Lundi 6 novembre 2006
Je viens de mettre en ligne dans la rubrique "albums photos" (à droite) une carte du site d'Angkor avec des commentaires concernant les fouilles des expéditions Takanohashi et Tanaka. En espérant que ça rende les choses un peu plus claires...
par Marion publié dans : Lieux
Mardi 24 octobre 2006
Le Phnom Kulen est considéré par les Cambodgiens comme la plus sacrée de toutes les montagnes et c'est ici que Jayavarman II déclara l'indépendance du pays en 802. Il y a un petit temple en activité, le Wat Chou au sommet de la montagne abritant un Bouddha couchés sculpté dans la roche. Il marque la source de la rivière dont l'eau est considérée comme sacrée.

Le lieu du Pélerinage est le Prasat Krau Romeas, un temple perdu dans la jungle près d'un série de cascades. Tout le lit de la rivière est sculpté de figures bouddhiques et de lingas. Deux douzaines d'autres temples sont répartis dans la jungle, mais la zone n'étant pas déminés seuls les locaux parviennent à y aller. Une autre rivière, Kbal Spean, originellement sculptée, coule en direction d'Angkor Wat. Les sculptures ont été détruites en 2003 par des pillards indélicats.

Prasat Rong Chen, premier temple montagne édifié dans la région, il fait figure de prototype.

Sra Damrei (le lac aux éléphants) est très difficile à atteindre (moto seulement, et encore, uniquement à la saison sèche) et lourdement miné. Ces animaux sculptés faisant face au sud sont les gardiens de la montagne. Il y a un éléphant à la taille réelle (4m de long pour 3m de large), et des statues plus petites de lions, une grenouille et une vache.
par Gillou publié dans : Lieux
Mardi 24 octobre 2006
A 15 km au sud est de Siem Riep, le groupe de Roluos se compose du Bakong, de Preah Ko et de Lolei. Ils datent de la fin du IXe siècle et correspondent à l'ancienne capitale Hariharalaya dont dérive le nom même de Lolei - un des temples du groupe. Après son éducation à Java, le Roi Jayavarman II pris le pouvoir et fit deux séjours à Hariharalaya, ville déjà existante. L'un fut antérieur à son instalation sur le Phnom Kulen (Mahendraparvata), où fut fondé le culte du Roi Dieu. Le second fut postérieur : il y mourut en 850, au bout de 48 ans de règne, après avoir ramené le linga miraculeux, symbole de la souveraineté. Ses successeurs y demeureront jusqu'à Yasovarman, fondateur de la première Angkor. 

PREAH KO
Temple funéraire de Jayavarman II et des ancêtres de son deuxième successeur Indravarman. La stèle de fondation du Temple dans la Gopura de la première enceinte est admirablement conservée. Après un hommage à Shiva elle conne une courte généalogie  d'Indravarman, puis en fait l'éloge, en sanskrit : "le bras droit de ce prince long et rond, terrible dans le combat quand il faisait tomber sur ses ennemis son glaive vibrant, accablant les Rois de tous les points cardinaux, et invincible, a pu cependant être toujours apaisé, mais par deux ennemis seulement : celui qui avait le dos tourné et celui qui, désireux de vivre, se mettait sous sa protection". L'inscription fait ensuite allusion au culte du Devaraja, ou "roi dieu" institué sur le mont Mahendra (Phnom Kulen) et termine en donnant la date de fondation (879) de trois statues de Shiva et de Devi. L'autre face, en Khmer, est de 893, sous le règne de Yasovarman I, et prescrit certaines donations à Parameshvara, divinité de la chapelle médiane de la rangée orientale de sanctuaires, et à Prithivindreshrava, dans la chapelle sud.
par Gillou publié dans : Lieux
Mercredi 31 mai 2006
Libre à vous de traduire cet article, pour 2 XP (ok, c'est pas cher payé mais vous gagnez aussi toute ma gratitude).
The Fuchu prison is the biggest of Japan. But appart from the modern wings rest a "Special Wing" inherited from the darkest period of Japanese Empire. Still, the walls remember, quite literally. The tragedy birthed the prison's restless spirit. The Special Wing, it seemed, is unwilling to go gently into oblivion. With the residual memories of all who ever lived there, an entity arose from the prison's death and persisted in a bleak and restless "life" after death. For the most part, the prison special wing is a dry, dusty place of moldering floorboards and crumbling walls. Everything is cracked and earthen. The prison is dominated by rust-colored dust and stubborn patches of humidity. Once upon a time, the cells and rooms numbered a dozens, but many have collapsed. Left standing are a few cells, the Colonel’s office, the main hall, the guards room, the infirmary and the cemetery in the far side of the Courtyard.

