I sincerely hope you like looking at fish

Well sorry everybody for the state of last week's blog. As I write this I am sick as a dog and only really just got out of bed but here is the entire epic post that I complete last week with all the videos and photos attached.

What follows is all from last week.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For everybody that was on the edge of their seat my last minute rushed class actually worked out okay. In fact it's probably one of my more successful classes to date in terms of keeping the kids attention (I question its educational merit but the JTE came up with it and she knows more than I do). It was a bit of mess today though. Between a visit from the local elementary school and the fact that it was snowing it was virtually impossible to get the kids to focus on anything.

Oh until I showed a picture of my friends and they all asked me if the girl in the picture was my girlfriend. Despite the fact that they’ve:
a) seen a photo of my girlfriend
and
b) know that my girlfriend is half-Japanese

One bonus of the elementary school visit was that a boy I got to talk to a boy I see everyday on my way to work and who says hello to me everyday.

Anyway enough work natter lets move onto

EXCITING THINGS 4: OSAKA AQUARIUM

Osaka Aquarium is one of the best aquariums I have ever been to. Not the best, that’s Seaworld, but Seaworld is more a sort of amusement park. It has rides and shows and that’s what puts it over the edge. In terms of simply having really cool fish to look at Osaka Aquarium edges out. I mean it has a whale shark for god’s sake, A WHALE SHARK. THE BIGGEST FISH IN THE WORLD!

I had wanted to see the whale shark for some time now but what actually prompted me to seek out the Aquarium was a mission I was sent on by one of my Nakayoshi kids. Sannai is obsessed with penguins and she’s autistic so she can get properly obsessed with things. People might joke about being obsessed but Sannai really does border on it. She has a stuffed penguin pokemon doll that she has in class with her everyday and she involves it in nearly every activity, if she so much as hears the letter p she yells penguin, basically she really likes penguins.

Incidentally she’s really, really good at cards. We’ve been learning the alphabet recently and playing matching games to practise the lower and upper case versions of letters. You know the game where you have a load of cards face down and have to pair them up? She beats me every time. I used to let her win but now she beats me even if I’m trying. It really is like Rain Man.

The link between penguins and aquariums is of course that Osaka aquarium has penguins. More than that though, for a limited period they have a “penguin parade”. Sannai had seen the flyer for this and really wanted to go but her mother was too busy to take her. Well being something of a penguin fan myself I resolved to go and take as many photos and as much penguin video as I could.

Taking my travelling crew of Ryan and Patrick with me we set off bright and early and got to Osaka around lunchtime. On our way to the aquarium we got stopped by some kids who started speaking to us in English. After a brief and awkward chat (an occupational hazard I’m afraid) one of them randomly shouted Fantastic Four at us. Ryan pointed out that there were only three of us and I corrected him that this was because the fourth member, the invisible woman, was invisible of course.





Before we got to the aquarium we stopped for lunch in some strange marketplace that was made out to look like Japan in the 30’s or 40’s. Complete with old film posters and old cigarette packets. It was really quite cool and completely unexpected. Had we not been on a mission we could have easily spent hours wandering around there. As it was we had a quick lunch of ebi tempura and soba (prawns fried in batter and noodles) and headed on our way.

The penguin parade wasn’t due to start in about half an hour leaving us in the awkward spot of not being able to do anything but having to wait. Fortunately the aquarium had laid on some street performers to keep the waiting kids entertained. The guy we watched had a signature act consisting of giving a rubiks cube to the audience to randomly scramble up then finishing it in less than 30 seconds. Impressive but odd. Then he put a rubber glove on his face and blew it up…….only in Japan.

However, not long did we have to wait for soon the penguin parade began and luckily for you I have videos of such a magnificent spectacle.






Yup, it was completely naff.

Basically the guards put out some crowd barriers between two pens creating a walkway and then chased the penguins down it. As Patrick said, “it was less the march of the penguins and more the leisurely jog of the penguins.”

Still naffness aside we still got to see some penguins and Sannai was delighted when she saw the video.

Most rewarding part of this job? Seeing kids when they’re happy.



Penguins dispensed with we headed onto the aquarium proper which was significantly less naff. Our first amazing sight was this replica of a fossilized Giant Sea Turtle shell. This thing was HUGE! Ryan said it reminded him of Gamera and I had to agree.

This is Gamera.



Gamera is a Kaiju. Literally a Sea Monster but more truthfully a film genre in which blokes in rubber monster suits hit other blokes in rubber monster suits while a really tedious/mad human story happens in the background. Godzilla would be the Kaiju most people are familiar with but Gamera has the distinct advantage of “being friend to all children.”

