Japanese Archery (Kyudo)
Welcome to the Japan blog archive, containing all of my recent blogs about this subject.
I received a blog comment this morning from Sue in Bexhill (this is becoming like Points of View), who says: "Alastair, this whole holiday seems to be centred round eating."
With that being the case, it would surely mean that something like constipation would be very unfortunate and probably quite amusing, right? No, wrong! I'm not a great fan of discussing bowel movements on blogs (do you think there is some kind of cult that does?), but no-one has been this full of crap since Bill Clinton stood in court and explained that Monica was only bending over to pick up a pencil. I haven't had a number 2 for two and a half days! It must be all the meat we've been eating. To make matters more interesting - when the inevitable 'avalanche' does occur, the toilet paper here isn't exactly triple velvet… it's more like single tracing! Enough of this excrement. There's rumours going around here that John and Edward have survived another week on the X-Factor... and that Simon Cowell is actually their father… I can't believe that! Back to the story of the day. After initially spending some time blogging over breakfast, we headed out to the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto. We picked a lovely day for it - the sun was out and it was lovely and warm as we made our way through the tiny streets (photograph 1) and up through the main gate (photograph 2). The temple itself was a very interesting place and we spent some time wandering around the area taking photographs (photographs 3 and 4). There were a few interesting sights - the temple itself, the lovely scenery, a Japanese transvestite (very scary) and the Kyoto Teachers' Union petitioning to abolish nuclear weapons (photograph 5). Yes, if Obama, Gordon and the United Nations can't get Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, the Kyoto Teachers' Union surely will! No, good on them, I say. One of the buildings near the temple itself was the Kyoto Jishu Shrine (said to be The Cupid of Japan), together with a statue of Ojuninushino-Mokoto (photograph 6), the Japanese God who is "in charge of love and good matches" (not the kind used for lighting fires). In front of the main shrine building, there are a couple of stones set about ten metres apart. These are named the 'love-fortune-telling' stones (photograph 7). I felt a bit wary of them, after my fortune telling experience from yesterday. Supposedly, if a person manages to safely walk from one love stone to the other with their eyes closed, and, I guess, avoiding the swarms of tourists, their love "will be realised". I saw a few people trying this. However, something inside me felt worried. I had a vision of myself starting to walk from the first love stone, eyes shut, arms out infront… and that Japanese transvestite walking infront right at the most in-opportune moment. A handful of male buttocks (or worse) would not be a pleasant experience. If that incident isn't frightening enough, there is the prospect of it signifying that my love will "be realised" with a man in a wig. On the way back down from the love stones, I spotted a little section containing bad fortunes tied to posts (photograph 8). If you remember from my earlier post, people start by picking or buying a fortune. If it is good they keep it, if it is bad they dispose of it by attaching it to a tree or post. I have questions about this. Firstly, do pessimists act differently to everyone else and tie good fortunes to those posts? Secondly, if you have someone that you really hate - is it acceptable to tie your bad fortune around their ankles instead of around a tree branch? Come on, I haven't got all day, what are the answers? After our visit to the Kyoto Jishu Shrine, we took a few more photographs (9,10 and 11) and then headed off for lunch (no fascinating photos this time - we had pizza). Then we walked around the corner to a little house that taught some quick lessons in Japanese archery. I'm going to blog about this separately as it was quite fascinating and great fun. The final photograph on tonight's blog is of dinner. I couldn't go without having a photo of food now, could I? This dish is Taiwanese dumplings - meat or fish surrounded in a pasta-like substance (don't you just love detail) or in a bready bun. I really enjoyed them. News update: Mark has just called my room to tell me that we've just had a small earthquake. "It was 10km deep around Kyoto at magnitude 2.9." I didn't feel a thing. Good night all. If you haven't yet read my three extra blog posts from this morning: Japanese Spinach Doughnuts, Purikura (Japanese Photo Booth) and Misfortune Favours The Unfortunate please feel free to either scroll down (assuming you're on the homepage) or click the link of your choice.Comments [0]
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Well folks, I can excitedly reveal that I have finally tried the spinach doughnuts… *applause*… They were very nice and didn't really taste of spinach at all; a fact that I actually felt a bit disappointed about. Popeye won't be doing much heavy lifting after eating this snack pack.
What I'm wondering now is whether a pack of spinach doughnuts constitutes my 5-a-day!?
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Well, I hope you've all been enjoying lovely weekends. Here in Japan, we've just come to the end of another event packed day.
