On the left "Zuihoushou" - Order of the Sacred Treasure medal. On the right "Kunshou" medal of honor.
Star of Pakistan medal
I was at my grandmother's house in Tokyo a few weeks ago and she had these on the table in front of my grandfather's shrine so I took pictures of them. The Star of Pakistan medal is the one I wrote about in an earlier post. The others were given to my grandfather by the Emperor of Japan. The smaller one I think was given to him in the 50's and the larger one in the late 80's or early 90's.
I don't know if you can see in the photo but there are offerings in front of my grandfather's picture of a persimmon, a Japanese pear, and a small "omanju-" Japanese sweet. He had a sweet tooth and loved to eat. I remember one day when I was in elementary school, I was visiting their house and we heard the "yaki imo" charcoal roasted sweet potato truck out on the street, the recorded singing coming out of the megaphone on top of the truck sort of like the annoying songs that replay over and over again on ice cream trucks. My grandpa shot up and grabbed his wallet and ran out the door in his slippers to try to catch it, then came back with a smoking hot sweet potato wrapped in aluminum foil. I always thought it was funny because to the general public he was always a very high class kind of guy but things like this made him normal and real and just a funny grandpa.
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