Last Spamurai

2008-04-12T21:50:00.002+09:00

Ummmm ... I lied.

Sorry people (using plural is pretty hopeful)... I still intend to kick-start the Spamurai...

... coming soon to a screen near you.

2007-05-03T22:26:00.000+09:00

Hello.

Yes, it breathes! It lives! "It" being either the creature typing these words known as Ian or the blog known as Last Spamurai... take your pick. Ian is alive and well in the balmy Great Southern Land. Today it reached into the high 20s which was nice (depsite the dire warnings of global warming), considering I'm looking down the barrel of yet another winter (albeit a milder one than my last 2 in Japan!). This will be my 4th winter in 2 years.

But really, did you really come here to read about the weather!? We all know what the Spamurai is about. It's all about...me. (Yes, I have become that self-obsessed). Well... actually, this blog was always about me in Japan... and now I'm... well... not in Japan. So that leaves me with the question of what to do with the Spamurai. Is it time to shelve the lunch meat for good? Is it time to change to a diet of fresh, healthy alternatives to Spam? My conclusion for now is... (because I know you've all been losing sleep and holding your breath on this one)... I will at least finish posting about the main things I did in Japan and I might even trawl through my holidays in Japan of 2003 and 2004. Beyond that I'm not really sure my life is that interesting in and of itself! I'm not really one for daily listing the number of Weet Bix I ate, the quality of my bowel movements or my thought of the day (often the last 2 are the very same thing). But yeah, I'll let y'all know what will become of the Spamurai.

So for now... a rare interview with a close friend of the Spamurai... that would again be... me.

LS: Tell us, what are you doing now and how does it feel to be back?

IY: Well, it's been weird. I am working back at the place I was at before, doing the things that I was doing before! Storyboarding for an animated TV series. Weird in that Sydney life feels surprisingly normal in a lot of ways but I feel that I'm a bit different now.

LS: Do you mean in a worldly-wise "I've been everywhere man" way, or something else? Prease exprain.

IY: No, I don't fancy myself as now being particularly knowing in any greater sense (despite trying to grow a seasoned-traveller beard... result was more like pathetic angry velcro), but I feel like I was a different person in Japan, leading a different life and now I'm back in the old camouflage of pre-Japan life, and yet Ian Young's stripes feel a bit out of kilter with the walls and carpets of suburbia-to-urbia-and-back-again-to-suburbia daily humdrum.

LS: So home seems horribly borish now? Your family and friends are uncool compared to your hip Japanese pardners?

IY: Not at all. Life in Japan was often also a humdrum thing, albeit a different brand. No, I am loving seeing those dearest to me again (...and yet realising how dear the friends I've left behind are to me). I'm also liking my surrounds of where I grew up. It's been developed but the geography's still the same. It's nice being with Mum and Dad, too. I haven't lived with them for almost 6 years I guess. I'm enjoying the freedom of Aussie culture - there's that great egalitarianism and friendliness that you can still find. But Sydney culture seems odder than ever before. The look-at-me-ness. The aggressive eyeballing of each other and driving like it's DeathRace 2000. The apathy and comfort and the aspiring to have even more. I guess those things are in Japan too, but it's not as much of a competition there, at least as far as I experienced it. Sydney's beaut, but yeah... there seems to be a whole lotta haughtiness around which I find UGLY.

So, I love being back despite seeing some things in a poorer light, but I also miss every one of my friends in Japan terribly. I'll visit as soon as time and money permit.

LS: Ohhhkay. Nice soapboxing! What have been some adjustments? Let's end on a lighter note!

IY: When commuting I still expect anyone I glance at in a suit to be Japanese. I still get surprised at seeing newspapers in English on the train. I still prick up my ears when I hear the word "Australia". I'm still eating hamburgers like I've been in Asia for a long time where the closest thing available is a plasticised McBiscuit. I still think of anyone non-Japanese as a foreigner and think things like "aren't their noses big and their bums are so..."

LS: OK! Our time's up. Catch you next time. We apologise for the delay in transmission. Our technical team has been trying to source a good provider for fast connection to the Spamurai Nerve Centre - where all our visual material is kept. Ian Young kept rambling but we decided to terminate this interview in the interests of your health and his safety. May you be in good measures of both. His last words were: Sayonara sucker.

2007-03-20T01:26:00.000+09:00

This is the last Spamurai post from what's been my home-away-from-home in Japan. Yes, I'm moving out tomorrow morning. I've been too busy to know how to feel, but I'm sure that will follow. Today, amid all the hectic goings-on of preparing to leave, I played golf! Kazuya-san from next door and his elderly friend Habuchi-san made excellent company. We drove for about an hour to get there - a beautiful, straight-forward course in the mountains of Sasayama. I had a great time, although my playing was atrocious. Habuchi-san took honours. He has one of the toughest looking faces I've ever seen -cheekbones that you could carve something with, but by the back nine we were making silly gestures and noises to each other! I was relieved we were able to act like kids - I turned up in very casual attire as per laid-back Aussie golfing (but I did have a collar), whereas the other two were wearing trousers and sportscoats and had a change of clothes to play in! Freak. But it was fine. We virtually had the course to ourselves - staff outnumbering patrons by about 3:1! The service and facilities were incredible. Automatic golf cars that drive themselves, conveyor belts to take you up to the clubhouse, a huge locker room to change in and an adjoining o furo, or Japanese bath, to soak in when you're done cursing a small white piece of plastic all around a fancy park for half a day. It was great - the bath was the best I've ever had.j.. And it was an exceedingly generous gift - the other two shouted me despite my best efforts to decline.

Anyway, gotta stop yabbering - I'm going to be up all night cleaning as it is. My trip to Kyushu is happening pretty much as advertised a couple of posts ago - minus the limestone caves of Yamaguchi. So, catch you next time in/from Australia most likely!

ja ne

2007-03-15T01:55:00.000+09:00

Update: I am currently 2 days into my last week of work. To me that means each day is a series of painful goodbyes to some of the best little creatures in God's good world. Yesterday I said goodbye to Taisei, Haruka, Tomohiro, Kazutaka, Asuka, Risa (at which point I lost it and embarrassed myself by crying in front of 4 very surprised looking kids and 2 of their mothers), Hideki, Satoshi and Kimika. Today I said goodbye to Eitaro, Takara, Honoka, Ami and Maki. This time I sprung a leak saying goodbye to Honoka, my hyper-active little nut of a kid who this year has been wearing a cap and jacket that makes her look like a trucker. She likes to substitute obake (ghost) for anything I ask her to repeat and at times hisses at me like a friendly rabid goose. In other words, often a nightmare to teach. But I love her to bits - this time her mum saw me weeping and asked me if I was OK! Gosh, I knew this week would suck.

After work Kazuya (my friend from the sushi-ya next door) took me to a golf range in order to prepare for our big game next Monday. Yes! I'm going to play golf in Japan! The result of our practice? I am scared witless. Kazuya is good. He drives the ball further than I can see and in a pretty good line. I was woeful. I haven't lost my trademark slice (that's when the ball curves out from you - in my case, to the right) and tendency to sometimes hit the top of the ball and just bounce it along the ground. Thankfully his daughters Sayaka and Asuka came along and tried for the first time for some comic relief. Otherwise I would have been the only comedy there. The range was pretty schmick. The payment system involving a charge card was impressively complicated and the automatically ball-loaded tee that pops up from the ground was very cool. Everyone around us seemed to be really good at golf and slightly peeved at our tomfoolery.

