Arrival in Kyoto

I'm pretty tired so have put some captions on the photos from today's major events and will leave it at that. See you tomorrow.

Kyoto day one

Shinkansen!

Riding the worlds fastest train for the first time, WOW. And I nearly missed it! You can never estimate correctly the time it takes to navigate a train station in a foreign land. The hotel clerk thought 20 minutes would be fine. I thought that sounded reasonable, but no! When I got to the station, I thought I knew where the underground tunnel was to the shinkasen side, but I got turned around. When I found the tunnel it was twice as long as it was when I arrived two days ago.( Have you noticed how that happens?) I got to the bullet train side with 10 minutes to departure. Dragging my heavy suitcase behind me I looked for the correct gate or platform but this was not immediately evident. After finding the gate, the ticket man said I needed all three of my tickets, not just the one that said Himeji on it, so I had to go fishing through my suitcase to find the other two that I had stored for safekeeping. By the time I got through the ticket gate it was 5 minutes to departure and I still had another escalator to ascend. As I reached the platform the train was pulling in. I had a reserved seat so was looking for car 7. Time was short so I entered in car 6 and by the time I got to my seat in car 7 the train had left the station!

I have a window seat but we’ve in a tunnel most of the time since leaving the station. You can tell this baby is going FAST! There are tantalizing glimpses of countryside between tunnels, less then a second to see the sites! As fate would have it I’m on the landward side and the best views are on the seaward side, or am I just thinking the grass is greener on the other side, as usual? Ah, a town, lots of blue tile roofs. Gone. More tunnel.

>>>>>>>
When I got to Himeji I wondered around a bit before I found my hotel. I couldn’t have my room until 2:00 so I left my bags and headed for the castle. I walked most of the way through a huge arcade filled with shops of all sorts and all lit up for the holidays. When I came out the castle loomed ahead of me, high, white and magnificent. I approached leisurely, savoring the expectation of seeing this legendary building. When I reached the moat and the Edo period gate I was confronted by a large sign in both Japanese and English. The castle is closed on December 29 and 30. The only two days that I will be here, they decide to close the place, for what I can only guess. From the faces on the crowds, I was not the only one surprised by this news. Not only the castle, but the nearby park and formal garden, the botanical gardens and just about everywhere else a tourist might go was closed. Well, on the bright side, the weather was great and until this evening my camera was working! Since there was little else to do, I walked all around the castle and took pictures from every angle. I also took pictures of the cats! Yes, cats. What a surprise to find that the parks around the castle are home to dozens of wild or at least un-owned cats who seem to be well fed by the visitors to the area. They are sort of like the deer on Miyajima, only you are allowed to feed them.
Forgive me for post so many pictures of the White Heron ( or Egret, depending on your translation, the word is the same in Japanese).

Himeji

Miyajima

I arrived in Hiroshima late last night and spend most of today on Miyajima, one of the most spectacular places in Japan, (according to the guide book). It really is hard to describe and it's late so I'll just plop in a link for some pictures I took. My camera is acting up and seems to need a cleaning so I wasn't very happy with a lot of the pictures and I have to apologize for taking so many of the famous red Tori gate, but it is sooo picturesque and I have wanted to see it for a long time. The deer are cute and are everywhere. You are forbidden to feed them and really shouldn't pet them, but everyone does. The males are more aggressive and will eat your map right out of your hands if you don't watch out!

Miyajima

Okinawa

I can’t believe that I’m already on a plane heading back to “Honto” Japan, as the Okinawans call the rest of Japan. My five days with Takeshi and his family were just fabulous. They treated me like visiting royalty and family at the same time. Takeshi took five days off from work just to show me around and what a great job he did. I saw so many spectacular places. Here are a few: 1) the worlds second largest aquarium with the worlds largest tank holding not one, but three whale sharks who they are hopeful about breeding! 2) countless beautiful beaches with coral sands and turquoise waters ( when the sun was shining), 3) the restored ancient palace of the kings of the Ryukyu Kingdom, Shurijo, as Okinawa was called before it was annexed by Japan in 1879, 4) The Peace memorial to the dead from the Battle of Okinawa that ended the Pacific War for Okinawa in 1943, this was a place to reflect on the great suffering and death caused by war, 5) the Okinawa World theme park which also had a spectacular limestone cave through which we walked for 800 meters, only a fraction of the 8 kilometers of caves there! 6) and a not be forgotten trip through a “real” Okinawan market, Makishi Public Market, which reminded me a bit of Thailand’s open air markets. Here I tasted the alcohol made with a poison snake (poison removed) fermenting at the bottom of the bottle, vat, or jar. I was also tricked by Takeshi into tasting pig ears! This was disguised as some tasty unknown substance. The vendor who was giving me samples of sea grape (umibudou) seaweed, then offered me some other things. After I ate this sort of crunchy but good tasting stuff they asked me what I thought it was. I thought might be another seaweed, but they announced with glee that it was prepared pig ears!!! I think I just escaped eating pig’s feet too!

Throughout my visit I was treated to delicious food, both at Takeshi’s home and at famous restaurants and cafes. Delicious sushi, fresh sashimi from a little restaurant 20 feet from the sea where the fish was caught, yummy udon (noodles) that only cost 200 yen, fresh fruit and Okinawa’s favorite Blue Seal ice-cream, the list goes on and on. Okinawa is full of English names and English signs, the result of years of American rule and the continued presence of thousands of American military personnel living on and off the many bases still operating here.

Shoko, Takeshi’s girlfriend, could only get off one day while I was here. She went with us on my first day on the island. Megu, Takeshi’s sister is a high-school English teacher. Her year-end vacation started on the 26th and she left on that day for Canada and a 10 day vacation! Talk about a change in climate! It was 78 F. in Okinawa today!

Here’s a link to some of the pictures I took:

Okinawa

Happy Holidays!

Today is the 22nd of December, the first day of winter, but here in Japan the weather is mild and I am on my way to Okinawa where the weather will be warm and breezy. Okinawa is in the southern most islands of Japan and are viewed as a holiday destination much the way Hawaii is to Americans!

I will spend Christmas this year with my friend Takeshi and his family. This is the first time since my daughters were born that I am not spending the holidays with at least one of them. It certainly feels strange. Right now I’m in the airport waiting for my flight, listing to the messages in Japanese that I still cannot understand. Hopefully it’s not something I really need to know! Luckily, the boarding process is virtually the same everywhere so I can just guess what they are saying.

The last couple of weeks of school flew by. There were a lot of tests and time spent with friends, the knitting group, making travel plans, and buying a cell phone so I could stay in touch while on my trip. All the while, fighting off homesickness. No baking of cookies, no making of whisky cakes (a annual event in my house) and no stockings to fill or tree to trim….chiotto sabishii, as they say here (a bit lonely), but don’t feel too sorry for me, I’m looking forward to this bit of traveling around Japan and finally going to Kyoto, the ancient capital and cultural center of Japan. I will stop in Hiroshima, Himeji and Nara as well. New Years celebrations in Kyoto should be quite something.

