Random Festivals are Fun and Delicious.

Japanese schools seem to spend an inordinate amount of time doing things which gave nothing to do with lessons or education at all. I could go on to describe how this is a feature of the Japanese education system and helps to instil a strong sense of community, culture and group think in Japanese students but frankly I’ve already discussed that on this blog.

Anyway the upshot is that working in a Japanese school means that sometimes all the classes get cancelled so we can all do something cool.

As was the case last Friday when school was cancelled and instead we all played games and ate soup. Yay!

Around this time of year there are a few traditional cultural activities. I have done one or some of these at both my previous schools but at Iwaoka they decided to roll them all together into one big day of Japanese winter fun.

The first of these is that at pretty much every school in Japan the kids will play karuta. Usually only the first graders will play but at Iwaoka the entire school shuffled into the freezing cold gym to sit on the floor and play some cards.

Karuta is just the Japanese word for cards but there is a specific card game by that name too. Basically it is snap but rather than trying to match a card your opponent has just revealed you instead listen to what a speaker is saying and try and find the card that matches. I use this all the time in my lessons (Mr. Adam says elephant and all the kids try and grab the elephant card at once for example) but Japanese people do it for fun too.

This particular karuta game though is very special. A speaker reads out the first part of a poem and students have to find the end of the poem on about 100 cards in front of them.

The game requires not only for students to have memorised 100 poems but to be able to listen, come up with the next part, scan for it and move at lightning quick pace.

Consequently even though the cards were printed in Japanese which I could read, the double disadvantage of not knowing any of the poems and having to read in a second language meant that I couldn’t capture a single card in my brief attempt at playing. So instead I mooched about for a bit, had a chat and tried to stay close to the enormous space heaters for fear of developing hypothermia.

The kids got really into it though. Its incredible how much they can memorise and how quick they are.

Seeing that I was not exactly thrilled to spend hours watching my kids play a card game I didn’t understand at all one of my teachers seized me and took me outside.

Where a Mochizuki was occurring.

Mochizuki, or making rice cakes, is a past time for communities in winter in Japan. It is usually done either just before or just after the New Year. Mochi is a kind of very sticky rice cake. Imagine PVA glue. Remember when you were a kid and you’d leave PVA glue all over the outside of the bottle and it would set into a hard rubbery substance? Well just before it set when it was still kind of stretchy, that is the consistency of mochi. That or play-do which is going stale but isn’t quite there yet. It is actually much nicer than I make it sound but I don’t quite know what is appealing about it. The taste is just white rice and the texture is not very pleasant and a bugger to eat. I think it might be that it provides a comforting feeling. It is, to use an expression of my mother’s, food that sticks to your sides. Like dumplings, or a sticky toffee pudding or a doughy pie. Your stomach just feels really full but in a pleasant way.

I don’t know why this time of year is associated with mochi but I suspect that in olden days it was a good way to turn rice from the harvest into something that would store better. Less surface area means it is less susceptible to mold and any rat trying to eat mochi would soon choke to death or drown. It could also be improvised as fly paper or to fill up the cracks in draughty farm houses. In fact, it would probably make a very good insulation, potentially even better than it would a food.

To make mochi first you boil lots of rice without washing it so there is a ton of starch.

Then you heat up a stone bowl using hot water until it is red hot so the rice will stay warm in it.

Then you grind the rice using a big mallet until the shape of all the individual grains is blurred and it looks like a big lump.

Then the important part, one person folds the mochi into the middle of the bowl whilst another hits it with a whopping great big mallet.

Observe this video of just that.




You need skill, speed, timing and trust to avoid getting your hand smashed in whereas the other bloke just needs tireless muscles and a penchant for the repetitive.

This is the second time I have made mochi but the first time I have made it whilst elderly Japanese men criticised my technique. Eventually they so tired of me doing it “wrong” that they stepped in and freed my cold and aching arms from anymore pounding.

I should probably feel ashamed that a tiny old man took over for my strapping young self but I am not because I know the secret of elderly Japanese people. They are not made of flesh and bone but stone and wood. Their skin is aged teak and their bones are granite. Old Japanese people are indestructible. When the apocalypse comes it will be them and the cockroaches.

Once the karuta game was finished the students came outside to watch a massive bonfire.

This bonfire had been assembled the day before of bamboo and various decorations left over from the New Year. New Year decorations have to be burned before the next New Year or else they will become evil spirits, or yokai.

There are plenty of yokai stories of possessed items. Most famously an umbrella with a single eyeball and a man’s leg instead of handle. When you abandon an umbrella in Japan it will turn into a monster and seek revenge. The same goes for unwanted decorations so instead they get burnt.

We all watched as the school principle went inside the fire holding a flaming torch (health and safety existeth notteth in Japan) and then came out again and lit it more safely from the back.

It went up like a shot. Within barely 30 seconds of lighting it there was a hole in the top and a stream of fire issuing forth. It looked like a volcano.

And the noise was incredibly. Presumably because bamboo is a grass and full of water deposits every time one of these pockets superheated and turned to steam it went off with a massive bang. It was like standing in the middle of a gunfight, or a firework show. I have never heard such a violent fire.

Before too long a small twister had formed above the hole and bamboo ash was being strewn wildly across the playing field, in our hair, on our clothes and basically everywhere. It was some sort of ash…like snow.

Hmmm, catchy name that. Would make a good song title.



All in all it took about 15 minutes for the enormous bonfire ( a good 20ft high) to be completely burned to a crisp.