Then we went back for some dinner. They spoiled me rotten with nabe (soup hotpot), some fried dumpling ball things, karaage (fried chicken), fried beef and onion and 2 dishes from their friends' restaurant next door - tompeiyaki (omelet wrapped around pork and sprouts in a barbecue sauce) and fried beef bowel. That last bit sounds gross, but it's delicious. It's presented like squid - curly white pieces with a criss-cross pattern cut into it. It's also similar in its chewiness. I'm not sure how to describe the taste. It's belly good!

As we talked about times we've spent hanging out I asked after Kazuya's various friends that I've met. He rang one guy, Konishi-san, even though it was quite late and I thought that was the end of it. Then about 10 minutes later Konishi-san pops in and joins us! They then basically tell me that we're going to their favourite karaoke bar, Puchi - which is a very loose translation of Petit ...but just for a short time.

Rather than being called a karaoke bar, it's actually a snack bar. For those who know the euphemism, don't recoil in shock just yet. For those who don't, snack bars are sometimes places where young girls offer other services as well. But in the country, the term can also be used for a bar where older women serve patrons and just provide banter. They are very good at conversation and karaoke, pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes and handing you a steamed towel (every time you return from the loo!). At this place there's Mama-san and Yukari-san. Mama-san is about 50 and you can tell she's been working behind a bar for a long time. Her voice and laugh is one achieved through alcohol and cigarettes. She would have been quite a looker in her youth. Yukari is still a looker at age 30. Needless to say, most of the patrons are lonely men, but this place is so innocent that I've seen an older couple and their teenage daughter there. It's a weird type of establishment that just doesn't exist in Australia.

I was coaxed into singing a few songs even though I really didn't feel like it. I murdered Rock With You, did a mediocre Sweet Caroline and then an OK Patience, ala Guns'n'Roses. Kazuya and I finished with a duet of Careless Whisper! He's not only good at golf, but karaoke too. It was nice to just hang out and then say some not-so heart-rending sayonaras to Mama-san and Yukari-san. Yukari said to please comeback on my honeymoon! haha

Well I just deleted the word "Quick" from the start of this post. The quick update has become another bloated early-morning production. I guess with all my weird emotional churnings I needed to vent. Thanks for reading...

Time to pack tissues for tomorrow's proceedings. Night.

2007-03-10T00:58:00.000+09:00

Epilogue

I went to Abe-san's house yesterday (Abe-san is the man I talk about in the post below). His wife was also really nice - no surprises there! She doesn't speak a word of English, but I was pleased to realise I could understand a fair bit of what she said. Her husband filled in the rest. They had me sit in their special living room - walls adorned with fascinating things from his travelling career. He even had the wheel from the ship that he served on. Thankfully I saw a few more hats (with matching miniature uniforms made by Mrs Abe!), but I still feel that I have taken someone's Olympic medal home as a decoration. It was a really special time - they treated me as an honoured guest - I'm not sure I've sipped tea from such a nice set before! When I said it was a beautiful cup they were like "Oh. Really?".

In contrast, they then drove me to a really earthy joint (that word fits perfectly) for some good honest chuuka, or Chinese food. The other clientelle made it seem more like a truck-stop (actually the place next door was hilariously titled BIG MOUTH American Restaurant), but I was in very elegant company with the Abe's. We had some delicious ramen and gyoza, or noodles and fried dumplings. Everything was loaded with garlic - some fairly raw. The gyoza were in large supply and Mrs Abe kept plying me with them with you're young, you can eat them. Please eat them. Eat them all! Please eat them. Like a loving broken record.

Mr Abe made a joke about how I have to go and teach English after this and how my students will suffer the effects of our lunch. The joke was prophetic. By 6pm my breath could slay a behemoth from 100 metres. My lone student walked in to the room adjoining mine and instantly gave me this funky look and slapped her hand over her mouth. When I finally coaxed her into our classroom, I offered to move my desk further from hers. After opening the window to the very cold evening air she then moved her desk until she was backed up against the wall!

haha... a closing poem:

Beware the gyoza, should you want friends. If not... dig in! They're tasty.

2007-03-06T00:19:00.000+09:00

What would you say if a man handed you 30 years of his life in a box?

Would you know what to say? I didn't. I was speechless. This happened to me today. During my Japanese class, one of the teachers, a wonderful old guy called Abe Jiro pulled me aside and produced a paper bag. Inside was a cardboard box. Inside the box was a miniature officer's hat. Abe-san was an International Communications Officer aboard a merchant ship. He travelled the high seas for many years, visiting countless nations (well, actually I think he said 80ish), whilst keeping a wife and children back in Japan. I was intrigued by the beautiful little hat.

I was flabbergasted when he said he'd brought it to give to me as a present. I learned during a farewell lunch for some of us that it was his retirement gift after 30 years of service. Wha? I was dumbfounded. Why did he give it to me? Why me? Someone he hardly knows. A schmuck. A manchild who collects toys and pays taxes late if at all, who can barely get out of bed some days! As a Christian I've heard many stories of grace before - told to illustrate the death of Christ... what God did in giving the life of a blameless man to benefit guilty people. I'm sure it wasn't his intention, but this little hat has made me feel a little more of what that means. I feel so undeserving. And so grateful.

Here we are. My teacher thinks Abe-san gave it to me because he didn't manage to have me over at his house, so he wanted me to have something to remember him by. Far out. He had invited me and I hadn't had the courtesy to make a time to see him! Well, I'm seeing him this Thursday and it's horrible that it's taken all this for me to accept an offer to be his guest.

Another box of grace. This one has been folded together by my first teacher, Mukojima-sensei... yes, she made it out of origami paper! I also recieved this today. I love it.

Inside were some black and white sesame biscuits she baked for me. She is a young, busy woman, so it's not like she was bored! These people are definitely not helping me leave this place. It's overwhelming.

My heart is in 2 countries.

2007-03-03T02:39:00.000+09:00

I concede defeat. I have been trying to keep the Spamurai up to date, but photographically speaking I am still stuck in the world of 2006. I'm up to about December 30th but alas it's already March 2007! Can you believe it? Since I set a definite date to return home time has rocketed into the future. So... I have decided to wave the white flag to time and am resolved to the fact that I will be putting most of the pics-to-come on this blog from my parental home of Epping, New South Wales, Australia... once I get there in a month's time.

So what's with the map? Well, that red line is the trip I'm planning to take as my last assault on Japan - the island of Kyushu. It's not set in stone, but I thought I'd share with you my excitement. Haha... set in stone. I only have one city's accommodation booked - a big achievement if I may say so myself - the website was entirely in Japanese and I had to stick each field of the secure reservation page into a translation website line by line! Took a couple of goes, but I got a confirmation email! Success! That city is Kumamoto - right in the middle of the trip, so up until yesterday I hadn't settled on the direction I'd do this tour in.

Well zooming in, I've decided to tackle things in an anti-clockwise direction (still fighting time I guess). I'll train it to Fukuoka (hopefully after seeing some massive limestone caves in Yamaguchi en route) and then go on to Nagasaki, Shimabara peninsula, catch a ferry and train to Kumamoto (castle town) then on to Aso-zan (the world's largest volcanic caldera) and onto the bath towns of Oita and Beppu. From there I hope to catch an overnight ferry back to Osaka.

All up it'll be about 8 days.

With all I have to do in packing up my apartment, tying up everything at work, saying goodbye to friends from various sources and making sure I have everything covered legally and logistically for nicking off back to Australia, I'm looking forward to this trip with a mixture of relief and high-stress if that makes any sense at all.