I’m now two thirds through my stay here but feel like I have only just gotten here in terms of understanding Japanese and feeling more comfortable with my ability to negotiate the challenges of daily life, train travel, bill paying, reservation making. As my understanding grows, what I don’t understand seems to grow faster! I have eaten lots of yummy homemade dishes, but don’t know how to make any of them. I still want to learn how to tie an obi correctly, make “scatter sushi” and inari sushi, and see a Kabuki performance. And there’s always school. This new term will be more challenging and I will have to work hard to stay on top on it all.

I talked to Krista on Skype today and learned that they were having another Nor’easter, we call the big winter storms in Maine. They pointed the computer toward the window so I could see the snow coming down and the trees all looking white. It’s fun to actually miss these things. It has been cool (in the fifties for the most part) here, but I am headed for temperatures in the 70’s in Okinawa!

Because this entry is doubling as my annual holiday letter, I want to update some of you who may not know that Krista is planning for a July wedding next year! Kevin proposed to her on the day I left for Japan! So we toasted their engagement and my trip all in the same sip of champagne!

Anna and Jake have a new home in Hallowell, Maine and are getting settled again. With these hard financial times, we are all just glad to be getting along. You may not be staying up on the yen, but it has become stronger and stronger since I got here and my dollars are only getting 89 yen today compared to 105 when I got here! Ouch!

I am hoping for much better things for us all next year with the new administration. Yes, I know it will take time, but if an effort is being made to improve things on a global scale, maybe we will see some change soon!

(These pictures were taken in Okinawa with my friends Takeshi and Shoko.)

I hope you are all well. My best wishes for a Happy New Year to you all!

Miso

Since time is short and I wrote too much last week I'll just include a couple of pictures from this week and a write a few words about miso.

I'll just assume that you all know what miso is and just get to the point: today I went to the locally famous red miso, or Hacho miso as it is called, factories here in Okazaki. Tomoko and I visited two big factories, took their tours and ate their samples, and bought miso products to take home and give as gifts. The most interesting thing to me about the visit was how this centuries old industry has changed very little and how the fermentation process still involves placing by hand several tons of stones on top of each barrel full of prepared soybeans. The placement of the stones has to be just so, as to stay in place for the three years of fermentation and even to withstand minor earthquakes! Hundreds of huge cedar barrels were resting in the warehouse, each with it's pyramid of stones of different sizes, especially picked, and laid by specially trained stone-layers.

This has also been a great week for a sushi lover such as myself. My English class had a pot luck on before class this week and brought all sorts of goodies, including this "pressed sushi" which was served in a lovey lacquer ware box. Then, today, I went to a new (to me) conveyor-belt sushi place that was several notches above the one I had eaten at before. Tomoko and I shared all the plates, ate our fill and only paid a little over $10 each. When we first sat down at the counter, the lady sitting next to me exclaimed in amazement, and in English, " You can eat raw fish??". We assured her I could and that was the end of the conversation, but it sort of sums up how the Japanese perceive Westerners when it comes to Japanese food.

Tea and a hike

Sorry to have made this so long, just skip it and check out the pictures below if time is short.

This morning Tomoko san picked me up in front of my room and we headed north to a garden and shrine and a trail to hike. I was a crisp but sunny day. There was still frost on the moss in the garden when we arrived, but the gold of the last fall leaves was glowing against the bright, blue sky. I had come prepared for a hike, but then it sounded like a walk in a garden, so I didn’t bring my backpack from the car and later regretted it. First, we checked out a vegetable stand where produce was sold for prices way below those in the supper market. I bought taro, which I have learned to cook, and pickled plums (because they are sort of a specialty) and Tomoko bought some huge fresh oyster mushroom, and taro also. The shop let us leave our bags there while we were enjoying the teahouse and gardens. (When we came back hours later, the shop was closed but our bag was still there waiting for us!)

When we entered the teahouse/shop I was surprised to see it full of kimono glad young ladies, but Tomoko explained that in the year when a girl will turn twenty, she gets all dressed up in traditional garb and goes to a shrine on New Year’s day. Since there are a million young ladies there on that day it’s not a good one for taking pictures in the formal gardens, so these young ladies were all decked out like geisha without the face paint just for a photo shoot in the teahouse gardens. This way they will have a really nice picture of this special event and won’t have to worry about the crowds on January first.

After looking at all the lovely, but expensive, things in the gift shop, we inspected the gardens. You can see a few pictures of it in the slide show below. We then hiked up the mountain to a famous look out point and hill top shrine. The sign said it was 900 meters, which didn’t seem like a lot, but most of it was up hill so it took us a while to finally get to the top. The trail up went though a old cedar forest with very tall straight trees and a carpet of leaves. On the way, we met a elderly lady who was coming down. She offered me her stick, which she had apparently picked up along the way. A kind gesture, but I declined as the hardest part is going down and she still had a ways to go. At the top we could see Okazaki and some of the surrounding towns way below. The late fall light was pretty, but it was a bit hazy so the distant mountains were barely visible. We had the place to ourselves except for one couple, who had hiked up another path and joined us as we were reaching the old shrine with the red tori gate.

After hiking back down we were ready for a good meal and that is what we had at the little restaurant that was also in the garden. They offered two set meals, for 1000 yen (that is now about $11) but it was close to closing time and only one choice was left. I can’t tell you the name of the dish, they just go in one ear and out the other, but it was tasty. It came with a rice dish that was still cooking in a little pot over a flame on the tray, an assortment of pickles and sweet things, a seafood ball of some sort, and a bowl of miso soup, and of course tea. The picture I took is terrible but I included it any way so you could at least see how pretty the presentation was. With our meal we got a discount on macha tea and a sweet at the teahouse, so after our lunch we went there for a little tea. Macha tea a the green powder tea that is used in tea ceremony and is always served to the guest in a beautiful bowl with a little sweet to eat before drinking it. You can see a picture of the bowl and the sweet, which was wrapped in a bamboo leaf, in the slide show below.

In the slide show I also included some pictures from earlier this week. On Thursday, Mia and I went to Tomoko’s apartment for a knitting session and dinner. Junco also joined us. She is a friend of Tomoko’s and one of my English class students. She is very sweet and down to earth, does gardening, and yoga, and looks after her husband who is retired. We four ladies decided to dust off our long dormant knitting, or in my case crochet, skills. Tomoko has a huge collection of wool she wants to use up, and I am working on a scarf just to have something to do besides study. Mia is a mad knitter who takes her knitting to school to work on it on her lunch break. Mostly it was just fun to have this very mundane activity to share with our new friends. Just for you plant lovers, also in the slide show a couple of shots of this amazing dahlia that grows here. It towers over the gardens and even passes the roof line on implausibly delicate stems and seems to only come in the pale lavender color.

