Red Leaves in Gifu Koen, on my birthday with N

The seasons are incredibly defined in Japan and in autumn vibrantly so. The leaves change and the many Japanese maples stain bright red. It’s getting colder and winters coming, but not to worry, I’m escaping to NZ for my first Christmas at home for 3 years. I can’t wait – family, beaches, bbq’s, and I’m hoping, a Christmas ham.

I had another birthday the other week. I’ve now had 27 of them and thats quite enough.

Nabana no Sato Illumination

The Japanese have been busy throwing up lights left, right and centre for ‘illumination’. Here Christmas is all about the lights. One such ‘Illumination’ Naomi and I visited at Nabana no Sato, a giant flower park with giant flowers (one type that looked a lot like Gobo Fraggle). There we walked through tunnels of fairy lights, while Nagoya station features illuminated teddy bears. I guess you’ve got to be here…

I had a run around at the Awaji soccer tournament down near Kobe last week. Our Gaijin team played four 40 minute games on the Saturday and won 3, lost 1. Those results saw us through to the quarter finals the next day, though 4 games in a single day also meant I could hardly walk. Tournament over for me, though we lost the next game anyway. Still it was a great run around on REAL grass (a rarity in Japan) and was in fact the site that the England team used in preparation for the 2002 World Cup. It was good to get my goal scoring boots back on. Good lads there too.

Bears… Nagoya Station. Kawaii

My Japanese keeps coming along. My lesson this week involved going to the police station and reporting that my bike had been stolen. They understood me which was good, but my bike is still missing which obviously is not. In Japan, everyone has a ‘Hanko’ which is an individual’s stamp, rather than their signature. Funny thing is mine just says ROJYA in Katakana. The banks think its fine but the police didn’t. They wanted a complicated name in Kanji characters so I had to give up my fingerprints. I might change my name to Goku, or something ridiculous like ‘Dragons Flame’ (suggestions?), or I wonder if I could find the Kanji for the real meaning of my name: ‘famous with the spear’. I’ll take care not to use the Kanji for the slang ‘to Roger’. More about Roger’s here:
A few photos are in photolog>japan>autumn06

Kinkakuji Temple

It was great catching up with Eve and Nigel on their whirlwind stopover in Japan just a few weeks ago. Martin led them down from Tokyo to Kyoto where I met up with the old London crew.

Eve and Nigel had a real appetite to feast their senses on as much culture as they could handle. Though it was my second excursion to Kyoto there were many sites I also hadn’t laid eyes on. Kinkakuji was one of them, a glistening Zen temple coated in pure gold leaf. The garden setting too would have been idyllic but for the Saturday crowds. We walked Tetsugaku no michi, (or, Path of Philosophy) to Nanzen Ji temple, enjoyed its raked pebble gardens and drank macha tea on tatami mats in view of the temple waterfall – all very Zen.

Nanzen-ji Raked Gardens

Even come dusk we had more walking in us. We made our way to the fantastic Kiyomizu-Dera as dusk was settling. The temple, originally built in 798 (rebuilt in 1633), has a huge veranda supported by hundreds of pillars jutting out over the hillside. Just below visitors drink from the waterfall believed to have therapeutic properties.

We checked into our Ryokan room and soon made our way out for a sushi dinner in Gion, drinks downtown in some tiny bars where Eve had the Dutch courage to try out every word in her Japanese phrase book, rounded off by an inevitably messy Karaoke session.

Himeji

Ambitiously, (were they tripping?) the others had wanted to hit Nara and Himeji the next day. This obviously was never going to happen after a Karaoke-a-thon. When we were forced to rise at 10:30am we made our way to Toji temple with a packed lunch and mellowed out in the temple’s garden.

The plan to visit Himeji was still a go. I took the normal rapid train and left an hour earlier than the others on the Shinkansen (Bullet train). Himeji-jo , built in the 15th century and in original condition is famed as Japans most beautiful castle, and I have to agree. I took the winding walk up to the Inner Keep and chatted with an old Japanese gent in Japanese while I waited for the others. The peaceful setting was only disturbed by the frequent taped recordings – ‘Himeji is a Unesco world heritage site…please put your rubbish in the bin… smoking is prohibited…’ and so on. A sign at the entrance would’ve done.

The London 4

We met back up and removed our shoes and scaled the steep wooden steps inside Himeji’s Keep. We surveyed the grounds of the castle and looked back on a great weekend. Great seeing you Eve and Nigel, and Martin, I’ll get to Tokyo in the New Year

Himeji photos in the photolog>japan>himeji
Kyoto photos are only the 2 on this page, click to view larger (as with all my blog photos from now on

Kanou Matsuri, Bill, Rog, Andre

There are bigger festivals in Japan, but Kanou Matsuri is my hometown festival in Gifu. Bill-chan, resident Gaijin and friend, introduced me to his Japanese buddy and owner of a local Izakaya (drinking den). In this round-about way I found my way into the festival not just as a raving spectator, but as a full patched member of the Kanou Matsuri team. I met my new brotherhood early Saturday morning. Take-san was inebriated from the night before but was still genki. At Kanou Jinja (the Shinto Shrine and cause for which we were to march for) I changed into my Jika tabi frog shoes and black pixie outfit before being handed an honorary Hapi coat.

It was 10ish by now, and there was a buzz in the air. It might’ve just been that the first cups of cold sake were being passed around. I, of course, liberally joined in the ritual drinking. To begin with Bill, Andre and I were assigned a cart with sponsor’s lanterns to tow behind with main Dashi (float). It was slow progress through the streets. Comedy you might say. Our Dashi, a good few metres tall and fitted with a small troupe of musicians in the trunk, kept on getting snagged on the power lines that criss-cross the streets. You’d think that a ‘modern’ country like Japan could bury the eye sore and hazards of overhead power lines, but alas. So, we’d get snagged, and out would come the ‘line untanglers’, a crack team with bamboo poles fitted with a metal hook, to unsnag us from the most twisted tangles. Can anyone say DANGER?
(more…)