Well, winter is officially over, I believe. The plum trees are blooming early and my nose is already onto the fact that spring has sprung. March 1st - bang, I see my first blossoms and snart sneezing. Oh well. I still love spring. And with this weather I'm probably going to see Kyushu in full sakura-mode. Cherry blossoms!

So, with all this going on, the Spamurai may well be more of a ninja int he coming days and weeks. I'll try to update, but as I said - most will be coming from once I'm back on home soil. Not quite as romantic, but whatever!

See you soon...

2007-02-28T01:07:00.000+09:00

A solitary figure paces back and forth across the vast forum of the Tokyo Government Metropolitan Offices. He seemed to be engrossed in a phone call - perhaps doing deals, surrounded by sleeping giants of business and bureaucracy.

One of the government towers. I have to say I love this building. It's a modern classic - can I say that? Mabes or June, please correct me - I don't know the architectural lingo. You can't tell from this angle, but there are 2 towers. Seeing buildings like this make me want to see New York. Ahhh... the Chrysler Building!

Our telephone-drifter continues wearing a groove into the pavers.

This space is a design-marvel. The reflected light from each building, whether or not by design, makes for really cool highlights and shadows.

Well, in my usual fashion I had completely stuffed up and had tried to get into the towers on their day off - a public holiday. (Be warned, traveller: often things here are closed on Mondays, too). But thankfully, the neighbours were more obliging. This is the atrium of the NS building, from where I took the following shots...

It's weird seeing skyscrapers in Japan. There just aren't many around, due to the high cost, I would guess - owing to the incredible engineering and devices needed to counter earthquakes. Kanto, or the eastern region of Japan which includes Tokyo, gets frequent tremors and the odd quake.

Here's a more telling view of the towers. They look so cool. So sentinel-like. Or perhaps mainframish. Kind of scary in that regard - like a giant computer running the affairs of people. Anyway, whatever the statement is, it makes it powerfully! haha... I'm just not smart enough to get it.

As it turned out this would be my next port of call, the Sumitomo Building.

This is a different view of the Metropolitan Offices space. I thought it was the perfect subject for me to try to rip off the technique of Japanese photographer, Naoki Honjo (http://www.taigallery.com/naokihonjo.html). He brilliantly makes real scenery look like a diorama of miniature dimensions, by taking them from high places and then playing with the depth of field (I guess you could say range of focus). Anyway, this shot and the one below are my poor Photoshop imitations.

Did I mention I love the design of this place?

On a completely different scale, this unadulterated photo looks like a giant has left his soft drink can in the street.

Anyway, next up: views of Tokyo and Mt. Fuji from the Sumitomo Building.

2007-02-22T02:49:00.000+09:00

Hmmm... let's see...

- 9State story Encouraging * twin-bedded room Pocket coil bed adoption

Washlet with bus rest room

Okay, bathroom sounds spacious all right. I get to keep the bed?

Victory for Business... ...Potato Haya

Great! Success and a complimentary spud. What the !?

These were just 2 of the room types offered at a hotel website I browsed tonight in my search for accommodation in Fukuoka for my last hurrah next month.

Excuse me while I scratch my head until my brain plops out of the hole.

2007-02-20T00:10:00.000+09:00

This could be a scene from a mountain retreat, somewhere in tucked-away Japan, were it not for the tell-tale frame holding up the powered train lines.

Look at the amazing carved calligraphy on this stone ah... thing!

Just how many Buddhas are there anyway?

Yep, we're in Tokyo, in Minami-Senju which I guess you'd call shitamachi Tokyo - the old side of town. This is one of the most densely populated places in the world... in the Tokyo Bay area, including Yokohama and Chiba, there are about 33 million people. Right next to the Buddhas is a graveyard. A train passes noisily overhead.

This was next to the station of the area I stayed in. It does the trick - cheap, basic lodgings in a pretty convenient location. But no, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. If you can handle walking past old homeless men sleeping, talking, eating wandering and occasionally urinating in the street then I guess you're up for it. But yeah, Ginza it ain't! (Note to prospective wife out there: I'd be willing to upgrade... a little. haha.)

A forgotten little scooter soaking up the morning sun.

There barely seems room for even some pedals, let alone an engine.

When in Tokyo , the Spamurai chooses to stay in a hotel where he can touch both sides of the room at once with his hands. But this isn't it! This is the view looking from it! haha.

Looking straight down I could see the little shrine below had a brand spanking roof of copper on it. I've stayed here twice before, so I knew it was new, apart from the obvious shinyness of it.

Sorry, I love shiny metal things.

Especially copper.

Wasn't quite so keen on this fella. A pair of angry looking dogs guard the way. I'd never quite seen ones like this before. They almost seem a bit Egyptian.

Finally, this is perhaps a big call, but I guarantee that the video below is the funniest thing you'll have seen in a loooonnnnggg time. What's it got to do with Japan I hear you ask? Nothing apart from the fact that I've been seeing it a lot in my local haunt, Dayz darts bar. Master or mashta as we call him loves to play 80's videos in a loop that lasts for about an hour (with the likes of the Buggles, Human League and INXS). So if you stay for the long haul you get treated to Journey's Separate Ways several times. I don't tire of it ever - unintentional comic genius! (Look for the bit where the singer's backing his way through the forklift palettes.) Please enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w44tJDnMzk8

2007-02-16T23:59:00.000+09:00

Using the latest Spamuraivision technology I bring you Fuji-san as viewed travelling at 285 km/h! In other words I've meddled with this picture, taken from my seat on a Tokyo-bound shinkansen, to bring out the features which you can't see with normal, non-Spamurai eyes. The sky was a bit hazy, but still clear enough to be able to see this most famous of mountains. It was my first time, so I was pretty stoked. I've been past numerous times, but at the wrong times - it's always been invisible in the soupy spring/summer air. I think if it weren't for the snowcap, I would have missed it again.

This is how it really appeared. Hazy, but still... it's there! So if you want to climb Mt Fuji come in spring or autumn. If you want to see it, come in winter!

I was really surprised by the size of this thing. It's not that close to the train line, but it fills a good chunk of the sky. I guess if there were a building 3 km high it would be visible from a long way off, let alone a pile of earth that tall. It really makes you think funny words, like splendid! magnificent! subarashii! I believe the hedge things in the foreground are tea.

This is my friend Masato-san. He and I first met at Chatswood Presbyterian, back in Sydney. He lives near a city called Hiratsuka, visible here behind him. We are looking east along the coast of Honshu, in the direction of Tokyo, which is where I was headed. After shouting me to a really nice lunch, Masato-san took me to this very windy, beautiful vantage point. It's a really nice part of Japan.

Masato lives on the other side of the lookout.

I love bay windows and Masato has a really nice one! He became a Christian shortly after we met but this wasn't long before I left Sydney for Japan. So it was good to catch up and talk about our friends back at Chatswood and how it's been living as Christians in this very different culture.

It was a good time.

But, it had to end. Masato took me to the train station, but not until we'd made a slight detour on the way, to get another glimpse of Fuji-san. In one of those Japan-moments that I thought I'd only ever read about we pulled over to the side of the road and looked across rice paddies towards Mt Fuji to the accompaniment of a bullet train hurtling past.

In the coming issues, we'll keep heading east. I was on my way to Tokyo for a couple of days, to be followed by another stay with my friends Tom, Jen and Ruby in their home of Tsukuba, north of Tokyo. As it turned out, Fujisan's shyness waned further and I could see it from Tokyo! You'll see...