Tea & a hike

RED

This weekend I spent another, and probably final, day leaf viewing, but it was the best yet. Right here in Okazaki's Higashi Koen, East Park, I spend a lovely afternoon with some "school mates" oooing and aaahing at the spectacular colors of the maples. Mia is from Israel and Unchien (this is probably not spelled right, sorry) is from Korea.

I don't know my trees that well, but all the deep burgundy, bright glowing red and yellow-peach leaves seem to be on Japanese maples. The park includes several ponds, a small, sad zoo where I still couldn't resist taking a picture of the mere cats, numerous gardens, and a Buddhist temple. One of the things that makes the Fall color here so spectacular is that it's not that cold, and there is still a lot of other plants that are green and flowering! Here are a few pictures for you to see. As nice as some of these are, they don't do it justice.

Higashi Koen 11/30/08

Momiji

Japan is famous for its fall colors as is Maine. Here momiji, as the red maple leaves are called, are a passion and daily reports of the colors progress are made on TV and the Internet. The last two weekends I had opportunities to visit some new places and see how the leaves where doing. This past weekend was a peak one for the hilly area north of Okazaki and so, along with a million other people, I went to a “momiji festival” in a park about an hour’s drive north, or so the poster said. As it turned out, the traffic was so bad, we ended up getting off the bus, at the drivers suggestion, and walking the last 7 or 8 kilometers along the side of the road. The bus never caught up with us. As we got closer to the park entrance, all the tour buses started letting their passengers out to go ahead. It was a bit like going to the Common Ground Fair on Saturday! At the park, there were all sorts of booths and food places. The smells were tantalizing, but I didn’t have a lot of money or time, so only snacked on a few local delicacies. The trees would have been beautiful to photograph during the day, but we arrived as the sun was sinking behind the hills and had to enjoy them by the fading light of dusk. At night the park was lit up and was quick a spectacle, but nothing my camera could capture. The last public bus back to Okazaki left at 6:30 p.m. so we soon had to leave to get in the long line waiting to return. Once onboard we were packed in like sardines and stood for the hour and a half trip back. Back at the Okazaki bus station my companions and I found our bikes in the bicycle garage and peddled home. It was quite the adventure. Click below to see a few pictures from the trip.

Momiji

Higashi Kôen

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Yesterday the weather was spectacular, a warm fall day here, so after classes, and a long week of studying, I got out my map and figured out the route to a park on the other side of town. The wonderful thing about Japan is that no mater how busy or industrial the section of town, there is a way to get there by bike. I had a bike lane/sidewalk all the way to the park. The Higashi Koen, East Park, is on a bit of hill over looking the city and offered lovely views at every turn. The fall color was highlighted against the green of bamboo groves and ancient pines.

I don’t have much time to write today as I’m heading out to a museum with some friends, so here are a few pictures from the trip to the park.

Oh, yes, for those of you who did try to guess the flowers of the obis, they were iris and wisteria! Take another look and you will see them now! I'm writing postcards this weekend.

Here's the link to pictures on Picasa or just click the picture below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/aikidosra/HiashiKEn?authkey=2wp-Eucazgs&pli=1#

Hiashi Kôen

Hana Musubi

Yesterday was a gray, rainy, almost-fall day and could have been rather quiet and depressing but instead was one of the most socially entertaining days I’ve had! At ten in the morning I went to Takeda san’s house for the monthly meeting of the English café. It was a special day in that a former member of the group and his Japanese wife and child were visiting from Switzerland, where they now live. Mario, who despite his name is a German speaking Swiss, met his wife when he was a student here at Yamasa. When they come back to Japan to visit her family each year, they also get together with their old friends from the English café. It was also the day that Takeda sensei had a obi show in the afternoon so she was dressed in a beautiful kimono, but, like an idiot, I didn’t think to bring my camera. A luncheon (ランチ、pronounced “runchi”) was planned for after the English practice time and I was thrilled to be invited to join them.


After the “café”, we all walked up the street to a traditional looking Japanese restaurant where a tatami matted room with low table and cushions awaited us. After the usual flurry of photo taking, by the others :-(, we had a delicious meal that started off with green tea and hand towels. The main course took a while to come and during that time the children ran around playing and the adults talked about all sorts of things. The conversation flowing back and forth in Japanese and English and I was thrilled to be able to understand a lot of the main ideas in Japanese! Both Mario, who held “my position” in the club several years ago, and the English club regular, Atsushi san, the Toyota engineer, speak English quite well and could translate whenever that was needed. We talked about the election and they were all happy and hopeful about Obama, and everyone commented on how well spoken he is. This tells you a lot about the perception of the current President, apparently not much different from my own.

The main course arrived and was served on lacquer-ware trays, each one with an array of dishes. I think there were 9 on my tray: two tiny dishes with mini servings of pickles and cold spinach salad, then a covered bowel of miso soup, a dish with three slices of tuna sashimi, a plate with pieces of cooked fish, eggplant and leek, with a miso based sauce, a container of cooked rice, a ceramic covered cup with a warm savory custard and finally a tiny saucer of soy sauce for dipping the sashimi. Each dish was arranged beautiful and was very tasty. The final course was a choice of coffee or green tea ice cream.

In all, the meal took two hours and the four children, ages one and a half to nine, entertained each other and ate their specially ordered, more child-friendly meals, without any complaints. Several of the guests spent time entertaining them while the others chatted on. It’s interesting to see how different cultures handle these kinds of long inter-generational gatherings.

Today was equally filled with fascinating events: a traditional Japanese arts show, the one my tea ceremony teacher had an entry in, and afterward, lunch in a modern bakery/eatery. At 10 this morning, I met Takeda san and Noriko san at a near-by landmark and we went together to these events. Noriko san is a young woman whom I met at the tea ceremony classes. Her English is better than my Japanese so she helped me understand things when the conversation veered from the basic to the sublime, or somewhere in between. (See these friends in the picture above.) The Japanese traditional arts show was held in a large new facility in a part of town I had not been to before. There was obi tying display, one of obis tied like flowers, and one of obis tied for wearing on special occasions. (The obi is the sash that goes with a kimono and can be tied in an infinite number of ways). One of these flower obis is Takeda sensei’s, but I actually didn’t understand which one, as she was very understated about the whole thing and didn’t really indicate which one it was. At about 11:00 we were invited into a mass tea ceremony, with the traditional sweet and tea offered by a host of kimono clad ladies to a room full of people, while a tea master performed the tea making ritual at the front of the room. After that we checked out the handmade figurines/dolls made of silk or other materials and the homemade elixirs made from all manner of fruits and vegetables, including coffee and chili-peppers. These apparently are traditional home remedies for any number of ailments. I got recipes in case you are interested. On the next floor were more obis, these tied for wearing, where the flower-tied obis are for display only. No two were alike and there were 40 of them all in different brocaded fabrics, with various accessories. We then descended to the first floor and took in the calligraphy and scroll painting and finally the ikebana and flower arranging displays (not the same thing here, by the way)! For a Japanese culture freak like myself, it was a fabulous show!