Before the fire was over my students did various demonstrations to their classmates, the teachers, the local people and some school kids from the nearby primary school which had come to visit and watch the show.

Japanese primary school kids are absolutely adorable. Not only are they much cuter than western kids but this natural cuteness is amplified by the matching hats they are all made to wear when they go on trips. Me and most of my female students were in paroxysms of kawaii watching them.

Sadly I can’t show you the videos I took of the presentations for legal reasons. But they included live kanji painting and taiko drumming. Impressive taiko drumming too. I didn’t even know we had a club! They kept that one quiet.

Eventually everyone was released to go do the most important part of the day. Eat ozouni!

Ozouni is a kind of soup whose main ingredients are miso (a salty paste derived from soy and which turns into a soup when mixed with water) and mochi along with anything else you fancy putting in it. Ozouni is associated with New Year’s where everyone eats some for luck. I had eaten some at Fran’s relative’s house this year and the year before Fran made some for just the two of us. It is true comfort food. Warm, filling, sticky and made with all your favourite things.

Together we gobbled multiple bowls of the stuff graciously prepared by local volunteers. I stopped at two but some of my kids ate as many as five bowls! Japanese people can really eat when they put their minds to it.

There was also kinako ( a kind of sweet flour derived from, guess what, soy) flavoured mochi and mochi floating in a soup of red bean paste. I’ve had both of these before and find them too sweet for words. Except possibly words like coma, diabetes, help and blegh! They’re not horrible but they’re so ridiculously sweet so may as well just mainline sugar.

Finally two primary school kids were hauled up to give a speech thanking us all. It was, without hyperbole, the single cutest thing I have ever seen in my life. Any attempt to describe it properly will just end up with me degenerating into baby talk and saying things like “wook ad da widdle hats isn’t it cutes, isn’t it cutes??!” which frankly, nobody wants to see.

And that, bar an assembly, was that.

You’ve got to love Japanese schools sometimes.

New Year, New Mummyboon

I’m back.

After a sizeable absence for Christmas, New Years and getting back into the swing of things at work I have returned to the interwebs to resume blogging duties.

I can’t promise that this year is going to be much better than last year in terms of updates. The plan is to have a definite Tuesday update every week without fail and try and squeeze in some smaller updates on other week days but we’ll see how that goes.

The frustrating thing is that there really is a lot of stuff I’d love to talk about and get written down for you all but my available time for blogging has dwindled significantly whilst at the same time the length, photo content, quality of videos, etc have all grown in size and complexity. So it takes me much, much longer to get a post up and I have less time to do it in. In that situation less blogging is the result.

Anyway to start us off in the New Year I thought I’d begin by talking about how I ended last year and began this year, at a traditional Japanese New Year’s or Oshogatsu.

Oshogatsu is effectively the Japanese Christmas. Whilst in the west we consider Christmas to be a time for families and New Year’s to be a time for hanging out with friends and getting wasted in Japan New Year’s is the time for families to get together.

Actually Christmas Eve in Japan is usually a time for lovers. Young couples go out on expensive dates and give each other presents before retiring to an, ahem, love hotel.

And since my girlfriend (Fran or Mariko-chan to her Japanese relatives) is half Japanese this year I got to spend a traditional Oshogatsu with her relatives.



I stayed with her older cousin’s family (sorry, no names guys I want to protect their privacy) consisting of him, his wife and their three kids. Fran’s mother is the youngest of five siblings and had Fran very late in life so whilst she is only 23 her oldest cousin is in his mid-forties and most of her other cousins are around that age.

As the oldest male in his generation said cousin is basically the defacto head of the family. Japanese people are very concerned with status, even amongst families, and so this meant as the guy in charge obviously Oshogatsu had to be at his place.

They were tremendously generous people, as pretty much every Japanese person I’ve had the good fortune to befriend has been, and during our stay made us feel more than welcome with copious amounts of food and drink.

In fact often I felt that the vast quantities of food were some kind of challenge, a test of my ability to appreciate Japanese hospitality and cooking. I did very little but eat and drink for the entire time I was there. We would get up in the morning, dress and go downstairs to snuggle under the kotatsu (a kind of table with a heating element underneath to warm your legs) and eat breakfast. Breakfast wasn’t anything vast but it was usually nice and in typical Japanese style consisted of five or six different dishes all eaten at once, including rice, fish and soup. After breakfast some tea would come out and we would snuggle under the kotatsu and talk. Then a snack would emerge and more tea. Shortly after that lunch would be served along with the first booze of the day (beer for me, whiskey and soda for everyone else). Next the television goes on and after a while another snack emerges and yet more beer. Yet by the time dinner rolls around, consisting of some vast feat of 10 or 12 dishes, I was still hungry enough to demolish it. Around about 10 o’clock I would finally emerge from my nice warm kotatsu cocoon and have a wonderful relaxing Japanese bath then bed.

Seriously, eat, eat, eat, drink, drink, drink and then bed. It was almost as if they were scared that if I ever got up at any point I might destroy the house or something so they needed to keep me constantly fed and sedated. Except that everyone else does it too; well, except the poor wife who has to cook everything.

Food culture in Japan is enormous. Anything and everything revolves around food. All seasons and special events are associated with special food. Apologies are made with gifts of food. Dating is primarily accomplished by girls offering boys food and boys then taking girls to restaurants. Workers bond over food. Very few people entertain in their own homes, instead most parties are held in Japanese inns with all you can eat and all you can drink offers. And conversation takes a definite second place at parties to food. People travel principally to eat or buy the food there. I thought Americans loved food and I thought Italians loved food but nobody, nobody has so thoroughly fetishised and idolised food like the Japanese.