In the meantime, this has been a very good week. As you know, Valentine's Day was on Wednesday. I've been reaping the chocolatey goodness of being a male in Japan. Nothing is expected of me until March 14th, White Day... time to reciprocate. I've received chocolates, cookies and a cupcake from some little girls, a couple of teenagers and my manager! Yesterday was particularly good for other reasons - I managed to do a load of washing, talk to my sister, stitch my backpack and take a box to the post office all before work! I do start at 2 on Thursdays, but I usually would be lucky to get two of those things done.

Anyway, g'night.

2007-02-09T23:24:00.000+09:00

Time for some hairless bipeds... aka ningen... aka people... but best known as my friends. Mister Master Masa-sama (aka beatmaster) and I goof it up at church.

Hide and Toshi. This photo sums up their personlaities well! (Although admittedly Toshi and I can barely communicate, but our attempts seem to amuse him a lot. Me too! He just became a dad.)

Strange guy with camera. (I mean him! Not me!)

Well wouldn't you know? It's Eric.

Now it's Christmas time. Well, in the photo, that is. We're at Crossroad Bible Fellowship celebrating the birth of Jesus. The people in the photo are playing the different roles of the Christmas story and singing as the temporary choir.

Christmas didn't seem quite so Christmassy this time round for some reason. Either way, Jesus was born all those years ago and that's what matters! But I tried my hardest in a borrowed Santa hat to be festive. Dinner together was great. That's my manager from work next to me.

This is my friend Namiko, currently in Australia. It's weird to think that my parents have probably now hung out with her more than I have! Hi if you're reading!

She made a great meal for my friend Mika and I. That's Namiko's mum with Mika, who's a church friend. Namiko and Mika met in a sauna! When the subject of going to Australia came up Mika mentioned she had an Aussie friend at church... and you've guessed the rest!

We now move on to Christmas, Nihongo Salon style! That's the name of my Japanese class. It's organised by Sanda International Association. We sat in a big U-shape and watched some performances by students before playing some silly games and then eating a potluck lunch. That's my teacher in the foreground. She's great.

Rosa and Nat warm up the place with a Spanish number. It's been an awesome experience going to this class - the tuition is one-on-one, but there's plenty of opportunity to chat with other students who hail from all over the world. Nat is a super nice and sharp guy from small-town America. Modest too - I knew he could speak some Spanish, but I found out at the party he used to teach it too! I was a wallflower as usual and didn't perform anything ("perform what?" I thought... maybe I should have cracked out a number or two on my comb.)

Well, these two Blue Mountains kids have more creativity and more pluck. Steph and Taylor read out a poem they'd written. They only just went home, but were here for nearly half a year - Sanda City and City of Blue Mountains are sisters, so they have student exchanges. Taylor quickly learned how the cool kids wear their uniforms! haha. They're both cool kids.

Another Aussie connection! David and Nadia also come from the Mountains. They sang about sushi swimming around in their heads. They were nice enough to have me over on Christmas day, along with some others. It was nice to hang out in someone's home and form an impromptu family.

Well, bingo done, food eaten, time for a group photo. I will miss these people.

Another occasion - lunch after class in the Italian restaurant downstairs. The occasion was that Oscar had turned up for class! haha, that's not true. We were saying goodbye to the young-uns.

This is as recent as 2 weeks ago! I spent almost an hour one afternoon after class with these 2 ladies and we ended up sketching each other. That was really cool. Yes, I always look this terrible at class. With a 10 o'clock start time it's by far the earliest start of the week for me!

Well, here's a bunch of no-good beef-eaters. We are eating kobe-gyu - the world famous Kobe beef! It's not normally done yakiniku, or barbequed, but it tastes great to me. I also tried beef sashimi - raw beef! Very nice. This is a really mixed bag of people - from work and local. A friend of a few of us works at this place, so she got us a good deal. It's supposed to be the best beef in the world and I believe it.

I like this photo a lot. Takako and I were with a big bunch from work seeing off our friend Lexie (you can see her in a previous post). Nice photo for such a dive of a place. We were in Pure which is anything but! It's absolutely packed with sketchy people there for sleaze and the nomihoudai all-you-can-drink ticket. Nomihoudai is the first Japanese that some foreigners learn.

Next to us was a little hutch type thing that looked like Yoda's house on Dagoba. On top of it was a girl dancing around a pole - she wasn't doing the mayflower dance. All class.

We didn't last long there - ended up karaoking until first train.

Anyway on that lovely note, (started in church, ended in a seedy club) I must away to the land of Nod. More great people to come.

Buenos noches!

2007-02-12T23:31:00.000+09:00

This blog entry is brought to you by the letters S, E and the colour gold. The S and the E stand for Sam and Edwin, to whom I dedicate this post as they approach their wedding day next month. Above you can see a typical Japanese wedding envelope. The fancier they are the more cash you can expect to find inside. They usually have a suggested amount printed on the packaging - it would be embarrassing to give less than the "advertised" amount! Gift-giving for all sorts of occasions is an important (and expensive!) part of social interaction for Japanese people. Sorry S and E... you're only getting a photo of an envelope from me for now! haha... I hope that all is shaping up well.

These are decorations for a wedding. I saw these old people making them on TV. It was amazing they way they weave and wind them together. They are understandably expensive.

And now for something completely different, yet similar to the eye...

You may recall similar shots to these on the Spamurai a year ago. In the lead-up to Christmas it was time again for Kobe's annual Luminarie display - to commemorate the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995.

Here we (friends Takashi, Azusa and I) are making our way up the closed-off street. Azusa was a bit camera-shy.

Those black shapes are traffic lights.

It wasn't anything like the year before in temperature (mild, as opposed to freezing), but the display itself seemd to be exactly the same. Having just compared the photos though, I can now see that the designs were quite different, but the overall effect of a tunnel of light is repeated each year.

In the tunnel.

My favourite part - the end where you are surrounded by lights.

We just made it to the end in time to savour it for a few minutes before the lights flicked off - right on time! Everyone let out this "OH!" and then started laughing. It was very funny.

Nearby in the Motomachi district is the Daimaru department store. It's impressive by day and beautiful by night. Anyway, I'm slowly creeping this blog into 2007. Next issue will take you to Tokyo and beyond!

2007-02-12T20:49:00.000+09:00

A virtual dog virtually looks on at virtual figures in a very real room. Or are they virtual? In a brilliant exhibition called Geometric Reality artist Kato Toshihiko brings the purely mathematical into the physical realm. He builds figures in AutoCAD or a similar program using polygons - those straight-edged facets that you see in game-characters, ala Playstation and the like. He then prints out the plans of these characters and painstakingly makes them materialise by cutting out each polygon out of artboard and assembling them together like a 3 dimensional puzzle. The dog alone consists of over 800 pieces. This exhibition was held in a very cool independent gallery called Mssohkan (or Muso-kan... there seems to be 2 ways of writing it) which is run by a family near Kobe.

The wall out the front seems to break away accidentally.

But look up and you'll find the rest of the wall on the top of the building! A silver person looks coolly into the distance from behind silver driving sunglasses.

Inside Kato's genius becomes apparent. His static, yet dynamic figures have a strange life of their own, despite their cold, formulaic microchip origins.