After we had seen all there was to see, my two escorts started thinking about lunch and soon we were off to a near-by shopping center to eat at a popular, modern restaurant. The bread was particularly “famous” and the place was packed, as was the parking lot, where uniformed parking attendants helped direct cars into the available spots as they became free; no fending for yourself here.

At lunch we ordered a light main course. I had a fresh salmon and ginger salad, the others a chicken something, and we all got the drink and bread “set”, as they call it here. This meant that we could have all the small rolls of different flavors that we wished. Japanese bread is very soft and fluffy, so not really the thing for the “hard, crusty bread eaters”, but fresh and tasty. These buns were straight from the oven and several refills were offered from a basket of assorted flavors. We ate with knives and forks. There was not a chopstick in sight. I asked my friends which was the more popular way, American or British, for using these utensils and they each said something different, so “anything goes” is my take, when it comes to Western eating tools.

Here's a challenge for those of you who took the time to read to the end of this long entry: Can you name the flowers that the top two obis are imitating? I'll write a real, postage and all, postcard to anyone who gets them right. Gambate! (roughly: do our best!)

Election time in Japan

Those of you who didn’t support Obama can close your ears for a minute while I yell Hurrah!

I was thrilled about the election out come and have see Obama's speech on line, and read it as well. It was inspiring. It’s going to take a lot of work to turn things around, clearly he is aware of that too, and thus asked for all Americans to get ready to help the nation. In the news I see that people all over the world are expecting a lot of him, too. No wonder he looked so tired as the weight of it all landed on his shoulders. He was generous to his opponents as well I thought.

Here in Japan it was a little lonely, as I only have one American friend who clearly supported Obama and cared about the election. All others were either Republicans or just didn't care, mostly the latter! So I haven't had the fun of jumping up and down with some one yelling, “We did it!!!”.

School continues to challenge me and with the other commitments I've made, I am very busy. My friend who was going to come here at New Years and travel with me is not coming, so I am making plans to travel a bit on my own as I'm dying to go to some of these places I have only seen in pictures. That was a big disappointment, but it will be a good challenge and I plan to spend 5 days in Okinawa with Japanese friends which will be a lot be fun. But truthfully, it's a bit lonesome to be contemplating the holidays away from my family.

Well, I better get back to studying. I had two quizzes today and failed one, and I have two quizzes tomorrow, so I better get in gear. Last night I just couldn't study with all the election stuff!

I’m including some pictures of Okazaki Castle Park and a flower show that was in progress there. As you can see, the fall colors haven’t really gotten going here yet.

Some Culture

For those of you who keep up with this blog, I apologize for its sporadic nature. I just don't have the time I did when I first came to Japan and here is why: too much culcha ( that's culture with a Maine accent in case you didn't guess!)

Besides taking ikebana classes and calligraphy classes, and of course my regular courses, I squeezed in a concert of Japanese traditional and western music hosted by the same volunteer group that sponsored the lovely cooking class, the CCC. I don't have much time to write tonight but I thought a few pictures would keep me out of the dog house.

The concert was held in a 600 year old Buddhist temple. I got a chance during intermission to peek at the main hall and marvel at the huge wooden beams and pillars that support the structure. At the end of the concert we had a little tea with the volunteers and the musicians, many of whom are also part of the CCC. The shakuhatchi, or bamboo flute, player told us how he had made his "bass flute" himself. The smaller flutes he used were of plastic! I am including a few second of video of the koto player's performance. I could have listened to him a lot longer than his performance lasted.

A full schedule

Barely back from Thailand and my life in Japan has taken off in several directions, all very interesting. I may have mentioned the English Café, a small group that meets once a month to practice their English, but did I tell you that the host of this group is also an ikebana and tea ceremony master? This is the case and she has invited me to come to her house for lessons. Today I went after classes and joined two of her students in learning the tea ceremony and then in attempting to arrange flowers in the ikebana tradition or style. My knees are in pretty bad condition and getting worse form lack of practice, so the big challenge in all this is that the Japanese do theses things in seiza (sitting on the knees). The sensei kindly got me a stool and let me sit cross-legged most of the time, but I have to do some stretching to be able to continue. It was so interesting to see the tea ceremony, the utensils, the hundreds of little ritual details that go together to create a quiet, solemn ceremony. I enjoyed trying to communicate with the young ladies as well and one asked me if I would give her private English lessons. At the end of the lesson, the teacher loaned me a vase and frog to take home so I could keep my flowers at home!

Once the lessons were done, I went upstairs to have dinner with her family, the daughter with the three adorable children. The daughter’s husband is away in Tokyo getting training for a new job so it was just mom and the three little ones: two boys aged 10 and 7 and a little girl age 4. I had fun entertaining the kids while the dinner was being prepared and then we all sat on the floor around the low table and had an absolutely delicious meal. On the table was miso soup, a dish with sweetened rice, raw scallops, avocado and cooked shrimp, three kinds of sashimi, tuna, scallops and another fish I couldn’t name, and a salad, all of it delicious and eaten with gusto. Shortly after sitting down to eat we were joined by a younger sister and later, her mother, my teacher. While I only grasp parts of most conversations, it was so good just be “part of the family” for a short while and hear the day to day kinds of things people talk about. When it was time to go, every one came out to see me off on my bicycle, making sure I could manage the flowers and the vase in the basket on the front of my bike.

All of this follows on the heels of a very busy Saturday in which I had my second calligraphy class. I love the class and teacher. She speaks no English so we make do, but she is patient and kind. I'm starting with the writing that elementary kids learn, then I'll move to middle school writing and on the high school levels and beyond, if I make that much progress. It's relaxing and I don't care if her elementary age students look at me a little strangely, an old lady just learning her letters! This time I was on my own, no friend from Yamasa to interpret for me, but it worked out fine, the sensei had her grandson and daughter there and they helped with their halting English when I got stuck. The grandson has come up with a kanji (Chinese character) name for me, as calligraphers need one to sign their work. I was thrilled. Apparently he is quite talented at inventing names that have nice meanings and still sound sort of like your real name. He's only fourteen, but seemed to enjoy the challenge of figuring out a name that would work. When I can write it I’ll let you see!

Another addition to my schedule is an English class that I’ll be teaching on Wednesdays to a group of women from the Cultural Exchange Organization. The same group that gave us a cooking class just before I left for Thailand. Did I mention that? It was so much fun, but I haven’t had the time to even think about it since.