No really, that’s his catchphrase. Giant fire breathing sea turtle monster thing, friend to all children. In Japan that makes perfect sense.

I am quite a fan of Kaiju films and weirdly myself and Ryan had watched one the night before that unbeknownst to us was set in an aquarium. Ironically though it was sea world (and at not point in the film did they explain why the last defence of the planet earth was being co-ordinated from seaworld.)
After a fairly dull “Japanese Forest” exhibit we moved on to the cool stuff. Sea Otters!



Look at ‘em go. Pay special attention to the little girl in the tank with them. This was feeding time and along with the 2 members of staff they had clearly got some little girl to volunteer to help them. The problem being that the little girl was absolutely terrified. She was too scared to even cry. She was just frozen to the spot staring at these enormous monsters within inches of her. Although as Ryan quite correctly pointed out they are about 3 times the size of her. I know I’d be shit scared of an otter 3 times the size of me.



A sloth, living up to the stereotype.



I have decided that Porcupine fish are very cute. Look at his face, he’s smiling. Awww who’s a cute widdle smiley fish, you are, you are.



An absolutely demonic looking crocodile.



The single ugliest living creature I have ever seen. It’s either some kind of turtle or a genetic experiment.



Rockhopper penguins. Made all the funnier by the description on the website.

“King penguins, gentoo penguins and rockhopper penguins are displayed in KAIYUKAN. You can easily distinguish their differences by their figures, as well as their feet colors. King penguins have black feet while gentoo penguins have yellow feet and rockhopper penguins' feet are pink.
Their characters are also different. King penguins and gentoo penguins have rather mild characters. On the other hand, rockhopper penguins show an aggressive nature, featuring red eyes and decorative yellow feathers. Being fond of fights, they may tend to fight even with human beings. So, watch out not to fight with them.
Penguins are monogamists. Like human beings, they select their own partners. They sometimes divorce or get remarried.”

The fighting with humans thing is true by the way. When we were watching a woman came in to take the temperature of the water. The penguins clearly thought this was feeding time and wandered over to her. All the swimming penguins leapt out of the water and landed on the ice. However one leaping penguin smacked her right in the shoulder and knocked her back. She did not look best pleased.



The fluffy penguin is an adolescent before his feathers have moulted. So he’s big AND fluffy.



Nemo.



Patrick should have a career narrating nature documentaries. Here he proceeds to make stuff up on the cuff for ages about some phenomenally big and ugly fish. Ryan believes everything he says.



Okay this was more than a bit freaky. When we came to this tank the fish were swimming against the current. What this looked like though was loads of perfectly still fish all looking in the same direction. Now that is creepy.



Especially when we saw that they were all looking at one fish pointed in a different direction. Was he making some kind of a speech? What are the fish planning!?

It was of course at this point that my camera’s battery gave out like the useless piece of crap it is. So from here on out we’re camera phone only. Sorry folks.




This is a Sunfish and its one of the strangest fish I've ever seen. It looks like most of it is missing. Also the museum guide for it is hysterical.

"The popularity of ocean sunfish is as high as the whale shark. Visitors love its innocent charming expressions. At the time of feeding, it rushes to the feeder keeping its mouth small and round eyes wide open.
He skillfully eats a mixture of ground shrimps and squids in small bite sizes. When the feeding time is over, it looks disappointed."



I think in this photo we really captured his disappointment.



Ryan also looks disappointed when feeding time is over.



This Manta Ray was huge! From tip to tip he easily cleared 10 foot. I could have watched him for ages moving lazily through the water, he seemed tso majestic and alien and just plain cool.

There is a Pixies song called "Manta Ray" in which Frank Black screams "fish no swim, fish fly". Watching them in motion I totally agree. It seems to be swooping through the air not paddling against currents.





Eels scare me.
Unless I'm eating them.
Mmmmmmmmmm Unagi.




There were some awesome (and again huge) Sea Turtles in one tank. I dunno if its because of their age but turtles always seem to look wise to me and kind of melancholy. They're absolutely beautiful to watch swimming though.



This guy was a "cowfish". He looks grumpy.




Ryan's favourite exhibit was the "Japanese Deeps" feature. I've used the word alien a lot in this post but it's entirely appropriate here. These crabs were freaky. The exhibit had some really odd fish too but the stars were these enormous Spider Crabs that littered the floor and walked across it like the alien tripods in War of the Worlds. At one point two even had a fight.