The purity of tone on each plane makes them so photographable! They seem to be asking to be taken. I asked the lady on staff - the daughter - if I could take some photos and surprisingly her reply was "Of course!". Later I said I wanted to write a review of some sort on the internet (I admitted the smale scale of my intent) and she was very happy aboout it. Having said that, if I breach any kind of copyright in posting these pictures, I sincerely apologise.

She left me to take pictures at my leisure and went off to make me a cup of tea! This gallery only runs on sales, so the entry was free.

She was very enthusiastic in telling me about the artist and in answering all my questions (she spoke good English - I'm not that good at Japanese!) and seemed truly grateful for my visit which was really humbling considering it's obvious to Blind Freddie that I couldn't ever afford the pieces on offer.

This figure reminds me of the headless girl that dances around outside the cabin in Evil Dead: Dead By Dawn - a movie that is laughable now, but in my youth scared the stuffing out of me!

I'm imagining a whole Playstation Acropolis in Athens.

The relative weightlessness of this medium makes things like this possible. It plays games with the mind in what you're looking at - the type of image that you're used to seeing from behind the glass of a computer screen is tangible, touchable. (But I didn't touch it!)

Check out the way he's done the shoulder joint, the jawline, the ear. Awesome.

In a back room with very chic ship's-style windows (chosen by mother!), I was shown these amazing ceramic sculptures by young artist Hayashi Higeki. http://www.geocities.jp/sheceramic/koten2006ms.html

Hayashi brilliantly draws on the hyper-modern and traditions of Japanese folklore and ceramics-production (he's from ceramics region Minoh, where I previously took photos of a waterfall and monkey) to create these intriguing artworks. These pod contraptions are designed to recall the shape of a rabbit - just as in Western tradition there is a man on the moon, the Japanese see a couple of rabbits, beating rice to make the popular snack, mochi!

Open the pod and you find a baby. If you read the excellent critique in the above link, you'll learn that this baby is the one referred to in the old tale that tells of a baby sent from the moon, to be found by a woodsman when he cut a large stalk of bamboo. I'd seen such imagery before, but had no idea it was a lunar baby!

George Lucas eat your heart out. Remember that these are entirely made from kiln-fired clay.

My host told me that the artist examined over 500 babies' faces in order to come up with an "average" face - an "everyman" baby, if you will. I wish I could have seen the full exhibition of these figures, but I feel priveleged enough to have seen this much... and with a free cuppa to boot! The lady said, please tell your friends! So here I am, doing my best. (I have a feeling that they're kind of well-patronised though, with customers coming from Tokyo and overseas... but like I said, nice of her to welcome a schmuck like me. The baser side of me dreamt of wooing her only to give me the means to do hair-brained art without ever working a regular job again in my life! haha)

So...

If you've got some time to kill in Kobe, make sure you make your way to Mssohkan... or whatever it's called! Definitely worth making the effort.

2007-02-11T00:40:00.000+09:00

This is about a 15 minute walk from my place. There's a busy road behind you here, but it makes for a pretty view.

I promise these are the last autumn leaves I will be posting! Amazing colours.

This is even closer. Everytime I open my front door I see Elizabeth Montgomery in cartoon form on a big billboard facing the traffic. Pretty cool really. Would have preferred Barbara Eden, but I'll take any 60's sitcom lady I can get. It's an ad for a ka- conbini... offering convenience in a car maintenance and "total" shop. Total is a popular marketing word here. You see disturbing ads that sell Total Human Produce.

On the way to the station.

This is from out the front of my place. I snapped this on a particularly clear day. The mountains in the distance normally are completely obscured by haze. I've zoomed in a lot here. The stylised M you can see above a rooftop is an electrical store 25 minutes walk away, so those mountains are a long way off and pretty big.

I'm now taking you to Osaka. This is along the way, at a pretty major stop called Kawanishi Ikeda. I'm not sure who this samurai is, but I like the statue. It's strange seeing it stradling a busy train station and multiple shopping centres. I imagine these guys galloping about near streams and bamboo groves - hard to picture Japanese urbia (can I say that?) as it once was.

This is in the south of Osaka on a typical weekend. Shopping is a sport here. A lot of perfectly good stuff must get regularly chucked here to make way for shiny new things, as the dwellings tend to be on the very small side. Sad really. But recycle shops seem to have a bit of support in my area at least. I love them.

Also in the south, this is in the Dotonbori stretch. I've blogged about this place before. This is one of the many places selling Osaka's famous takoyaki, or octopus balls... little bombs of superheated stuff ready to go off in your mouth/throat and cook you from the inside. I've scalded myself numerous times. Average ones are very average and good ones are fantastic! many people make them at home (fun!) and put things other than octopus inside them. You'll see later...

Nearby is famous Glico Man.

I should never go to Las Vegas. I will get sucked in by the flashing lights.

I don't know what this guy's story is. But I like him.

Lastly, more pearls from Joi Ito: http://joi.ito.com/archives/japanese_policy/

The stories "Japanese Racism..." and "Planning to be Homeless" are particularly compelling. Just if you're interested in the state of things in Japan and its dealings with the outside world.

Anyway... pretty random stuff tonight. See ya!

2007-02-03T00:07:00.000+09:00

And you can dance... for inspiration. Come On ...I'm waiting.

I think I am pregnant. I hear that when there's a bun in the oven stange things are craved. Right now I would dearly like to hear Madonna's Get Into the Groove. On that note, something wonderful has happened. I have blogged previously about the muzak they play at the local shopping centre. Come Christmas time there is a respite as they swap CDs in the control room for some Bing or some such other Christmassy dudes. Then, usually the muzak is popped back in and belted out ad nauseum. But, this year there's a whole new world of shopping at Ecoll Lilas (why oh why don't they call it something Japanese people can pronounce!?). I was startled when I first realised I was listening to one of my favourite songs there, New Order's True Faith. Woohoo. It's the small things...

Now, to whinging. Just how cold is it now? Well, it's been snowing on and off today but I came home to a winter wonderland. It was so beautiful - a clear night with an almost full moon casting a bluish light over the white-painted world. I got home, grabbed my camera and went for a walk. I headed for a cool little railway crossing. I had a certain shot in my head of a passing train and set up in anticipation. I got the shot and then tried for another angle - had to wait for the next train. This went on a few times which meant I was standing there for quite a while in 0 to -2 degrees (it's 1 degree in Kobe now and, in the mountains, we're usually 2-3 degrees lower than that). I was bringing back Bird's Eye Fish Fingers instead of hands and they were aching from the cold as I walked home, so I couldn't wait to get inside.

My front door lock was frozen shut, but thankfully only needed a little encouragement. Once inside the blood started flowing to my fingertips, but rather than feel better, the pain intensified. Eventually they felt the way they would a few minutes after dropping a brick on them or shutting them in a door. I almost had tears in my eyes for a while there. After a few minutes the aching subsided and now they still feel a little raw, but otherwise fine. I was wearing gloves. Dang it's cold!

My place has never looked so inviting before.

Beyond the trees you could see the same dusted effect on the far mountains.

I hope you like trains and railway crossings, 'cause you're gonna get 'em...

Catch you next time.

2007-02-02T01:29:00.000+09:00

Lots of pictures and few words this time. I'll let Tofuku-ji speak for itself - easily one of the prettiest places I've ever been to.

2007-02-02T01:02:00.000+09:00

APOLOGY

Gomen nasai!!!! My sincere apologies to all you kind souls who've left messages on my blog in the last 3 months. I've just dug them out of cyber-somewhere by doing I-don't-know-what. I switched to the new Blogger and suddenly I got 18 presents all at once. So a BIG THANK YOU to you if you've written and the same if you're reading this now and have been reading in the past. It means a lot to me!