So, in short, it now appears that I am meeting some of my goals in coming here: to experience some Japanese culture first hand, to meet Japanese and try speaking with them in my halting Japanese, and to teach English and earn a little money to help pay for all these cultural things, which come with some overhead. For example, the brush for doing calligraphy is about $30.00. Today’s flowers were $10. If I get serious about the tea ceremony I could spend a LOT of money on the accoutrement. Probably I won’t go there, but the calligraphy is something I can see really getting into, if I have time. 

The pictures included here come from earlier events, an ikebana show I went to last month and the cooking class.

Matane…

Thailand

As I have not been very regular lately with this bog, you may not know that I had to leave Japan to get a student visa activated at a Japanese embassy so I went to Thailand where I have some friends I wanted to visit. I had a wonderful trip and will perhaps post another entry with more details, but because I am now back in Japan and ready to start another quarter in which I will be scrambling like mad to keep up, once again, I want to at least share some pictures with you. Here is a collage of pictures taken in many different places around Thailand. Enjoy.

The Japanese are different!

Today I’m thinking of the various ways that the Japanese are different from “Americans”. Obviously, I’m generalizing on both sides but some things seem to hold up pretty well to scrutiny. For example, the Japanese women, across the board, look a whole lot younger and prettier than we do! I know that I’m not really a good example of a 60 year old American, letting my hair go naturally gray, since few people do that anywhere in the industrialized world, but here I am repeatedly asked my age, something the Japanese do to everyone regardless or gender or age, and with wonder some black-haired modern version of a slightly aging Geisha will say: “Oh we’re the same age!” I think it’s supposed to be a friendly thing to say, but I have to share that I’m usually totally taken aback! To look at them I would have guessed 50 at most, and well preserved at that. As a gaigin I always feel a bit big and clumsy here, but as these occurrences add up, I realize I must look like I’m 80 to the Japanese! How is it that all these women look so good? I’ve talked to a few others students here who say the same thing. If you think the Asian women you are talking to is sort of young to be out of school, she’s probably 25 or 30 years old!

Today I went with a fellow student to the house of a Japanese family for the purpose of participating in their informal English club, a monthly occurrence where a few friends get together to practice their English. I was invited to join the group, as Arturo is about to return to his country, Mexico, and was looking for people to help out. Today it was just he and I, though I’m told there are other “English speakers” who come from time to time. Actually, I’m the only native speaker in the group at the moment.

While we were waiting for every one to get there, the conversation was mostly in Japanese and I only understood part of it, but the hostess was talking to someone who I took to be her daughter. She looked to be about 14 or 15, with short a pixy-like haircut, and was generally tiny, probably a size 0. A little later when everyone was there, we were doing introductions all around the table and this young lady, who spoke English pretty well, turned out to be the mother of three children, ages 10, 8, and 4. She met her husband in Australia where they were both working as tour guides for Japanese tours to that country. She claimed to be lazy because she only had a part-time job, working three days a week, plus she has just taken on teaching swimming to children several times a week!

Next, the “middle aged”, perfectly appointed lady to my right told me she was 60 and only worked part-time at Mitsubishi Motors. Her hobbies were growing vegetables and traveling. When I introduced myself, they seemed surprised that I’ve come here to learn Japanese at my age! The aikido and kayaking surprise them as well. Not that I’m really old by Japanese standards. The oldest person in Okazaki is 104 years old. Next Monday is the Day for Honoring the Elderly and that usually means people over 75, I am told.

Not only do the Japanese look younger, and live longer than we do, they are also “genki”. This means fit, energetic, and lively, and also healthy. You see people who are clearly past retirement age, riding around on their bicycles, or zipping by on motor scooters. They go to the grocery store every day and carry their bags home themselves, they dance for hours in matsuris (festivals) and who knows what else to stay so fit, plus they eat a lot less than we do, and a much better diet, although junk food is making big inroads in Japan. Yuck.

While I am generalizing a bit, I might as well say that in addition to be so very polite, which “everyone knows”, they are also very generous. Gift giving is a big part of social exchanges here, but it isn’t always formal and planned. Today the hostess of this gathering gave me a lovely little gift of paper figures, and later as an after thought gave me a book she had in English about the cherry blossom festival of Washington to DC. (The cherry trees were a gift from Japan back at the turn of the 19th century). She also gave me some little samples of Japanese calligraphy, and two free tickets to an ikebana show in Nagoya next week!

Well, this didn’t get posted when it was written, but I’ll post it any way. I hope to get a report on my first tea ceremony soon!

The Onsen

I’ve gotten a little behind on the blog as my course work is really picking up, as in getting much more demanding and “outside activities” are taking up time as well. The last couple of weeks have been packed with new experiences. It started on Friday, a week ago, when classes were canceled due to the torrential rains that hit Aichi Ken, the state where I am living. Okazaki was particularly hard hit. Flooding made travel impossible, trains stopped running, houses were swept off their foundations by the over flowing rivers and streams.


Friday afternoon a classmate Skyped me, did I want to go to an onsen? Onsen is Japanese for hot springs/spa. Although I knew they were everywhere I was surprised to learn that there was one right down the road and we could just walk there or take our bikes. We took our bikes. All I really knew about onsens is written above, so I was curious and nervous. Catherine said we didn’t need to bring anything but the 600 yen it would cost. This was almost true. We found it without trouble just off the main road. It was big and there were lots of cars (and a few bikes) in the parking lot. I guess others had had the same idea, no school or work, go for a soak. We took off our shoes at the entrance and put them in a locker. Unlike the lockers in the izakaya, Japanese pub that I went to last week where the shoe/bag lockers had these interesting wooden keys, these little lockers required a 100 yen coin to lock but when you returned and unlocked them to take your shoes the coin was returned to you. We then bought a ticket for 650 yen (less then $6.50) from the ticket vending machines, similar to the ones that sell train tickets at the station, which we gave to the attendant at the reception desk and passed into the bathing area of the facility. Here you have to make sure your Japanese is good enough to distinguish between the women’s entrance and the men’s, or you could be in for a bit of surprise. These entrances were side by side, as the men have a separate, adjacent, and from the brochure it appears, almost identical section. There was not a word of English to be seen. Thank goodness Catherine, who speaks Chinese, is really good at deciphering kanji. I was very relieved to be with her in this culturally and linguistically distant galaxy.