Hall
The hall is a large room with an old iron door leading to the outside world at one side and a hallway that leads to the cells and the leaving quarters of the guards. Large windows locked with iron bars show a patchy “Courtyard” surrounded by the prison buildings.

The Courtyard
The prison buildings surround a square courtyard. The ground is bare of nearly any vegetation. This place has been used for the promenades of the prisoners. A pole, removed now, was used for gunning prisoners sentenced to death. The cracks in the Northern wall are a legacy of this practice.
Haunting Phenomena
Visual: Bobbing witchlights in the Courtyard. Vision of a pole covered by black patches. The Northern wall begin to bleed from all his holes.
Smell: The smell of gun smoke, areas of inexplicable and repulsive scents (vomit, blood or rotting meat).
Aural: Sounds of a man shouting far away, followed by detonations.
Tactile: Cold spots.
Taste: Sudden taste of wet clothes in the throat.

The cemetery
The cemetery is raised on the eastern part of the courtyard. It bears 51 graves, each of which is nothing more than a big rock with a name and dates written into its flattest surface. One grave at the far side of the hill differs from the rest. It has an actual headstone (albeit a small and crumbling one) and shows the name Sergeant Abe, with the date 19. The majority of graves  show 19 (ie 1944) as the date of death. Also, each grave marked "19" (with the exception of Abe’s) has a word painted below the name and dates. It's either "execution" or "suicide". Characters can count 33 executions and seven suicides.
Haunting Phenomena
Visual: odd smoke, witchlights
Smell: The smell of gun smoke, areas of inexplicable and repulsive scents (vomit, blood or rotting meat).
Aural: Sounds of someone attempting to move stealthily through the stones.
Tactile: Cold spots.
Taste: odd feelings, sensations that almost indicate a bad cold or sickness coming on. A character may be tight in the chest, become dizzy, start coughing or even exhibit a sudden fever or urge to vomit.

The basement
The basement is creepy and dank. There are leaks in the foundation and scuttling millipedes. Part of it is cement-floor. This area was the primary abode of the dogs. Their cage is still there. It is a chainlink-fence-enclosed dog kennel where the dogs died, tearing one another apart in the hungry dark. A pipe sticking out of a wall can be set to trickle fresh water, and there's a hose attached to an adjacent wall. At night, after the prison has had enough time to awaken almost one can get flashes of its canine aura, and smell or hear dogs. Even during the day, there sometime seems to be a lingering dog-kennel aroma. The basement is the site of a cistern with black and rank water.
Haunting Phenomena
Visual: the door move plunges the basement into darkness. Sight of dogs, either in their prime or at their end, when only one or two survived. Glint of light across the eyes of dogs in the darkness, but with no actual animals visible.
Smell: The smell of dog feces or urine. Strange, stagnant whiffs from the cistern. Smell of fear and urine near the hose.
Aural: Growling, barking or whining of dogs. Sound of dog claws on the floor or at the door of the basement.
Tactile: Brush of dogs against legs or the feel of a dog rearing up to push its paws against a character's chest. A feeling of cold from the cistern. The sound of the dogs hurling themselves at the door.
Taste: Sudden taste of blood, rotted meat, or stagnant water.

The Archives
The prison's archives room was not huge. The shelves are now empty and the reading tables gone. The files were originally on history, military science, and of course records of the prisoners.
Haunting Phenomena
Visual: Finding a single file, the pages damped and impossible to read. Only the picture is visible, a man in the prison uniform. Folders spontaneously appearing on shelves where the shelves were empty before, some bear the name of the characters.
Smell: The scent of old paper.
Aural: The sound of books ruffling or fluttering. A voice, quiet and incoherent, as if someone reads aloud and distractedly.
Tactile: Folders on the shelves whip about in a poltergeist display. Pages turning on their own.
Taste: The sudden taste of mold or dust.

The Guardians rooms
There are three rooms, damped and cold, the walls are covered with humidity patches. The rooms can easily recover their old role. There is a heater but the system seems to be dead.
Haunting Phenomena
Visual: image of neatly arranged bed posts, a Japanese flag reflected on the dusty window.
Smell: The scent cigarette, of cooked food.
Aural: some old song, seemly played on a gramophone.
Tactile: cold spots, sudden adrenaline rush.
Taste: the taste of blood.