I have no idea what happened re: the comments (maybe it's because I renamed them devon), but I'm hoping it's all sorted now.

We now return you to the previously advertised program...

2007-01-31T00:11:00.000+09:00

In the last few days I have... a) visited a katana shokujin-san, aka a samurai-swordsmith! b) been to an ice sculpture display! c) seen a batmobile van! d) seen a chrome towtruck with a dolphin-mural! (hmmm... last feature questionable) and e) eaten Kobe beef! I'll post pictures of a) and b) eventually, but for now...

Continuing the tour of Irritable Ian we make our way to the north of Kyoto. On the advice of a 10 day travel-blog set up by www.japan-guide.com for the purpose of viewing autumn leaves I took a couple of trains to an obscure little station - the type so small that you step down from the platform onto the street. I was defeated by my vague map and was directed by a couple of old ladies towards my first objective, Enko-ji - "a small, tasteful, but unpretentious shrine sporting a nice garden" to paraphrase my online advice.

This window was on one of the old streets on the way. The rain was coming down and all I had was my 300 yen raincoat. I think I was almost cheerful though - my beserker fury had subsided and I was pretty philosophical by now... the sense of adventure was returning. (I know, I know... not exactly "extreme" sports we're talking here, but I'm easily excited.)

Like some ancient computer keyboard, these are some of the first printing blocks in Japan - over 400 years old. You wont find qwerty here. I think they're beautiful. They are housed inside Enko-ji.

Tucked at the end of a hallway was this amazing sumi-e screen painting. The economy and deftness with which the ink has been brushed on is incredible - so much detail implied. Well, to the real garden...

This is the approach to Enko-ji.

Once inside and past the indoor exhibits, you step out into the enclosed garden. For it's small size and the inclement weather (Clement had nicked off) there were a number of people here. Had to wait a while to get a clear shot. I wasn't thrilled by this garden but it was a nice place. It seemed very precise and deliberate. Each tree, rock and shrub seemed to be exactly as desired, which I suppose is what a garden is supposed to be... and yet it somehow lacked something for me. I'm sure I am being the equivalent of a Britney Spears fan critiquing Beethoven, but it's my blog so nerr.

A nice lady showed me some pics on her camera of the shrine she had visited that morning. It was on my list but I had ruled it out. It looked like an impressive place. Darn! That thought was to propel me to Kyoto the following Thursday for an early (and speedy!) mission before work. It all turned out well - weather ended up being brilliant - will post pics next post: Tofuku-ji.

Back to this day. It was raining persistently. And yet...

Surprisingly in this weather I took one of my favourite shots ever. I don't know why, but I always think of the planet from Alien where they find the eggs/facesucker/chestburster when I see this photo. That's not why I like the photo, but anyway...

My sister Penny has a nose for these things. (haha... ask her what I mean if you know her... sorry, Penny! muhaha)

This lantern is in the style of the late smurf rennaissance.

The lady who'd shown me her photos and I said goodbye, but when she saw I was leaving, she ran up and pushed 2 mandarins into my hand. "Japanese orange!" she said and then ran back to her husband. There are some really nice people, aren't there?

Well, next door was a graveyard being overlooked by a fiery tree.

Across the narrow road from the shrine's entrance, in stark comparison to Enko-ji's elegance, was this place. Sometimes the sacred places and the ordinary exist right next to each other. That's not lens-distortion, this house was bent with disrepair. For the mostpart Kyoto's quite a bustling city - an ordinary, ugly city amongst which lie pockets of tradition and beauty. They say Kyoto is the Paris of Japan - it's cultural heart. It's hard to argue against that, considering the myriad places there that reek of history and cultural refinement. It can just be surprising where you find them.

Well whattaya know? I thought, up until an hour ago, that I had been to a temple called Shisen-do. But I had, in fact, been to a shrine called Hachidai Jinja, just round the corner! Defeated by maps yet again, so it would seem. I never made it to Shisen-do and it's renowned azalea garden, but I was oh so close by! haha. I should have twigged at the time that I was of course not at a Buddhist temple (no Buddhas to be seen), but at a Shinto shrine (tell-tale zigzag paper hanging from sacred ropes). I didn't know that the "-do" suffix means temple. I forgot that I was looking for a garden! There was no garden. What a dork I am.

A famous samurai, Miyamoto Musashi, is enshrined near here.

He fought one of his most famous duels around this tree. I'm imagining Errol Flynn jumping up stairs and kicking over candelabras. Musashi won the day (i.e. the other guy got horribly sliced up).

I walked right near this mound - it was really hard to see. I shudder to think how it would have gone down if I'd put my foot through it! Anyone know what it represents? I'm told that a raked stone/sand garden represents the universe.

Heading back out now, there was some nice moss. There is a moss garden in Kyoto that has 120 varieties! I will put a link here to some great pics: http://www.phototravels.net/kyoto/zen-gardens-saiho-ji.html . The reason for the link is that I doubt you or I will ever get there... you have to copy out a Buddhist sutra before you enter, which takes over an hour - I'm not sure if that means an hour for a Japanese person or for a novice gaijin like me. Anyway, I'd like to see it, but the photos will do.

I started with a window and I'll finish with a window, just to imply that there is some very deep poetic insight to this blog entry... looking within worlds and without or something like that! Feel free to leave comments like:

Ian, you are so deep.

Stop writing so much and get some sleep, dork!

You couldn't navigate your way out of a paper bag.

Nice moss.

2007-01-23T00:48:00.000+09:00

I lied. I'm going to bed, but first just thought I should share 3 facts I've learned from my junkmail inbox:

Saddam Hussein is alive.
Fidel Castro is dead.
World War Three has started.

Just thought you should know. Peace

2007-01-22T03:16:00.000+09:00

"While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph" is a quote I read recently (Lewis Hine... ever heard of him? ...I haven't). I am going to add my own bit: "...and fiddle with them in photoshop". I silhouetted this scene with my computer, just because I thought it looked better. If it were the stage of a shadow play, can you spot the actor?

Overture, light the lights... here he is ...and he's still black. On bleak looking days like this one in Kyoto, crows really take on an ominous quality. They are big and seem eyeless. I encountered a gang of them (well, a murder to be correct) in the field near my house recently. They made way for me, but they looked so scary... I half expected to see that they were eating a large dead thing, but no. Any Alfred Hitchcock fans about?
Northwest of Kyoto city is a place called Arashiyama. I made a bee line for it to see the autumn colours. I remember writing excitedly about it the night before as I planned my intinerary. Of course, on top of blogging, I stayed up too late and then changed my itinerary on the way there anyway. That, combined with the rain (which I rather optimistically thought would be stopping for me for just the hours I needed ...wrong!) landed me in this beautiful place feeling foul!

The scenery had a soothing effect, yet I was still this petulant child snapping away amazing sights whilst grumbling under my breath about everything. Just a bad Ian day, I guess. (Spot the monk).

You don't see these guys much - occasionally around train stations and I suppose on the odd bridge!

Even if the rain had held off, I hadn't counted on things being shrouded in mist. It was a bit of a tease, as you could tell the trees were really vibrant and varied in colour, yet there was this veil in front of them. My disappointment turned to appreciation as it makes for a different kind of view... but I was still a bit grumpy.

"Damn it, I'm so grumpy. It's the weekend. I'm in Kyoto, doing what I love doing, taking pictures. Look at these fantastic trees. Grrr..."