Almost immediately after entering the women’s “locker room” we realized we had were not going to be supplied with a towel and we hadn’t brought our own, so we back tracked to the desk and asked for a “taoru”. We were given (for another 150 yen, not to be returned), a cute little plastic shopping bag containing one large towel and one smaller one. These were to be returned to the desk when we left. We returned to the locker room, found a locker that, like the shoe lockers, required a 100-yen coin that would also be returned by the lock when we put the key in and opened the door. Here we left all our clothes and our modesty and proceeded into the washing area of the onsen. The next step of the process is to get perfectly and completely clean. We hadn’t brought soap or shampoo but these were supplied at each washing station. Each washing stall had a plastic stool in from of a mirror, a faucet, and a hand held shower sprayer thing like the one in my own bathroom here. There was also a plastic basin used to pour water over yourself. I took my cues from Catherine, who had done this before, and the other ladies I could see behind me. I sat on the stool and soaped up and scrubbed myself as best I could, and rinsed off well. It’s a very big faux pas to be either dirty or soapy going into the bath, whether in an onsen or at home. If you think you feel conspicuous being the only non-Asian person in the place, trying being the only non-Asian naked person! I had to work a bit at my cultural flexibility to get with the program and just act like I’m totally cool hanging out in “my birthday suit” with women of all ages. Actually there was one little boy of about 4 or 5, who seemed to be there with his grandmother.

For our bathing pleasure we had a variety of outdoor “pools” and tubs as well as indoor ones with Jacuzzi style jets. We eventually tried all the pools and tubs, even the cold one for cooling off. After about an hour I was hot and wrinkly enough, and ready to leave. I could tell that some of the Japanese ladies there were just settling in for the afternoon and would probably stay much longer than an hour. The bath and especially bathing in a hot spring is a very old and cherished tradition here. It’s not viewed as entertainment the way hot tubs are in America, but it’s definitely more than just getting clean. There’s a certain air of sacredness to it. People talk in quite tones and don’t ever splash or kick their feet. It is definitely something the Japanese are introduced to from very young. There were several very little children there with their mothers or grandmothers. And judging by appearances only, one is never too old to go to an onsen either. So despite my discomfort being naked, I was buoyed by the fact that I wasn’t the only old bag there! (There are no pictures allowed inside the onsen but the one above is of a sculpture outside the entrance. Frogs are very popular here.)

Olympics

Today I am Beijing, running the men’s marathon step by step. The Japanese TV station I am watching is showing the entire race, uninterrupted by a single ad. As the men pound their way though the Forbidden City, I not only get to see each one run his race but also I get to see this famous Chinese landmark. The pace is incredible! The leaders have been doing about 3 minutes kilometers and have how many more to do? A pack of ten men are leading. Spain in the only non-African country represented in the group. During the last few weeks I have watched more hours of TV than in my entire life till now! There has been so much Olympics coverage and here it’s more like being there, they show lots of the events real time, live, without interruptions. Yesterday I saw some amazing synchronized swimming performances by teams from China, Korea, Japan, America, Spain and Russia. I’m not sure who got what medal but they were all incredible. I have never even seen this sport before, let alone had an opportunity to see the entire routine of numbers teams. I’ve also seen entire soccer games. The Japanese women’s team has done very well. Oh, the lead pack is down to 5 men, two from Eritrea, two from Kenya, and one from Morocco. Beijing, (Peikin, they call it in Japanese) is filled with flowers and tree lined boulevards. But I bet it’s hot. I used to run and I can’t imagine having to do this many kilometers on hot pavement! My knees hurt just watching these guys. I think of all my friends who also run, or used to run. Perhaps you are watching the same race on your TV sets right now, thinking the same thing.


Luckily lots of sports words in Japanese are just English words, so I hear things like “chioto haiyai pace desu ne” , meaning it’s a bit of a fast pace isn’t it and “ Corsu no speedo de…” , which means “about the course speed”. It’s fun trying to figure out what the announcers are saying, as there is a running dialogue talking about the runners, (no pun intended) their previous records, their ages, and other stuff I totally don’t catch, but it’s good practice listening to it all in Japanese.


On Friday night I went with a couple of fellow students to a kaiten-zushi restaurant. You may have heard about these sushi restaurants where the offerings are circulating around on a conveyor belt and one just picks up the plates you want to eat as they go by. This was cheap sushi, a 100 yen (less than a $1) a plate, with usually two pieces of sushi or three pieces of a roll per plate. There were also desserts and drinks going by. We sat in a booth and the belt passed by at the end of table. There was also a second layer belt for special orders on which a little shikansen train (bullet train) went by. To order something that you didn’t see going by on the regular belt, you used a touch screen at the booth and could order different sushi, tempura, even noodle dishes, drinks and desserts. When your order was ready the train would stop at your booth. You took the plates off, pressed a button to say you had them and the train moved “out of the station”. It was all so cute. While the conveyor constantly circled with new offering, the little bullet train continually zoomed by with other people’s orders and we would ooo and ahh as they went by. Lucky Amelia was with us and could read the menu. I would have been lost. In all, I spent about $5 and was full. It wasn’t top quality, but it wasn’t bad and the price was right. Also, it was fun. I liked the free green tea that you made at your table where a hot water spout and cups were right at your fingertips. I have yet to go to a real sushi bar and get the really good stuff. Sorry I don’t have pictures of the restaurant, maybe next time and there will definitely be a next time!

Nagoya

Nagoya is Japan’s 4th largest city and only half an hour, or an hour, by train (depending on which train you get) from Okazaki. On my first trip into this busy metropolis I went with a classmate to attend a delightful “lunch break concert” in a lovely little concert hall. We got tickets at the door, had seats in the third row from the front and heard violin and piano music performed by two beautify young ladies in evening gowns. The program included a Brahms Sonata, Schumann Op.15 and, my favorite, a work by W.G Still. I can’t read the names of the pieces, but I enjoyed them very much. The concert lasted about an hour and a half and cost less then $10.

On my second trip to Nagoya, I went alone to the Tokugawa Art Museum, which exhibits the family treasures of the Owari Tokugawa from the Edo period (1603 – 1867). For Japanese history buffs and samurai “wan-a-bes” this was a great place. There were lots of swords with long names and lacquered armor sets, as well as unbelievably delicate costumes worn by Noh performers. There were a reconstructed tea house, Noh theater, and several reception rooms. A famous scroll of the Tale of Genji is housed here but too delicate for viewing, so a video and slide show fill the gap.

After the quite halls of the museum I went to the formal garden next door, the Tokugawaen. It was charming and had some interesting rockwork. I think that the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon, is more impressive. Granted, this wasn’t one of the peak times, like May when the irises are blooming or March when there are peonies, but it was fun to see the kids feeding the fish in the pond and sit in the shade near a waterfall.