Easily the most disturbing part about them though was that in addition to their legs and claws they each had a miniscule set of pincers above their mouth constantly snapping. And their jaws were just another complicated set of claws. All told we counted about 12 limbs! The things seem to be made of nothing but claws.




Many weird and wonderful Jellyfish.





And here he is, the man of the hour, KAI-KUN the Whale Shark.

Whale Shark's are the biggest fish in the world, FACT.

"Kai-kun swims in the Pacific Ocean tank very well." FACT (according to the guidebook)

Unfortunately he wasn't as cool as the crabs. Still he was mightily impressive. I don't think my pics give a proper sense of scale so try this video to appreciate just how massive the guy is.



Also take note of the other fish hitching a lift underneath him.

So that was it. I hope you enjoyed looking at fish. I certainly did. However when we left the aquarium we were greeted by an even cooler sight.



POP-UP-PIRATE!

Everywhere I go in Japan Pop-Up-Pirate follows.

I leave you with the cutest fish photo ever.



Awwwwww who's a cute widdle smiley fishy.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

Looks like my Aquarium post is shaping up to be a bit of a monster. There's absolutely loads of videos involved and Youtube is being incredibly slow and not letting me upload anything. I've got the gist of it written and all the photos done (which is usually the hard part) but until youtube speeds up I can't really post anything. Expect a truly epic post on Tuesday or possibly earlier.

As an apology for this weeks lack of updates here is a cow I saw in Sannomiya recently.

Sorry Guys.

Sorry everybody but despite my New Year's resolution being never to skip a blog post I have no choice today. A combination of a changing schedule, a procrastinating JTE and an ALT meeting means that tomorrow I have a lesson and no particular idea what exactly we're doing although I do have a general idea. Accordingly tonight I've had to make loads of resources and haven't had time to blog.

I probably won't be able to pick up the slack Wednesday either as I have to complete my Japanese exams and that is my night set aside to study Japanese.

So to tide you over here is a picture of some Engrish I noticed recently.



"It is strong in time and it is gently to time tough at time"

Also here's something I've been meaning to post for a while.
Pan-kun and James is the story of a chimpanzee in overalls called Pan-kun and a Bulldog with a backpack called James. They live in a house with a man who makes them complete human tasks like buy lunch or join the fire service.

Here they are tasked with buying some shoes.
This is easily my favourite TV show in Japan as unlike the anime I enjoy I can grasp the plot of this even in Japanese.

Also I get to see the spectacle of a monkey wearing high heels and who doesn't love that.



See you Thursday folks when I'll be showing you my Osaka Aquarium photos. I promise a penguin parade.

More Odds and Ends, this time Odder and Endier.

So if you were all curious about my Cherry Blossom crisps then I've come to let you out of your misery. They were nice. Very nice. Very, very nice but they had a flavour that's hard to describe. Mostly they tasted of potato, olive oil and pepper but there was something else there that wasn't even remotely like cherry but was definitely pleasant. It's subtle and hard to describe. I certainly recommend getting them if you come to Japan in Spring.

I also picked up this little curiosity recently.



Yes, beer flavoured toffee. I have already had one product from this company called “Genghis Khan Toffee” which had pictures of grilled caramelising meat on the front. The Genghis Khan toffee did indeed taste like meaty toffee. The first one was quite nice but for some reason all subsequent pieces I ate tasted horrible. In the end having sat around my house for months and occasionally being nibbled on I gave on. Beer Toffee though was too weird to pass up.

How does it taste? Like toffee that has gone off frankly. It has that vaguely sweet taste I associate with rotting; horrible stuff. I’ll see if I can fob it off on a teacher.


Pu-ro-re-su

I may have mentioned Hard Gay on this website before and if I haven’t here’s the short version.

Hard Gay or Razor Ramon is a straight man who acts like an outrageous homosexual and is dressed in biker leathers. He’s a sort of Japanese Sacha Baron Cohen who goes into the street doing good deeds and then simulates buggery afterwards i.e. helping and old lady cross the road and then thrusting his crotch at her after he does so. He is huge in Japan and mildly funnier than most Japanese comedians although still not exactly my cup of tea. My girlfriend’s brother loves him though and I bet my brother would too.

His funniest and best stunt ever was going into the Japanese Hasbro offices and convincing them to make a Hard Gay version of pop-up pirate. And they did!

And here it is.



What I didn’t know until recently is that Hard Gay used to be a wrestler! This set wheels turning in my head. I have never really been a huge wrestling fan (too much macho shouting and sweaty men) but if Japanese wrestling features men pretending to be outrageous homosexuals then maybe it might be some glorious spectacle with tongue firmly placed in cheek.