I'm being a little unfair on myself. But I did become a seething ball of rage when I tried to get a ticket for the "Romantic Railway" - an old diesel that takes a scenic route along a river valley.

The queue wasn't moving as the lady at the window had a lovely time chatting to people as the train came and went. The wait til the next one was 30 minutes. Noone else seemed perturbed. I couldn't understand it. I tried to read the signs around but couldn't. I walked off in a huff.

I changed my mind, went back and joined the queue again for a few minutes. It didn't move at all. That did it. I was having a Class-A "I don't get this country, how it works, what to say, I can't read anything... etc" day.

They pop up every now and then and you feel as if it's all very unfair that everything hasn't been designed with you in mind. Anyway... I walked off in a bigger huff ...and got lost.

I generally knew where I was, but I couldn't work out where the station I wanted was. I got some help and that made me feel better... until I realised it was about 45 minutes til the next train. haha. I then encoutered some rude overseas tourists and tried to be rude back. Not exactly in line with what I heard recently at church - Christians shouldn't be springs in society, bouncing back anger/insult etc., but rather shock absorbers, taking the shocks of society and softening the effect. My inadmissable defense is that I heard that after this day! haha (I think Jesus kind of said stuff along those lines tho!). Where was I? Oh, "Grrr..."

Anyway, I'm sure you're sick of my whinging, but I hope you're not too sick of autumn trees yet! There are more to come I'm afraid. This post is of places up until I got on the train I just mentioned.

This is just before I got lost, moving into a residential area.

There are some pretty swish abodes in Arashiyama - with some classic luxury and sports cars parked outside one for good measure.

It took me awhile to realise I was down someone's driveway here.

Another driveway shot.

Looking up a street.

A garden (back near the river).

Still in the garden.

A bamboo mill.

I'm not going to bother trying to retrace which little shrine this is. Kyoto has about a squillion (last count). I will, however, next be putting up pictures from 2 shrines and a temple: Enko-ji, Shisen-do (temple) and Tokufu-ji... the first 2 being from the same day as this trip. I think Tofuku-ji has the best pics, but I'm trying to be chronological. Just as I'm trying to do today before tomorrow... but alas I've failed, it's already here... gotta sleep.

Bye bye

2006-12-27T22:22:00.000+09:00

Today I'm writing from the home of my friends Tom, Jen and Ruby in Tsukuba, north of Tokyo. It's holiday time as the company closes for 8 days between December 27 and January 4. Christmas was pretty low-key - it's not a holiday here, but it fell on a Monday which is my usual day off. On Christmas Eve we had a service and party at church pretty similar to last year's, but we had a dramatised reading of the Christmas story with songs interspersed throughout which really helped it come to life and put the words of the songs into context. My manager Risa-san came along and really enjoyed it, so that was great.

Well, this is nowhere near Tsukuba - this is Wakasawan, which I was given the opportunity to see in November by my friend Namiko's friend Kosuke-san. He was really generous in driving us and their friend Przemek up to the Japan Sea coast, an expensive trip in terms of petrol and tolls (the latter alone totalling at least 60 bucks), and he refused any offers of payment, claiming the tolls are cheap! He isn't rich, just generous. It was my first time to see the Japan Sea - it lies to the north of Japan's main island, Honshu (where I live) - between it, Russia and the Korean peninsula.

It was raining, but picturesque, despite. Here Namiko is doing what one is supposed to do from the mountain top - turn yourself upside down and take a look. And what do you see?...

Okay, not quite.

Not surprisingly you see something like this. One is supposed to see a ladder/stairway to heaven... maybe I'm a bit dull but I don't get it. Maybe the monkey does.

(Disclaimer: I lifted the monkey pic off the net ages ago and wouldn't have a clue where it came from, so I'm going to claim ignorance when it comes to copyright ...but there - at least I admit that it's not mine!)

If the Spamurai can take you to other dimensions and turn you upside down... it should be a snack to take you back in time. This is how we got up the mountain - as modelled by Przemek. He is the first native Pole I've ever met... maybe the first Pole I've met fullstop. He's from Gdansk - home of the largest brick Gothic cathedral in the world, where he attends mass and was married.

Funny sign.

A break in the rain meant time for photos.

Peace. Word to your mother.

This is now down on the beach near the start of the isthmus. (Never thought I'd be dropping that word into a sentence).

There were some very funky looking craft about.

How's the serenity?

More funky boats.

Okay, now I'm really just writing a caption for continuity.

I don't have a clue what these fruits are, but they're like little characters.

We went for some lunch in a place with a really nice view.

Chirashizushi and a simple soup. This type of sushi is made up of a bed of rice topped loosely with egg, sashimi (raw fish) and ikura (fish eggs). Delicious.

Great company! Don't you think Przemek looks a bit like Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings)?

We popped into a fish market. There were all sorts of sealife for sale, but these squid really stood out! They were about 50 bucks each. Check out the eyes!

Is this guy wanting you to approach him for a drink or just proud?

The crabs here are massive. They look so tasty, even in their shells - how does that work!? I've wondered that about Coke. When you see a vending machine and it looks like a giant red and white can, how does that make you want to drink black, bubbling liquid? My theory is that the pictures of the cans are always covered in drops of water and you buy the Coke subconsciously associating it with the water, not the Coke, because we all know that water quenches thirst far more effectively than Coke does. Perhaps this paragraph is strong evidence for the need to regulate blogs... sorry.

Okay, I think it's the colour. If you could eat the shell, I would.

Some more creatures on offer.

I'd love to see Rex Hunt try and kiss one of these suckers (or should I say biters) when still alive. Yikes.

Well, It's New Year's Eve and the end of 2006. What a blur! Last NYE I was asleep in Gifu city nursing a bad case of the runs (yes, you needed to know) with a whole range of experiences in between then and now. It's been a great year. I hope 2007 is a year of great things for you.

akemashite omedetou!

2007-01-19T01:28:00.000+09:00

Kaki. Or persimmons. Or oysters. Say kaki with the wrong inflection and you'll order something very different! (I feel ripped off - I was told there are no tones to learn in Japanese! Still, beats Cantonese... is it 8 tones!?). Persimmons are a popular fruit here and you often see trees laden with fruit in backyards and fields during summer and autumn months. I'd never been much of an eater of them before, but after being given about 4 I've discovered they are really delicious. This tree grows in a yard on the path to the station.

Some splashes of autumn colour along the creekbed that I walk past to get to work.

By the station.

This is another view of the mountain near my place. It's appearance is so variable - not just by the change of the leaves, but by the light/air. When it's really misty it becomes this brooding form. When the sun's low it suddenly has a lot of shape to it. When it's unusually clear as above, it looks like a school photo of trees... or rather, a stacks-on.

We're now in Sanda, my nearest city. When I say city, it's more like, say, Sydney's Campbelltown. I have a tendency to try and come up with an equivalent place back home to places I encounter here. They're obviously pretty coarse comparisons, but maybe it's just me making reference points to take in what's around me. Sanda has some variety though, with new-money suburbs like Woodytown and Flowertown that are more similar to say Penrith and Cherrybrook (young double-income families). There is even a neighbourhood called Culture Town which is modelled on American suburbia, utilising real Washington timber! I stand corrected - I always thought culture was listening to classical music whilst drinking out of a vegemite glass... or something like that.