I think the best example of this was on the last day of our trip. We visited Fran’s Uncle (who is the actual head of the family but part of a slightly smaller side) whose wife is a fantastic cook. From the moment we arrived she kept bringing out dishes constantly, some leftovers but a few brand new dishes. There was so much food in front of us that we didn’t really make a dent in it despite eating constantly from the moment we arrived. And yet when we were due to leave and get our bus she still insisted on going to the supermarket with us to buy sushi to eat as our supper.

And the beer. I was trying not to get drunk but it is damn near impossible not to. In Japan in a social setting it is considered very rude to pour your own drink. People should offer to pour each others and that way everyone stays topped up and the party stays lubricated.

There are some flaws in this system. In a big party that gets quite raucous your own drink can easily get over looked, especially if you are fairly low in the seniority order (like I, the gaijin). The best tip for that situation is to pour someone else a drink and hope they notice that your glass is empty and return the favour.

The other flaw in that system is that if everyone is topping up your drink it becomes impossible to keep track of how much you have drunk, especially if someone fills your drink without you noticing or without asking. Which Fran’s relatives did to me all the time. Almost the first question I was asked in every household was “what do you drink?” Shortly after that a beer glass would be placed in front of me and it would pretty much be full until the end of the night. I was trying not to get too drink I swear but it is impossible not to drink beer when there is a full glass sitting in front of you.

All of which has made me very thirsty. One moment.

*crack* hisssssss.

Ah… where was I?

So yes. Eat, eat, eat, drink, drink, drink. Any other time left was spent playing with the kids, who were awesome and ridiculously cute. I don’t know what it is about Japanese kids that makes them look so adorable but I want one. Particularly Fran’s baby cousin who wrote Fran a letter when we visited her, one which read;
“Dear Mariko big sister.

I love you.

Let’s play lots!”

Couldn’t you just eat her up with a spoon? It’s just a shame that her brother thought I was scary.

So staying with Japanese people is an Epicurean delight but what about Oshogatsu itself? What are the traditions and ceremonies associated with it?

Well on New Year’s Eve itself there aren’t that many traditions. Most of the focus is on New Year’s Day. This makes a lot of sense to me, for the Japanese the celebration is not so much about the end of the old year as it is the beginning of the new one. Consequently there are a lot of special “firsts” that Japanese people do at this time. The first dream, first visit to a shrine and first meal of the year all have special connotations and traditions attached. Mostly these are based on obscure Japanese word play puns where dreaming about an object that sounds like or has a similar kanji to something good can be lucky i.e. dreaming about Mt Fuji is said to be auspicious.

Other than the first shrine visit the most important of these firsts is the first sunrise of the year. Many Japanese people climb (or these days, drive to the top of) a mountain to get a good view of the first sunrise of the New Year. Fortunately for my abysmal fitness we did not do that.

New Year’s Eve does have some traditions of its own though. A relatively recent one but a popular one is for people to watch Kouhaku Uta Gassen or “Red and White Song Battle” a singing competition where celebrities are organised into teams one red (all female) and one white (all male) who take it in turn to sing songs. At the end a combination of studio judges and a home vote decide which team is the winner.

The show is considered a big honour because of its popular appeal so the top singers and artists in Japan are featured. I’m not madly keen on Japanese music to be honest but stripping away much of the extraneous crap and horrible bubblegum J-Pop and just presenting the cream of the crop has shown me that there are quite a few worthwhile Japanese artists. And my favourite Japanese artist (Angela Aki) did my favourite song of hers, tegami, which was awesome.

Plus the little girl from Ponyo (now two years older so much less cute sadly) did the Ponyo theme. Probably my second favourite Japanese song (and the only Japanese song I know the words to).

Oh and every year a foreign guest is invited onto the show. Anybody have any guesses as to which international singing sensation made it onto Japanese screens this year?

Susan Boyle.

Sadly no clips to show you lot as NHK have ruthlessly excised them from Youtube. That’s a real shame as SMAP’s “tribute” to Michael Jackson really had to be seen to be believed.

The guys won this year but if you ask me the women were robbed. I mean, they had Susan Boyle who is famous for winning singing contests.
Oooooooo, bit of a blow there then Subo.

Another New Year’s Eve tradition is to visit a shrine and hear the monks ring the bell at exactly the stroke of midnight. I did this last year and it was a lot of fun. Although Ikuta Shrine in Kobe was packed all the people's body heat just made it nice and warm. We did shriney things like get our fortunes read, buy decorations, etc. I would have happily done it again but in the words of Fran’s cousin;

“We’re not going because it is too cold.”

Well, you can’t argue with the head of the family. Instead we watched various snowy temples around Japan ring in the New Year through the magic of television.

The final thing to do before the stroke of midnight is to eat soba (buckwheat noodles). I don’t know why, probably for good luck. Still I like soba so I was all in favour of this tradition.

New Year’s Day was a lot more interesting for me and a much more fun experience. Although we didn’t do many of the “firsts” on New Year’s Day itself we were getting ready for a big party, all of Fran’s relatives that lived nearby were coming and the real heart of Japanese New Year was about to begin. Osechi Ryori.

Osechi Ryori is a special meal prepared on or just before New Year’s Day but eaten on the 1st. Traditionally it consists of several beautifully presented dishes stacked in gorgeous boxes. Department stores will make Osechi for you and a box for a family of four can easily run into the many hundreds of pounds. These are massively elaborate and ornate dishes with an insane amount of time and effort put into their preparation.