I have to say that big cities are in some ways the same everywhere, and I was glad to come “home” to my “small town” of Okazaki and the quiet coolness of my room. I enjoy visiting, but I am not really a big city person. At the train station I got on my “new bike” and rode home. I feel very Japanese going and coming from the station on a bicycle because judging by the number of bikes at the station, about 4000 other people do that too. You park the bike in a huge bicycle lot and hope that you will find it when you get back. Not that anyone will steal it, but there are so many that look just like yours that forgetting where you parked it would be a pretty serious problem! Having a bicycle is great. I got mine for about $30 from a student and am just getting used to it. I’m still a bit wobbly and haven’t gotten used to some of the narrow bike paths I have to negotiate. The benefits are many: 1) getting there faster, 2) getting there cooler, 3) being able to go farther 4) being able to carry heavier things in the basket on front or the rack on back and 5) getting some real exercise. Since I haven’t found a dojo yet and only do yoga in my room once a week, I can use something aerobic and the bike sure is that when I push myself up hills with not gears to help out! Well, it’s “back to the grind”. Sayonara.

Catching Up

It’s been two weeks since I last blogged and quite frankly I don’t know where to start! In the last two weeks I’ve been to Nagoya twice, danced in the bonodori, 盆踊り、 (festival), worn a yukata for the first time ever and bought a bicycle. It’s been busy, but now I am on a little break as we have a few days of for the National Holiday, O-bon.

Last week I was asked if I wouldn’t like to go to a bondori dance lesson with a classmate. Hardly knowing what to expect, I went along. The Kimono-clad dance instructor was a sprightly grandmother who taught the group a few traditional dances and kept us moving for most of the two hour class. Most of the girls had taken a lesson before, so I had some catching up to do. Describing the dances is difficult, but generally they were all done in a circle. Each dancer moves around the circle or into and out of it. We clapped and waved our arms about in certain ways. One dance was done with a fan in one hand. It was fun, even if I hardly knew what to do. (See the short video of the festival below)

That evening, I was invited to go with some others on the following Sunday to the dance instructor's house to be suited up in a yukata (summer kimono) and attend the festival that night. (I didn’t know that I was expected to dance in public as well, but that turned out to be the case!) Before going I had to buy a yukata and some shoes to go with it. Catherine, a classmate, and I went to a near by shopping center on our bicycles and went to ever shop there looking for a good price. I eventually picked one out that came with the obi and ties. I had to go elsewhere for shoes and ended up getting rather formal looking geta, but they were reduced to $10 and fit, which is a challenge here where feet tend to be very small.

On Sunday I and 3 other students were picked up by the instructor and driven to her home, which was a lovely Japanese style house, complete with tiny formal garden and tatami rooms. We were served cold tea and then each of us was helped into our outfits by the teacher and her daughter, while the granddaughter looked on in delight. As soon as that was done, we posed for pictures and trotted off to the festival where the dancing had already begun.

At first I hung back and just watched, but after a few dances the instructor came and got me moving in one of the sequences she had taught us. Soon I was getting more comfortable with the dancing and a little less self-conscious. Everywhere I go, I am the only older foreigner and am looked at by children with surprise. Adults are too polite to stare, but kids know a freak when they see one! Still, by the end of the night I had received enough appreciative and encouraging looks to feel ok about being out there dancing in a rather clinging and hot outfit. In general, I think the Japanese appreciate it when a foreigner is interested enough in their culture to join in like that. I’m the one who has to get over being shy about it! Overall, it was great fun. I love seeing everyone out in their traditional garb dancing and eating and being so Japanese! The little children are just TOO cute!

Okazaki Matsuri

Pictures from July 20 trip to Gifu

These are some pictures from the trip to Gifu, two weeks ago. I've only just got them up on Picasa and I thought you might like to see more than the few I posted with the entry on that trip.

Last night I participated in the Okazaki Matsuri (Festival) and will post those pictures also. It was a wonderful, thought very hot and sweaty, experience. Getting to meet Japanese people outside the school setting was the best part. As a group of "gai-jin", foreigners, we stood out and got lots of surprised looks, but also many offers of free tea and beer. Before we got started in the parade, a few of us were invited to see the float from another group. We talked in our halting Japanese with the group members and they gave us something delicious to eat and something cool to drink. It was a godsend, as our group had only beer to drink and no food. My participation was totally a last minute, spur of the moment, thing and I had not eaten since noon.

The parade started at night fall, about 7:30 and went on until about 9:00. We were carrying Yamasa's new shrine, dedicated to the god of learning Japanese, through the streets, following the shrine builders big and impressive shrine. Our job was to look genki (lively, happy, energetic) and to shake and spin the shrine around as it was making it's way down the parade path. Behind our little shrine we were pulling a rolling bar serving beer. The bar was left from a St. Patrick's day celebration and was certainly Declan Murphy's idea. (Declan, if I haven't mention this before, is the director of the Discovery program and various other things. I've heard he is from Australia originally, but has left that all behind. He's lived here in Japan for over 10 years, however, he clings to his Irish roots or heritage, or something, and keeps strict hours in the local pub, the Zig Zag.) The bar rolled easily but it was still a lot of work for the "horses", me and several other students, to look genki and make the progress look interesting. For those who have been asking for pictures of me or complaining that the ones I publish are uncomplimentary (he he), there are several of me in the Picasa album, below, so check it out.

Tonight I will go to see the famous fireworks that are put on every year for this festival, some of the best in Japan I am told, and will report on that in the future. I still haven't gotten around to writing a piece on my classes and teachers, but this is definitely coming. Stay posted. Ja mata.

Okazaki Matsuri

A hot walk

This past week was a busy one. I have quite a bit of homework from my regular classes now and next week we finally start kanji classes and my extra online classes. I had my first private lesson on Friday. I will have two a week with two different teachers. It was fun. Matsuyama Sensei is married with three children ages 21, 19 and 17. We talked about why I wanted to study Japanese, our birthdays, ages and where and when I studied Japanese before. I had fun trying to tell her about my daughters. I learned the words for married and engaged! The private lessons are to help with conversation and to reinforce the lessons we are doing in the book, Mina no nihon go, which means Everyone’s Japanese.

Having said all that, I still had time to go exploring this weekend with a couple of students I’ve met who are from Hong Kong. Originally Catherine and I had planned to just go to the near-by Minami Park on bikes, but when I arrived at her residence, (she lives in the women-only residence run by the charming couple who had me to a soba dinner a week or so ago), I found that another student was joining us and the plan had changed. Winnie wanted to get out into the country and had read about a river where people fish from a weir and had worked out how to get there, or so she thought. The new plan involved taking two trains, and a bus to get to the spot on a river in the suburbs (I use that word loosely), quite a distance from the center of town but still in Okazaki city limits. Just getting on the right train is challenging for me so I was glad to be going with someone. I look at the train schedule and have trouble identifying where I am, let along where I want to go, but the other two speak Chinese and recognize the kanji pretty well, even if they don’t know how it is pronounced in Japanese. It was another scorching hot day and it was about noon when we got going. The trains came pretty quickly and we switched without trouble, but arriving where we were to get the bus, we discovered that the one that went to our destination would not be coming again for another couple of hours!