The creature in the photo was sitting forlornly in a playground, which are often pretty bleak - no grass, just dirt. If you cross the river from Sanda station you enter yet another Sanda - a forgotten Sanda. Away from the gleaming monolith which is the Kippy Mall shopping centre, this part of town is more like old Japan - old streets, old style homes. The demographic seems very much older, with very few people operating tiny businesses that miraculously keep alive... although some appear closed - perhaps swallowed by Kippy.

There are great shapes and textures around here. I also had a ball taking pictures of old electric meters and fuseboxes, mailslots etc. in an old part of Kobe on the weekend.

I really hope noone actually lives in that room. It would make my "Leopalace" shoebox actually seem palatial.

Even in these tumbleweed streets, you see evidence of the big English language schools hotly contesting for business. At least 3 different schools duke it out here on this humble bit of closed shopfront.

Another business that's seen better days.

This is a rubber-band gatling gun. Well, of course it is. Also known as a little-boy-magnet. I saw this contraption at a local community festival, held in a sports ground in the middle of nowhere - an exposed spot on a freezing windy day.

I bumped into one of my students, the boy in front. Arata is standing on a pair of stilts, which were hilarious, because they were only about 5 cm off the ground! Nevertheless, they seemed to be very popular. (I am always amazed when I see kids zip around on unicylces here!)

Well, after all that talk of pitched battles fought in the streets over English business, here I am colluding with the enemy! My mate Oscar works for another company and I've also gotten to know a regular bunch of staff and students from his school who get together a fair bit.

Lastly, a shot my friend Lexie sent me - she's a friend from within my own ranks who went back home to Canada. She and her boyfriend Pat came over to teach together and I'm glad they did. They were both really genuine and had a great positive outlook on everything (like the ins and outs of working for our company), which I miss. A bunch of us farewelled Lexie, karaoking until morning. I'm not that keen on singing - but a karaoke place is easier and cheaper than a hotel after the last trains have stopped running.

Next stop, autumn in Kyoto. After almost catching up, my blog is sliding hopelessly to out-of-date mode again. Right now we are starting the second half of winter. It's only snowed twice so far, but that was enough to excite me. This winter is comparatively warm all around the northern hemisphere.

Anyway, well past time for bed! Sayonara...

2006-12-19T00:08:00.000+09:00

IF YOU LEAVE ME, CAN I COME TOO?

The photos below document the changing of the leaves at the local Shinto shrine over the space of ten days. Of all the expensive tripping around I did in the month of November to see the Big Guy's annual autumn exhibition, some of the best and most stirring sights I saw were at this shrine along the road I walk to work 3 times a week! Only one famous temple in Kyoto had trees to top these ones (you'll see them soon)...

NOVEMBER 12

This was a sunny day... the colours were vivid, but weren't quite going primary just yet. But the gradations are really nice.

NOVEMBER 14

This day was overcast, but some nice orange hues were showing.

NOVEMBER 15

This day was perfect. The signs below announce that it's shichigosan matsuri, or the time to bring your 3/5/7 year old child to be blessed. I explained this on the blog at the time, but I'll reiterate... most are actually 2/4/6 year olds, because in the past a newborn was described as being 1, hence a 1 year old child was said to be 2... etc.

I believe the names chiselled into the stone fence are individuals/families/businesses who have contributed to the shrine. The supermarket across the tracks from me is among the rollcall.

The torii, or gate thing, marks the entrance to a sacred precinct. Naturally, you're supposed to walk through it, not around. Kazuya says many evil spirits hang around torii. Like I said, he loves to try and spook me! The famous one on the water that you saw back in Hiroshima's Miyajima Island is so big because boats had to go through it. In the old days, the whole island was treated as sacred and commoners weren't allowed there. You had to enter the island by taking your boat through the gate, or else you would defile it.

I felt like a creep hovering around this family, taking shots of trees, waiting for the right time to ask for a photo. There was no one else around, so I was more than a little conspicuous!

Some of these little outfits are super pricey, so I'd be miffed if some stranger was able to just come and snap my kids for free after I'd shelled out all that money, let alone raised them for 2/4/6 years. But it had to be done... you can see why, right? kawaii! ... cute.

"Mummy, who's the strange man taking my picture... and ... why are you letting him?"

NOVEMBER 22

A week later... another beaut day, but with a touch of winter... no mixing colours required, just reds and yellows straight from the tube!

The exhibition ended a week or so later - the walls of the gallery are pretty bare now. Fallen ... just like his other masterpiece.

Well, I'm going to bed. There's ice forming outside my front door, but it's nowhere near as cold as last winter. No snow has fallen here yet. No complaints from me! But the first snow will be exciting. Anyway... night.

2006-12-15T23:48:00.000+09:00

You may recall from a previous post I reported nicking off into neighbouring Arima Onsen for a cuppa with a couple of ladies one morning before work. I now provide you with photographic evidence. When I say ladies, they were a geisha and a maiko, no less! Above is the maiko, who I'm guessing would be 20 or 21, as she said she's been an apprentice for 2 years - they usually start at age 19 these days.

I stumbled upon them by complete accident. My aim in going to Arima was to see more autumn colours. From the station, the river forks into 2 as you walk uphill, so I opted for the side I hadn't yet explored, which leads you to Zuihoji Park. Once inside after a little while I came upon a long striped curtain - the side of a pavilion in which tea was being served. I popped my head over the top and saw a geisha! Needless to say I eventually paid my money and went inside to be served tea... expensive for a cup of tea and a sweet, but definitely worth it!

This just seemed to be for show. The tea I drank may well have come from an electric urn! It came from behind a screen anyway.

After I finished sipping and munching I asked for photos and the fact that I was foreign became more obvious. So, we got chatting. An old lady that was collecting the entrance fee was the intermediary - I think generally you don't converse directly to geisha/maikosan. Perhaps she was the maiko's minder - the obaasan (mother figure) of her okiya (house). Maiko become geisha when they either marry or get a sponsor - a rich patron who sets them up on their own.

I really don't know if these ladies were traditional to that degree, but the old lady was insistent that I was speaking to genuine Arima geishasan. I apologised for my ignorance and said that I thought only Kyoto had geisha. They replied that there are about 20 places in Japan that have them. The apprentice was wearing a wig, which differs from what I've read. In Kyoto they style and adorn their own hair and start using a wig only once they become geisha. They are definitely more accessible than their Old Capital counterparts, that's for sure. The old lady asked if I was single and I nodded enthusiastically "hai hai! shinguru!" I said, which is Japanese English for single. I'm pretty sure she was just teasing. Darn. I said that I'd actually met the maiko before, at Arima's summer dance festival. They were surprised I'd been to Arima before and was back again so soon, and so I fessed up that I live within walking distance (a long, hard walk, but nevertheless...), but I said yes, I really like Arima.

I said that I had to go to work and quickly made my way back down to the station, pretty stoked with myself. Perfect weather, perfect timing for the trees, perfect encounter. On days like this it makes any nasty experiences here all seem worth it.

Once inside the train I again saw a poster about which I'd previously been thinking "that looks cool, I should check that out". I then realised it was what I'd just been to. Happy with that!

Arima's history is loooonnnggg. It's Japan's oldest onsen, or hot spring town. The Emperor Jomei enjoyed a September to December bathing holiday here in the year 631! I would have enjoyed views of autumn similar to those he did.

In 1097 a "flood" struck the onsen and the spa collapsed. The source of the spring lay hidden for 95 years until a monk came and restored it, according to legend, obeying a dream he'd had...

The Japanese take their baths very seriously!