beautiful views of Kegon Falls, it has a dark history too. There were so many japanese youth who commits suicide by jumping from Kegon Falls and the famous one is Misao Fujimura. He commit suicide when he was 16 years old. 

Why did he commit suicide? the story begin when Fujimura fell in love with the eldest daughter of Kikuchi Dairoku, called Tamiko. Tamiko rejected Fujimura's love because she was planning to marry Tatsukichi Minobe. Then, Fujimura became distraught and committed suicide by jumping from Kegon Falls in Nikko. He wrote a Japanese Farewell poem directly on the trunk of a tree before committing suicide. 

Delicate line between heaven and earth...
the calm of the ages,
all the world's worth.
such minuscule measure,
while we think it so grand..
just five specks of smallness,
this soft quiet land.
so frail and so fleeting,
in the end you will see
simple dreams were Horatio's philosophy.

for all the truth,
all creation,
all secrets of yore
can be told in an instant,
by then they're no more.

ah, the unexplainable all worries unsettled,
heartache unresolved..
all questions unanswered,
with death, shall be solved.

we already teeter,
this sheer cliff so high.
when we fall to corruption,
insecurities die.

to end is to start,
to surrender is to know.

despair and depression
together they grow.
hope shall meet hopeless,
when there's nowhere to go.

The poem he wrote is so touching and beautiful. He was too young to die. God Bless him :).

Misao Fujimura, (July 1886 - May 22 1903) 

My friends and I