But we didn’t make any. Why? Let’s ask Fran’s cousin.

“Because nobody likes it.”



Which is true actually. I have had left over Osechi before (most of it is eaten cold) and wasn’t very impressed an opinion apparently shared by most young Japanese. So if the food isn’t especially nice then why make it? Well as ever with the Japanese it is all about puns. Many of the foods in Osechi sound like auspicious or lucky things and so Japanese eat them as a way of summoning good luck. For example;

“Kazunoko (数の子), herring roe. Kazu means "number" and ko means "child". It symbolizes a wish to be gifted with numerous children in the New Year.” Stolen from wikipedia.

We did make some Osechi but very little. We made some edamame, (black soybeans which sound like “health”) some kazunoku, some kamaboko, (fish cake in pink and white colours that are considered festive because they are the colours of the Japanese flag) and some kurikinton (I have no idea but it is bright yellow and sweeter than sugar).



And I say we and not Fran’s cousin’s wife because I helped! I was finally allowed to roam free of my cocoon and actually assist in helping prepare the food I consume. Japanese people are actually always really surprised that I can cook (as a rule, Japanese men cannot and eat out pretty much constantly until they marry) to the extent that I have had fawning admiration for a cheese sandwich I prepared. Consequently my beautifully made and presented Inarizushi (sushi rice in a sweet tofu wrapper) was met with much appreciation. I did feel a little bit bad when Fran’s cousin used it as an excuse to complain about how his wife always fills the parcels with too much or too little rice though. Whoops.



Although we made very little Osechi we made an enormous feast which puts most Christmas dinners to shame. Here’s a brief run down of what we ate;

Various Osechi products
Green soy beans
Fried prawns
3 different kids of fish cake
Boiled eggs
Soy simmered carrot and root
Fried chicken
Spring rolls
Sausages
Boiled Hokkaido crab (which was gorgeous)
Konnyaku (devil’s tongue potato jelly)
Pickled octopus
Raw tuna
Sushi
Salad

It was an epic dinner.

As Fran’s relatives started to arrive they started to give the kids Otoshidama (as did we, bloody sponging kids). Otoshidama are elaborately decorated envelopes filled with money and are basically the Japanese version of Christmas presents.

By the end of the day one of the kids who was about 12 had accumulated nearly 500pounds worth of cash! £500! At his age I had never seen so much money in once place. And he just keeps it in a flimsy envelope. It just goes to show that there is hardly any crime at all in Japan.

Throughout the meal we talked of various things. As a guest and a foreigner I got a lot of attention, most of it the usual stuff (can you use chopsticks, do you like Japanese food, why did you come here?), some of it startlingly original (what British films have we all seen? Um, James Bond and ….. nope, that’s it.) and a bit of it quite embarrassing. Particularly when everyone commented that my Japanese is better than Fran’s brother. Whoops, that’s going to be a bit tough for him the next time he visits.
I had expected the conversation to be a bit awkward and me to be intruding into a family situation but it was actually fine. Whenever they wanted to gossip and be a family they just switched into Japanese too fast for me to pick up. At which point I nattered to Fran or gorged myself on pickled octopus (my new favouritest thing in the world evers) Whenever they expressed a genuine interest in my opinions or me they slowed down and simplified and I joined in.

Afterwards exhausted, drunk and full the family fell into a catatonic stupor and watched television.

What we watched was this.



This is a show called Sasuke (apparently it’s called Ninja Warrior in the states) which is basically a televised obstacle course. However some of the obstacles look absolutely insanely tough! Witness, for example, the climbing task about 2:40 where the contestant has to hurl a bar upwards and hook it onto some hooks then using momentum hurl it upwards again in order to climb a wall. These people are superhuman!

The man in the video is the only contestant this year who actually managed to complete all four courses although one guy lost by a mere second. I recommend watching this and just letting your jaw hit the floor.

So good food, good drink, good company and good telly. All in all a great start to the New Year.

Nagasaki Day 3, Kyushu Day 6

Our last day in Nagasaki and the hottest day yet. It was a real scorcher and we could feel ourselves burn with every step we went. Considering every other day of the holiday had veered wildly between muggy and humid and torrential rain it was at least nice to know we wouldn’t be rained on.

Hot, dusty and sweaty we went for a walk and decided to tour the Peace Park, a series of monuments dedicated to peace and in memory of the damage the atomic bomb did to the city.

Now I haven’t mentioned the atomic bombing of Nagasaki much in my write up of this trip and that’s because it nowhere near pervades the feeling of the city as much as it does in Hiroshima. Hiroshima was practically wiped out; the city centre was just gone in an instant destroying much of the historical character of the city along with many lives. In rebuilding it Hiroshima developed a feeling that is almost unique in Japan, very modern and almost European with wide roads and street cafes.

Nagasaki suffered a lot of damage too and almost as much loss of life but the area affected was not the city centre because, well because it doesn’t really have one. There is the port and the train station but beyond that everything is built up the side of a mountain. Nagasaki is more a city of small distinct areas almost falling into the sea.

Consequently much of the old historical areas are intact, the old Dutch settlement, the Chinatown, many of the temples, Glover Garden. Different parts of Nagasaki are like different windows into history. Wandering through the city is like time travelling through some corridor; behind every door a different century and a new story.

But whilst the city has minimised the impact of the bomb to some extent it did still leave a big gash in the place and in its place they have erected a park.