As usual I underestimated the Japanese madness.

D.D.T and it’s sister league 666 are one of a vast number of competing Japanese puroresu leagues. Some of these leagues actually aren’t faked and feature prper competitive wrestling of a type not really seen anywhere outside the Olympics. D.D.T is not one of these leagues.
D.D.T has a title called the Ironman Heavyweight Title. The rules are simple. The belt can be challenged for at any time in any way so long as there is a referee present. Initially it started off as a parody of American wrestling but very quickly this competition went in a truly insane direction.

The D.D.T. Ironman Heavyweight Title has been won by

A wrestler called BIO-monster DNA

Masashi Kakuta – a man who is not actually a wrestler

The Great Mampuku – a character from a Kids TV show

AD Yamamoto – Mampuku’s enemy in the same show

Seito Kaicho – the president of the Japanese Student Association

A ladder (it fell on the title holder and was granted the win)

Shouichi Ichimiya – a man who subsequently had t wrestle a ladder and took it completely seriously, faking hits from the ladder and acting like any other match.

Erika Yamakawa – a Japanese pop-star. Basically imagine Katie Melua in a wrestling match

Another ladder

Someone known only by the rather cryptic name of Susan

A taxi driver

A monkey named Yatchan, who then fought in a 5 man battle royale

Yuka Nakamura – an actual wrestler who pins the previous title holder at a bus stop

Tannie Mouse – an actual wrestler who pins Yuka Nakamura in a ladies toilet in a service station

A chef – who pins Tannie Mouse at a hot springs resort she was visiting

Haruka Matsuo – who pins the above chef WHILST HE IS ASLEEP!

Kaori Yoneyama – who won it legitimately but decided that ebing the 199th Champion was too cumbersome so immediately gave up the title for a free for all.

DJ Nira – a DJ

Kitty-Chan – a HELLO KITTY STUFFED DOLL!

Mah-kun – another stuffed doll.

A television camera

A wrestler called Lingerie Mutoh

President Ramu – a 12 year old girl and president of the 666 group who routinely lifts grown men up and choke slams them. She gives up the title because she thinks it would be “cool” if the 666th champion is someone from the 666 group.
However she is the 293rd champion so what happens is that Shinobi and Yuukoh Miyamoto swap the belt in a game of rock paper scissor 304 times.

Sayoko Mita – a news presenter (can you imagine John Snow wrestling?)

Naoshi Sano – who puts the belt up for auction.

One more ladder

Cocolo – a miniature dachshund

Megumi Grace Asano – a referee

A baseball bat

And finally Reiji Azuma – an elementary school boy who is then beaten by three elementary school girls.

Nowhere else in the world can you see the spectacle of a grown man pretending to fight and then pretending to lose to a Hello Kitty doll.

And since this is an odds and ends post here is President Ramu.

Odds and Ends

Nothing especially exciting going on in Nihon at this moment in time. Monday was “Coming of Age” day but I missed out on it for various reasons, tomorrow is my re-contracting interview, and after that there are no big festivals until mid-February so here are some odds and ends I’ve been meaning to get around to.

I survived my first earthquake.

Friday January the 11th at about 3 o’clock. I was sitting at the computer, dossing basically, waiting for the week to end and not really prepared to do any useful work with only 20 minutes left in my working day (technically 50 but I help out in cleaning time which starts at 3.20) when I noticed the computer screen beginning to shake.

Now at first I thought that I had just knocked the computer but this shaking didn’t stop after a good 3 minutes and eventually I figured out what must have been happening. The computer was an old fashioned box monitor on a wheeled trolley so it was never particularly stable to begin with, and not much else seemed to be shaking but I put a pen in a cup and this confirmed it. I was sitting in the middle of an earthquake.

It was pretty cool.


Japanese Crisps are weird.




Pictured is a packet of Pringles, not especially weird I’ll grant you but “Winter Salt” flavour? What exactly is winter salt, how does it differ from ordinary salt, what is it doing here and what does it want.

Other strange Japanese flavours include crisps including bits of real cheese (that are horrible), squid flavour (pretty good) German potato flavour (again it raises many questions but continues to be an enigma) and pickled ume (plum) flavour which I have not yet had but I have recently been informed tastes a lot like salt and vinegar. I always intended to eat some but now I am actively seeking out my pickled plum crisps.

However I think these easily take the cake for weirdest flavour of crisps ever.




CHERRY BLOSSOM FLAVOUR CRISPS!

No I'm not mistaken, it isn't just a pattern they really are cherry blossom flavoured.