What to do??? We took a little walk in the area around the station but didn’t find even a convenience store. We settle for a snack from the stand in the station and where trying to stay cool when a bus showed up at the stop. It was an hour earlier, but our hopes were raised that we had misread the schedule. However, on talking with the bus driver as best as we could, we learned that he did not go to our destination on this trip, but stopped about 5 or 6 stops before it, on the next round he would go all the way to the end of the line. We decided to take this bus anyway, rather than wait in the station with nothing to do for another hour. Soon we were driving past rice fields and vegetable gardens. Mountains appeared and a stream could be seen. It was fun to be out in the country again, seeing such rural life so close to the big city, but before we knew it the bus had come to the end of its line. The driver, who was very nice and tried to be so helpful, told us we could wait, still about an hour, or we could start walking, thought it was a bit hot. We opted for walking since he had said (or at least we thought he did) that is was maybe 20 or 30 minutes to our destination on foot. We walked and walked and passed several bus stops but were still not there.

After 45 minutes in the blazing sun, we came to another bus stop and gave up walking to wait for the bus. It was about at this time that we began wondering with we had made a BIG mistake. There was not a store or a gas station in sight and no way to cool off. Thank goodness I carry my umbrella with me always and use it in the sun like the Japanese do, or I would have been cooked to crisp. After ten minutes at the bus stop the same driver came by and picked us up! We sighed with relief as we sank into seats in the air-conditioned bus, but our destination was only about 10 minutes away by bus and soon we were looking at our hard earned goal. (On getting out the driver wouldn’t let us pay! He said he had only taken us a short way and we had paid a fair that would have taken us further before, had he been going further. I think he was just being kind to these hot and sweaty foreigners who clearly did not know what they were doing!) There was the Otogawa Weir. Was this really a must see? Where are the people? Where are the fish? What had looked like a lively, fun filled water activity was a low key, take the kids for a picnic and play in the water, try-to-catch-little-fish-with-your-hands kind of an event AND it was nearly closing time! We took off our shoes and cooled off, took a few pictures and it was time to catch the bus back or wait another 2 or 3 hours!

This was a bit of a lesson in figuring out how to get to places and the need to know more about the destination and the schedule of buses. This was clearly a place people with cars went to with their kids on weekends, and perhaps at the right time of year there are lots of fish and activity. All things we didn’t know. I was a bit disappointed with how much all the transportation had cost for so little reward, but it was an adventure into the unknown and that, in itself, is a worthwhile activity.

Today I studied in the morning and at noon headed out by myself on a more modest adventure. I had borrowed a bike and was going to find Minami Park. I knew roughly where it was, but finding the entrance was a bit more challenging and riding a bike, especially these Chinese bikes that everyone rides here, with squeaky handbrakes and heavy frames, was downright scary! I have to say I felt proud to get there and back without killing anyone or being run over! I only dared attempt it because on Sundays there aren’t a million school kids whizzing by on bikes, as there is during the week. A bike is definitely the way to go around here, though. It takes a quarter of the time it would walking and you can put stuff in the basket on front or on back. I took only main roads where there is a bike lane in the sidewalk. I’m going to get my one
soon!

The park had a big pond with, lots of turtles, fish and birds. There was an outdoor swimming pool and tennis courts. The “pu-ru” cost only 60 yen for adults and 40 for kids, that is about 60 and 40 cents. There was a mini amusement park for young kids mostly, but at night older ones might go. A big Ferris wheel was slowly spinning a hundred feet above the trees.

(Pictures above are: the long hot road to nowhere, a very hot Marsha and bus schedule, the Minami Park and bike) Ja mata.

Tour to Gifu

“ "Today we head deep into Gifu, but not before making a quick visit to the famous/infamous Tagata Jinja and Oagata Jinja near Komaki in Aichi. From here we head to Hirugano Kohgen, popular for its scenery (and ice creams). Our main destination today is the Shirakawa-go area. We will spend the rest of the day in the World Heritage listed village of Ogimachi, enjoying the atmosphere of the thatched roofs, and interesting attractions such as the Wada House and the Myozenji Museum.”

This was the tour description and, except for being stuck in several hours of traffic, this is what we did, although I missed the ice cream. The group consisted of 8 students from Yamasa and Declan Murphy, who runs the discovery programs and tours that Yamasa offers. We got to the first shrine, Oagata-jinja, at about 9:30 a.m. and had it almost entirely to ourselves. This shrine was dedicated to Izanami, the female Shinto deity, and Declan explained that it was the custom to come here to pray when you wish to conceive and when you were pregnant for a safe birth. While we were there a young couple came to pray and clap and give thanks. The wife was clearly a few months pregnant. She rubbed her belly as she was descending the stairs. Some one told me “Buddhism is dead in Japan”, I don’t know about that, but Shinto certainly doesn’t seem to be. We visited another fertility shrine not far away, Tagata-Jinja, and here the symbol was male genitalia and large wooden replicas could be found in the rear part of the shrine. Each year at the time of the festival in March, the matsuri, this large phallus is carried through the streets. Despite the ribald display, the feeling of the place is one of thanks for the birth of a healthy baby. While we were there, several families came, paid their respects and posed for photos with tiny babies held in regal looking yukatas by the parents and grandparents.

After these two short visits we headed North toward Gifu Prefecture, taking the super high way. As we began to climb into the mountains the road went through countless (actually one of the other students counted 19) tunnels of varying lengths. One was about 20 kilometers long. Below the highway, we could see little towns tucked between steep mountain slopes, straddling rivers of clear sparkling water dotted with white rapids. Fishermen with very long poles could be seen on the banks. As we got deeper into the Japanese Alps the mountains were entirely covered with tall dark evergreens and other types of trees that seem to cling to almost vertical slopes.

Unfortunately, it was the weekend of a National holiday and the road was packed with cars and motorcycles. It took us almost twice as long to get there as Declan had planned. Consequently we only had a couple of hours to visit the main attraction, which was absolutely spectacular. The entire village is an open-air museum, many buildings carefully maintained and open for visiting. There were all sorts of little shops selling crafts, sweets and local specialties. The green you see in the pictures is mostly from the rice paddies that filled almost all the open spaces. Beside most of the big houses were ponds with koi swimming around.

I loved the place and want to go back when I have more time and can take it all in at a more leisurely pace.I’ve posted a couple of pictures here of Ogimachi, the village of gassho-zukuri (hands in prayer architectural style) houses that date back to the Edo period, 1700’s or early 1800’s (?) and one of Oagata-jinja.

Oh, yeah! I want to thank all of you who have read and made comments. It's great fun to read them and know that you are enjoying the blog. It's sometimes a little humbling. Don't know if I can live up to all the expectations. ;-)