The park is frankly not very nice and not a patch on the one in Hiroshima. It is too wide, flat and featureless with few trees, few flower beds and little to break up the vista (or offer protection from a scorching sun).

What it does have is a series of statues donated by various countries from around the world and all on the theme of peace.



Being themed around peace this consequently meant that there were quite a lot of women, babies and women holding babies upwards in gestures of hope and new life. Some of these were quite well done but there are only so many variations on the theme of women holding babies that I can look at before your eyes want to leap out your head and go do something less boring.

There were a few oddball ones though like this abstract piece that represents the destruction of the city.



This piece demonstrates the 7 continents as people interconnected. I like this a lot, I like symbolic art and this has some wonderful symbolism to it as well as well constructed human figures.



This work, riffing on the idea of the human shadows left behind in the bomb blast, was especially good.



Brazil didn’t seem to get what the theme of the park was.

“Hey we need to submit a sculpture suggesting peace”

“How about a bird?”

“Fantastic but how will they know we have sent them it?”

“The bird will be standing on a massive stone map of Brazil”

“I love it! Nothing says peace like a giant stone map of Brazil”

“And a bird”

“Oh yes right, the bird”



This is the Dutch entry. No idea, do you have any ideas? Because I have no idea.



The centrepiece of the whole park was this enormous and highly symbolic statue. Apparently his left arm is pointing to where the bomb blast occurred whilst his right is gesturing upwards wishing for peace. He is powerful to help the needy but has a kind face. He is sitting relaxed and comfortable but with a leg on the floor ready to spring into action. And he’s massive and blue and frankly doesn’t appear to have been sculpted very well. Now I certainly can’t sculpt for toffee and don’t claim to be an expert on sculpture but something about that face just seems terribly off to me. There’s something not right about it; right? It’s not just me is it?

and he reminds me of Dr. Manhattan, which is not apprpriate for a statue in the Peace Park.

We didn’t go to the Atomic Bomb Museum as we figured it would be more of the same that we saw in Hiroshima but we did go to the hut and accompanying museum of Dr. Nagai Takashi.

Nagai Takashi was a scientist and doctor researching the effects of radiation on the human body, particularly with regards to leukaemia. In this capacity he took part in important medical research that ultimately would help save many lives. In his capacity as a regular surgeon during the war he directly saved the lives of many wounded Japanese soldiers and civilians alike.

In a cruelly ironic twist Dr. Nagai eventually contracted leukaemia, a known risk for someone in his line of work as he necessarily exposed himself to radiation on a daily basis. He was diagnosed in 1945 aged 37 just a few short months before the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Both Nagai and his wife were deeply committed Christians and though they sought comfort in God this was obviously difficult for both of them. Nagai began to face up to the fact that he was dying and his wife prepared herself to raise their children alone and live a life without her husband.

When the bomb was dropped Nagai was working in a University hospital. Despite suffering an injury from broken glass that severed his temporal artery he stayed behind to assist and help deal with the flood of patients seeking treatment there.

That evening he returned to the ruins of his house to find most of it burnt to the ground. Of his wife all that remained were ashes and a twisted and melted rosary. Having steeled himself for his own death the time he had remaining with his wife was also cruelly snatched away from him.

Although now having every right to sink into bitterness and despair Nagai continued to work with patients until he himself was eventually bedridden later that year. Initially he stayed in a small hut he had built from the remains of his house, along with his two children, mother in law and two other relatives.

Although bedridden, Nagai continued teaching and began to write. This writing was prolific and often profound musing upon god, war, sickness and death but always returning to a message of hope and optimism. Often he contemplated the future that lay ahead for his children with a mixture of sadness but always with a positive feeling that after the brutality of the Second World War peace was surely not far. Nagai wrote around 15 books and all were bestsellers in Japan earning Nagai enough money to see for his children’s future. However much of his earnings were donated to local charities and once famously to plant cherry trees where they had been destroyed by the bomb.

This synbolic act, bringing beauty and serenity back to a city that had known horrible destruction speaks more about the character of Nagai than any other to me.

Nagai used very little money from his earnings at all to improve his own circumstances. Indeed when a Christian charity offered to build him a new house he asked for them to build a slight extension for the 6 tatami hut he was living in for his brother’s family and to be moved into a new hut that was merely 2 tatami in size. To put that in some perspective lie down. His hut was approaximately as long as you are now lying down and maybe 2 or 3 times wider.

This hut, which he styled Nyoko-do (based on the Japanese translation of Jesus’ expression "love your neighbour as yourself") was where he lived the rest of his days until he died in 1951.

And this is that hut.

It is one of the most profoundly, sad, humble and inspiring images I have ever seen. I freely admit to crying as I walked round the museum and thinking about Nagai’s story again as I write this I find myself almost crying now.



The Peace Park and Nyoko-do lie a short distance away from the actual epicentre of the blast which, oddly, was above a Christian cathedral. The epicentre has been marked by this monolith which looks vaguely like something out of 2001 a space odyssey. I will admit to humming "Thus Spoke Zarathrusta" and pretending to be a monkey as we walked past it.



The remains of the cathedral can also be viewed along with this statue of a suspiciously Japanese looking Jesus.



Our final atomic bomb themed point of interest is the famous “one legged torii”. Torii are arched gates at the entrance to Japanese temples and shrines. As well as being a handsome architectural feature they are also spiritually important and signify entry into the purified place of the shrine.
This gate had one of its legs knocked down by the atomic blast leaving the other standing. Read whatever values into that symbol that you choose. Is it Japan defiantly standing up to the bomb? Is it peace and purity conquering war? Or did the blast just come from that way? Either way it was cool looking so I took a photo.