We left our hotel early, and headed off in the direction of Coco (not the clown) to meet up with our friend Liz. Before leaving Hikone completely, Mark stumbled across a Starbucks. However, this one was slightly unusual - it was a drive-thru Starbucks (I guess you have to supply the Christmas music yourself). After buying our hot drinks and playing around trying to get the ancient Japanese Sat Nav to work, we went on our way. It proved to be a delightful little journey, taking us out of the built-up areas and into some little country roads, with fields of colour and traditional Japanese houses dotted around. Photographs 1 and 2 are of a colourful little flower field that we found (one photo with me in, one with a Japanese family). Photograph 3 is of a sunflower field, with Mark taking a photograph in the distance. At one point, en-route, Sayaka pointed out a special shrine at which a large family appeared to be gathering. She explained to me that a blessing is traditionally held for boys at 5 years of age and for girls at 3 and 7. The blessing is said to get rid of any bad spirits. It made me wonder, though, why girls have two blessings compared to one for the boys. What happens to girls between the ages of 3 and 7 that means that their bad spirits return during that time? Hannah Montana? After about an hour and a half of driving, we met up with Liz. I quickly seized the opportunity to impress her with my Japanese… by calling her a cucumber. She didn't seem too impressed. Disappointed, we got in the car and headed off for some lunch at what I called the Little Chef of Japan. Photograph 4 shows Liz, Mark and Sayaka looking through about 30 different menus. After eating, we left - destination Kyoto. En-route to Kyoto, Liz helped me to learn some more Japanese words. But she also revealed some other interesting facts, including one about an interesting new habit. Having been in Japan for four months, she is now so used to bowing when talking to people that she even bows when talking to someone on the phone! After about an hour of driving, we arrived in Kyoto and found our hotel, which had a rather nifty vertical car park. You drive in through a front door and park on the lift plate. Then, you get out of the car and leave it. The doors then shut. When the attendant hits the button, the car is automatically turned around 180 degrees and is lifted upwards. It is then stored somewhere in the vertical block. Photograph 5 shows the car, having been parked on the lift plate. Photograph 6 is of the inside - with the cars stacked vertically up the side. Clever! Having dropped our bags off at the hotel, we made our way towards the city centre. There, we wandered through a couple of the more famous market areas (photograph 7). We tasted lots of different Japanese foods, looked at expensive chopsticks (the pair in photograph 8 were £100!), bought souvenirs and tried wacky Japanese amusements (more on that in a future blog post). Photograph 9 is of Liz standing alongside a character called Tanuki. Liz told me that this famous Japanese character is a "racoon bear dog" and that it famously has big testicles. It is said to be a sign of virility (or he just needs to learn to adjust the posture he adopts when he sits down). Ok. I'm going to finish today's blog off there. However, there are a couple of very funny things that happened today that I will be blogging about separately, and individually. Those posts will be appearing in due course. Night night.Comments [2]
Here are a few photographs of me driving a model train (taken in Hikone). There was a massive train track laid out at the top of one of the department stores in Hikone - what I would describe as a train fan's ultimate dream (I'm not a train fan, by the way). It cost about 300 yen (two pounds) to have a go at driving. So, I had a go for my 3 year old son and his love of trains. I was able to control my train around the track using two leavers - one for the speed and one for the brake. The lady told me to brake when going around the bends, but in actual fact it didn't make any difference. No matter how badly I got it wrong, I couldn't de-rail my train (damn it!). It was great fun though. As you can see, the view from the front of the train is beamed back to my monitor screen by a small camera. Clever stuff.
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Evenin' All. Now, I know that I've been posting a lot of photographs of food lately. As a refreshing change, today's blog contains some really lovely and unusual photographs.
Before I begin, I discovered something interesting when talking to Sayaka and Mark earlier. Apparently, I've been saying "kireee des ne" wrongly. You may remember that I told you that it meant "you look beautiful" and that I said it to both Nonchan and Sayaka on the day of the dinner party. As it turns out, I was actually saying "Kiri des ne". It's amazing how a simple mis-pronunciation canComments [0]
On the third day of Starbucks Christmas, my good bruv gave to me: one sugar doughnut and a nice cup of hot chai tea.
Today was our final day in Nagano and it started off with some sensible reflection on what I have discovered so far. There is much to admire and be impressed with about Japanese society. There is hardly any crime. Over the last week I have only seen one police car. This is because, by committing crime, they would be bringing shame upon their family. Consequently, you feel safe where-ever you go and you can safely leave your bag on a seat and go up and order coffee. Everyone takes pride in their appearance and their work. Unemployment is low and there is no 'benefit culture' here - if someone loses their job they feel ashamed, so they go straight out to find another one. To continue this subject further - one thing that bugs me when walking around back home, in Bexhill town centre, is the amount of rubbish bins overflowing with litter. Here in Japan, there are no litter bins. Does that mean that the streets are full of litter? No - completely the opposite. People take pride in their towns and take their rubbish home. Consequently, when you walk around the main shopping streets there isn't a piece of litter to be seen anywhere. Ok, lets move on to the diary of the day, which mainly revolves around, yes, you guessed it, food. For lunch we met up with Esdras and ate ramen, a traditional Japanese noodle soup with a soft-boiled egg in the middle. This is one of Mark's favourite dishes and it was delicious (photograph 1). After enjoying our ramen, we headed to Starbucks, once again, to do a few hours of work to the background music of "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas". Photograph 2 shows the sugar doughnut and chai tea that I consumed. After an afternoon of work, we went out to dinner with Sayaka's Mum and Dad for a final goodbye meal. It was great fun and we had a lot of laughs. It also gave me the opportunity to practice some Japanese, Ally style: "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh?" is "eh?" (they use that a lot, and I've been singing it in multiple voices, including suprano)Comments [0]
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