The Colonel’s Office
Kawamura’s office is a combination small office with a desk and an old safe, and what appears to be a dilapidated concrete room (for interrogation purpose).  Under the Colonel’s desk is a wooden trapdoor, concealed in shadow. The room below the trapdoor is nothing more than a human-sized niche carved out of the ground, dug as a bolt-hole in case criminals escaped or ran rampant. Within, characters find a human skeleton draped in unrecognizable garments. What is recognizable is the insignia of Colonel of the Japanese Imperial Army. (This is Kawamura’s skeleton.) In the right hand is a military automatic pistol dating back the world war two. The mouth of the skeleton hangs open and a hole extends from the top of its skull down through the jaw.
Tucked under the skeleton, in its left hand, is a book. The pages are weathered and decaying. Picking up the book looses the pages from their binding. It' a criminal log book, detailing the crimes of Fuchu Prison Special Wing detainees from the years 1941 to 1945. The book is hard to read, hand written and partly decaying. At the very end, the the end the Colonel inserts personal notes and goes on briefly about that blasphemous priest, and later about "the pox" that everyone seems to have. The Colonel’s last scrawled words are something to “the effect of that goddam savage cursed us all with this disease, even Sergeant Abe. He'll make his peace in Hell, but now he' dragging us all down with him. I had to do what I had to do to make things right. Now I have to do one more thing. The Emperor preserves our weary souls”.
This room is subject to the haunting of the Colonel (his gun is one of his Anchors), this could be translated in many ways: the reflected face of “somebody” in one of the windows (that somebody being the ghost of Colonel Kawamura), or just a general smell of rot and decay.
The torture room is really spooky, with fingernail marks or handprints on the cell walls. The room has been cleaned up after the tragedy, but the suffering endured here is still tangible.

Production Unit 32-456
This was an underground factory where the prisoners where forced to work. The unit entrance is a ramshackle lean-to of tin sheets and collapsing wooden beams. The door has a rusted lock on it and that lock is broken and open. Entering the place is hazardous. Not only is it utterly dark, but to descend one has to use either the hand-crank elevator (a claustrophobic, rusty cage that can hold only two to three people because there's a large hole in the middle of the cage), or climb down the elevator shaft on a rotten wooden ladder. The factory itself is a tangle of unlit tunnels, pits, cave-ins and fractured cart track. Deep in the corridors mazes lies a wall of tightly packed rocks that, if destroyed, gives way to a small niche where a skeleton remains. Written spectrally in a dry, red-black substance on a nearby wall are the words, "Here lie the bloody bones of the blasphemous Yamada Chikuyupi."

The technical passageways
All the exits are tightly closed, but the technical conduits still have secrets. A tent is roughly hidden behind some garbage and half collapsed wall. It is filled with supplies. Such supplies include bulk and can foods, ammunition for a pistol, a sleeping bag, a few changes of clothes for an adult male, some rope and various and humidity covered other goods. This is Ono Kazuoki’s tent. The prison lets him come and go, because he's sworn to serve it. Thus, he's able to go out into the world, get food and supplies, and return.
par Gillou publié dans : Lieux
Mercredi 31 mai 2006
Situé a Kanda, le Goto Building a été construit sous l'impulsion de Goto Shimpei, Maire d'Hibiya dans les années 20 et fondateur de Municipal Research Building, qui sert également de Mairie pour Hibiya. L'architecte, Sato Koichi, est d'ailleurs le même. Le bâtiment est couvert de tuiles d'un brun sombre, il y a des gargouilles et des bas reliefs aux motifs gothiques.
Le bâtiment a été profondément transformé après son exposition aux pouvoirs du "Théatre d'Ombre". Les occupants du bâtiment font ainsi référence aux Night Floors, sensés être au 5e étage (le bâtiment n'en compte pourtant que quatre). Il est une porte ouverte sur un monde parallèle, dangereux et fantasque, imprévisible et pervers.
Suite à l'enquête menée par une de ses équipes la SF0 a prit le contrôle du bâtiment qui a été rasé. Ses locataires, KANEDA Daisuke, HANAJIMA Takeshi, OGAWA Yoko et TACHIKAWA Takahiro ont été placé en institution et souffrent de profonds désordres émotionels. KATO Akemi est considérée comme étant perdue.
par Gillou publié dans : Lieux
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