Right, enough sadness and bombs now. Fran and I were horribly depressed, hot, tired and sweaty. However we still had one sight left to see, the Confucian Shrine.

Before we got there though we had to ride a tram, along with 3 German tourists. 2 of them were perfectly fine backpacker types if a bit old and flabby for your average back packer. However the third was one of the most enormous men I have ever seen in my entire life. And I have been to Florida. He was obscenely huge, like a cartoon fat man. I expected oom pam pah music to follow him everywhere he went. He literally took up two seats on the tram, and not a little spilling either. Each cheek got one seat with a little bit extra at that meaning he probably took up 4 spaces in total. And you know how I mentioned that it was hot, and sweaty? Well he was obviously having a difficult time of it because he stank to high heaven. And he had a rubbish ginger neck beard. Watching the impassive faces of the Japanese struggle not to curl into grimaces of horror would have been hilarious had I not been suffocating on the stench of fat German too.

Ugh, horrible.

Anyway.

Confucian Shrine.



We all know who Confucius is right? Well short version, Chinese philosopher who developed a world view that prized hierarchy, patriarchy and the pursuit of self improvement through becoming a rounded person and seeking excellence in everything one does. He basically influenced all Chinese aesthetic, political, moral, social and cultural thought for, well until Mao showed up really. And since Japan just nicked all their culture from China (with the greatest possible respect for Japan whilst that was a facetious exaggeration there is some truth to it) he influenced Japanese culture too.



Yet nobody in Japan has heard of him it seems, at least judging by my students and the teachers I work with.



So great was Confucius’ influence and in such respect was he held that a whole religion sprang up around him, Confucianism. Well I say religion, it’s more of a moral philosophy and lacking in the metaphysics one would expect from a religion. But then of course some bright spark married the moral philosophy of Confucianism with the metaphysics of Buddhism (which at its core is all metaphysics and no morals) and hey presto we have Buddhism as it is practiced over much of East Asia.



So Confucianism has shrines to Confucius and their basically the same as Buddhist temples or Japanese shrines to Kami since they were copying the Confucian ones. Except the Confucian ones are just so much more incredible.



Admittedly I have only seen one but if it’s anything to go by then Confucian Shrines everywhere must be absolutely spectacular. Not an inch of this place wasn’t covered in some kind of ornate carving. Ceilings, floors, doors, bars, the gate around a flower bed, the edges of tiles, pillars, beams literally everything had some kind of magnificent carving.



And the colours! The colours were everywhere, incredibly vibrant and of a vast array of hues. The shrine looks like the kind of palace a 5 year old kid dreams about, all flash and sensation everywhere.



It was visually overwhelming. Everywhere you looked there was something new to see, some animal or painting or statue.



It was absolutely amazing, I was rendered literally speechless.



The most interesting feature for me were the human statues that surrounded the main shrine of Confucius. Apparently these are also shrines. Within the main building are Confucius and the 12 primary philosophers of Confucianism. Outside the building are statues of Confucius’ students, all who possess different skills and abilities a man must strive in to make the world a better place.

Interestingly the land that the shrine was built on is not actually Japan. Technically it is owned by the Chinese embassy and so we had taken a little mini trip to China. Historically this is because the shrine was built in front of a Confucian school (as all Confucian shrines were) teaching the children of Chinese expats. The school has long since been moved but the arrangement still stands and this is Chinese soil.



The shrine is the only one built to proper standards in Japan (although technically, I guess it isn’t since it’s in China). There are a few others but none are said to be as impressive as this one.

Nowadays the school has become a museum which had many wonderfully decorated china pots I was forbidden to take photos of. There was also some video called “China in space” which sounded a bit scary but turned out to be some kind of travelogue thing that was intensely dull.

Confucian shrine all finished with we swung by our hotel, grabbed our bags and made for the bus and our final stop, Fukuoka.

We arrived there late at night and made for a very cheap and very lovely hotel the Hotel New Simple. It was a bit of a bugger to find though even if it was close to the station.

Exhausted, hot and hungry we made out to do the main thing I had come to Fukuoka for.

Eat Ramen!

Fukuoka, as any Japanese person will tell you, is very famous for Ramen. Ramen, for the uninitiated, is thin Chinese noodles in a soup or broth with some meat or vegetables added to it.

It may not sound like much but it is a magical food. Indeed it may be my favourite food in the world. Perfectly filling, amazingly tasty, a breadth of textures, quick and above all dirt cheap. There are tastier foods but no food is as simply perfect as ramen. I love it and I eat it every chance that I get. Indeed if it is offered to me no matter how hungry I am or am not I feel compelled to eat it.

Fukuoka is famous for its own particular variety of ramen, tonkotsu ramen, which is made from pork bones and is white. Eager to try this delectable delicacy we willed our tiring limbs over to Fukuoka’s main attraction, Canal City, a massive shopping centre and onto the floor they call…



Ramen Stadium.

A whole floor containing nothing but ramen restaurants.



Truly if heaven is a place on earth, this is it.

And how was my ramen? Why it was salty, creamy, thick, spicy, gooey, warm, delicious and utterly sublime thank you for asking.

Full and profoundly satisfied we left Ramen Stadium and had a wander around the
shopping centre.



Canal City is a pretty cool place. The layout is very innovative with a river running through the middle of it and a sort of a three-dimensional amphitheatre in the middle i.e. rather than an ever expanding bowl it was a sphere of balconies overlooking a stage. There was also a regularly timed musical fountain display and this thing.



A curtain of water using a computer and some hoses to create shapes in mid air. This was mesmerising and we sat watching it, and digesting ramen, for a good 20 minutes until we were sure we had seen every display.



At which point it began to rain. And it was so sunny in Nagasaki too.

Yeah, it rained quite a lot. At first we tried to shelter it out but it was quickly apparent that it wasn’t going to let up fast. Having learned our lesson in Nagasaki we did not try and walk back the way we came but hailed a cab and were soon in bed happily sleeping and dreaming of more Ramen.

Fukuoka Day 2, Kyushu Day 7

We got up bright and early and took a train out of Fukuoka to the nearby village of Kyudai Gakuentoshi, which was a little odd as I live in Gakuentoshi in Kobe. We were looking forward to visiting a restored folk village and witnessing some traditional crafts. I shall quite from Lonely Planet Japan 2008 .

This history theme village gathers over 30 working potters, weavers and paper
makers, plus a souvenir shop to sell their wares.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Well turns out it has been shut for two years.

We arrived at the station, went outside, realised we had no idea where we were or where the village was, went back inside for a sign or a brochure or something and eventually asked the man in the ticket gates if he knew how to get there. At which point he puts up a hand written sign in English that says the place has been shut for two years.

I suspect he got asked the question a lot and had a friend help him write it because otherwise he spoke no English.

I was not best pleased Lonely Planet!

Ah but here is that recurring theme of Kyushu, nice old people. The guy in the ticket booth felt bad that we had come all this way only to go home again so he offered to call his friend to take us up to go look at the village anyway even if it was closed. And by offered I mean kind of insisted in a manner that made it impossible to refuse even though I didn’t especially want to go.

So before we knew it we were soon whisked away in a stranger’s car to go bouncing up a mountain to a mysterious village.



It turns out that since closing down the history theme village has been bought by a load of antique merchants. The restored buildings are still there (and they’re very lovely) but now they are all full of old junk mixed in with a few genuinely gorgeous antiques.

There was also going to be an auction that afternoon but we couldn’t stay to watch it because there are no public auctions in Japan, you have to be invited. This was news to me and after I expressed my surprise the man who told me proceeded to give me a history lesson which I did not understand a word of.



The village and many of the wares were properly strange and the whole place had a faintly creepy vibe to it. It didn’t help that we were the only people there not running a shop and that the old fashioned style of the buildings made it feel vaguely like some kind of ghost story.



Ah yes, and the first thing we saw when we got there was a horrifying dummy of a man with a face that is pure nightmare fuel.

Amongst the stranger things we saw were;



This unidentified animal head (we couldn’t decide if it was wolf or pig).



A tanuki made of straw.



The most racist statue I have ever seen.

As the creepiness grew and grew and was soon only matched by our boredom we decided to leave and after a short but terrifying search for our ride (we couldn’t find him and feared we were stranded) we got back to civilisation in one piece.

Next stop Hawks Town, another shopping centre but one with a giant indoor jungle.

Ah, or not, turns out that place is shut too. Lonely Planet was getting on my nerves by this stage. Still we did some shopping and had more ramen (it was delicious, as ramen always is) before going back to Canal City. For more shopping, and a beer.

And that was it really. Fukuoaka in summary, everything interesting is shut but they have a very nice shopping centre.

And that, bar a train ride home, was our vacation.



Overall Kyushu was easily the best trip I have done in Japan. With the possible exception of Fukuoaka everything about it just clicked. From the lovely relaxing onsen in Beppu to the fantastic food in Fukuoka to the quirky temples of Nagasaki, everything was exactly what we expected and often surpassed those expectations. Nothing disappointed and often things surprised us, like the quirky café in Nagasaki or the taxi driver leading us to the private onsen in Beppu.

What will stay with me about Kyushu most of all though is how friendly everyone was to us. I have never been treated so nicely by perfect strangers in my life. Whether it was giving of their time and expertise or giving us a free cab ride people put themselves out for us for no reward. It was humbling but very much appreciated. I don’t think Fran and I will ever forget it.

Nagasaki Day 2, Kyushu Day 5

Our day was started bright and early with a failed trip to find a famous coffee house. Which made me sad.



That failure aside though we set off towards teramachi or temple row to look at, what else, temples.



We started with a temple whose name I absolutely do not know. I didn’t note it down and it isn’t my guidebook so…whoops. But I do know that it is on teramachi and it is bright red and done in a largely Chinese style.

It also had a nice Chinese lady inside who was making beads and who seemed rather disappointed at the poor turnout. She explained that the temple doesn’t usually get a lot of foreign visitors but mostly Japanese and Chinese ones. When I suggested that the poor turn out was probably because the Japanese were all spending time with their families for Obon she told me the opposite was true. Usually Obon was their busiest time of year as families are supposed to visit shrines together. This was quite sad news for me. I have been hearing stories for years about how the Buddhist temples are struggling to keep their income high enough to maintain the temples. Although the big and famous places draw a lot of attention from tourists, if perfectly pleasant but small temples like this one are in danger of closing that is a real shame.



Continuing the theme of the trip our old lady was only too happy to show us around the temple and explain some of the features to us. The most striking of these was a male and female dolphin fish pictured above (male) and below (female). I see male dolphin fish very often in Japanese architecture but this is the first time I have ever seen a female version. Apparently the ball in the mouth of the male represents male desire whilst the female is supposed to bring fertility and easy pregnancy. Both examples shown here are actually drums used in ceremonies at the temple.



Can I just point out how weird it is that every source translates this animal’s name as a dolphin fish? It shares not one characteristic with a dolphin at all. Dolphins have no scales, their tails are horizontal not vertical, they have different heads and bodies and the dolphin fish lacks a dorsal fin. At least the female version looks a little bit like a malformed whale but the male one looks like nothing so much as a dragon fish. What on earth it has to do with dolphins I will never understand.



By far the finest feature of this particular temple was its lovely gardens a few pictures of which are shown here.



Moving on from our mystery temple we moved onto a separate street to have a look at the famous “Meganebashi” or “Spectacles Bridge;” so called because the reflections in the water make it look like a pair of glasses. Apparently it is one of the oldest examples of an arched stone bridge in Japan. Sadly it is nowhere near as impressive as that fact sounds.



Here is Fran, pointing at her spectacles on Spectacles Bridge.

Moving back onto teramachi our next location was Sofukji (not to be confused with Shofuku-ji) one of the more spectacular, unusual and famous temples in Nagasaki.



Shofuku-ji was another Chinese temple that adopted the official Japanese form of Buddhism but it still has many examples of its Chinese heritage left behind such as the Ming style gate in spectacular red colours.



The main attraction of this temple is this giant pot in the courtyard. Nagasaki was once ravaged by a great famine that left many of the poor citizenry starving. The head of the temple along with a pioneering female philanthropist (pictured below) collected donations every day to make a gigantic cauldron of porridge that they would distribute to the poor. During one particularly bad winter this food aid was feeding more than a 1000 people a day and helping them stay alive.



Again, with such history and such an important social role it really is a shame that Buddhist temples are beginning to die out in Japan.



One of the things I noticed about the temple which struck me as unusual was the decorative bats that I spotted in a few places. Apparently bats are something of a symbol of good luck in Nagasaki, and nowhere else in Japan, for reasons that were not explained to me.



Our next two temples were Yasakusa and Kiyomizu which aren’t interesting in the slightest except that they bare the names of two much more famous temples in Kyoto which are also close together. This was another theme of travelling in Kyushu. In Kansai it is very rare for a name to be duplicated for two or more places but on the island there were all kinds of places with names we recognized from Kobe, Kyoto or Tokyo.



Lunchtime and we moved off temple row and into a more city like part of the city.



But first a quick stop in Shian-bashi area. Shian-bashi was, and still is to a lesser extent the red light or “pleasure” district of Nagasaki. In former times it was separated from the main city by a bridge. This bridge, known as the bridge of pondering gave its name to the area. Why the bridge of pondering? Well apparently in days of old men would pause for a second on the bridge and debate whether to press on or return to their wives at home. Seized by the spirit of the ages I also decided to ponder for a moment before pressing on in search of food, drink and cake.

Cake! Yes, cake. In fact not just any cake but the infamous Castella at the even more infamous Fukusaya Castella cake shop. Castella is a kind of sweet sponge cake introduced to Japan by the Portuguese. The origins of the name are widely debated but are believe to come from an area of Portugal with the similar sounding name of Castile. However confusingly Castile was then a part of Spain and in Castile they don’t make Castella.



Fukusaya Castella has being making this cake and operating as a shop continuously since 1624! That is an astonishingly long time for any shop to operate, let alone in one location and in the same building (albeit heavily renovated inside). I would be interested to know if anything in the U.K. even comes close but I doubt it. To put that in perspective imagine a Tudor building being used for its original purposes continuously for nearly 400years!

The shop is somewhat small and Spartan inside but that is because it basically consists of a counter and three stools. All of the activity goes on in the bakery itself, all they need the shop for is to sell you their one and only product, cake.

And what a cake it is. Honestly it may be the most perfect cake I have ever eaten. This is the platonic ideal of cake. There is no decoration, no icing or butter or any messing around, it is just pure sponge. But it is the nicest sponge I have ever eaten and I suspect it is impossible to make a sponge cake taste any better. It was moist, fluffy, sweet but not too sweet, with a deliciously complex after taste. It was just perfect. Utterly perfect.



Oh and look, more bats. I wonder what they are all about.

Full of cake and properly rested we decided to climb to Suwa-jinja.



It was a long climb. If nothing else a trip to Nagasaki will help you keep fit as there is simply no way to avoid climbing hundreds and thousands of steps.

Suwa-jinja lacked the cool Chinese influenced architecture of most Nagasaki temples and shrines but made up for it with its own unique attraction. Komainu, or prayer dogs.

These dogs are features of pretty much any Asian temple. They always stand in pairs, one with his mouth closed and the other with his mouth open. One is taking a breath and the other is breathing out but this breathing is in sync, as if they are taking the same breath. This concept of harmony so perfect that one breathes in while the other breathes out is known as “wa” and is a central idea in Japanese culture.



Furthermore one dog is always female whilst the other is male. Usually the male breathes in, an act of life and the female breathes out, an act of death symbolising the cyclical nature of life due to resurrection.



Komainu are descended from Chinese foo dogs or lion dogs which had the same purpose and are also displayed at temples but do not have the associations with wa.



Suwa-jinja is covered in hundreds of these dogs all over the place with radically different artistic styles and designs.




Some of the dogs even have special features such as this one, the kappa komainu.



And barring a failed trip to a temple we eventually got to later on (I'll tell you all about it tomorrow), a bath and a delicious dinner at an Izakaya that specialised in pork was all we did that day.