I haven’t eaten them yet but rest assured when I do you will get all the details.


Random left over photos.




Mentioned in another post but I forgot to put up the picture. Here is my lucky New Year bow and arrow.



Kate Roy rocking my new Trilby. People love to steal my hats.



Another refugee from a former post. I mentioned a high class shoe shop with a huge display of Ultraman toys in the front. Well here he is, dressed as Santa. Trust me on this, toys really are cool in Japan.



"Gaylord" is a famous Indian restaraunt chain in Japan and a source of constant amusement to me.



Whilst shopping for Christmas presents I was attacked by giant monsters (Kaiju). Fortunately the Power Rangers (or rather Sentai Ranger) saved me.

Things my students do.

So one kid asked me on my first day to call him Michael. This isn’t his real name and is actually a bit of a racial slur, akin to us calling a Spanish person Pedro or a French bloke Pierre just because of their nationality. However I have real trouble remembering kids names, particularly Japanese names, so I’ve been calling him Michael since then.

Recently he started asking me if “I have two golden balls?” Following the unofficial JET code I pretended not to understand what he was saying and feigned that he was talking about David Beckham. However recently he has added “do you have a penis?” but pronounced “pen” as in the tool you write with and “is” as in the first part of the word easy. Well, I thought toy myself, if he’s bothered to learn the word I may as well teach him to pronounce it properly.

Today he yelled it at me in the middle of cleaning time across a crowded room whilst the homeroom sensei was in there.

It was good luck she doesn’t speak English.



What I’ve been up to recently.

I had a FANTASTIC weekend recently. I mentioned on this blog previously that one of the big ALT past times in Kobe is Airsoft. Basically paintball but with small bb pellets instead of paint. I mentioned my almost fatal collision with a tree and my fall down a mountain (which has earned me the nickname “the Lumberjack”) I even went so far as to buy my own gun.



And here she is, her name is Mariko.

Well Saturday one of our resident drunken Scots Johnboy held a party in Hanyama, the other of the two major ALT residential areas (I live in Gakuentoshi) which just happens to be where the mountain we shoot on is.

So after a night of drunken debauchery I got up bright and early to run around a forest pretending to be a commando. No actual hits this time (although I got shot plenty) but I did manage to win one game by capturing the flag and put in a respectable performance tactically.

Following this we went to Yaki-niku for all you can eat fried meat and drinking.

Beer, guns and fried meat, could there be a more manly way to spend a day.

Maybe if we’d done some heavy lifting as well.



This is a picture of the lot of us tooled up and ready to rumble.
From left to right.
Top Row
Bryan "The Lion", Jason "Deuce" Bigalow, Ryan "G-man" Glasnovich, Brindley, James "Poncho", Adam "the Lumberjack" Halls, Patrick and John (no nicknames yet)
Bottom Row
Jim "the Grim Reaper", Adam "the detonator" Debter, Kevin "Sarge", "Alaska" Dave and
"there but for the" Grace "of god" also known as "Fallen from" Grace and "the snarling beast".


This was followed by yet another party the highlight of which was Songstar a karaoke computer game and thus something I intend to own at any cost.

I am mildly famous.

At University I dedicated a ridiculous amount of energy helping to run a website called www.superdickery.com Cast all dirty thoughts from your mind immediately for this was not a porn site but rather a shrine to Superman and how much of a dickhead he is.

No I’m serious, go look at the site. In the 60’s Superman dedicated nearly all his time to playing elaborate head games with his best friend and girlfriend for no reason other than that he could. My job was to scour comic bins and websites for examples of so called “superdickery” “batdickery” and other general weirdness. I never ran the site but I was heavily involved in the forum (under my nom-de-plume bbsr) and wrote many of the captions and comments as well as finding many of the covers featured.

My University friends were totally apathetic towards this site and never once checked it out. However in Japan the subject has come up a number of times and everyone I mention it to has either heard of or read superdickery themselves.




And since this is a blogger blog and this is a bits and pieces post I am obligated by the rules of the internet to post some videos. Here is a frankly disturbing advert for Kewpie doll phone charms and a Malice Mizer video. The first to freak you out and the second to frankly marvel at the visual kei costumes.

Appropros of nothing today one of my students asked me "can you eat peas?" ?!?

So having bored you all to tears with my last post lets get back into my not at all tedious extended selection of holiday snaps.

Sometimes I’m so sarcastic I’m not sure if I’m actually telling the truth by accident?

Anyway.

As I already mentioned, the New Year is a big time for Japanese people and a much bigger deal than it is in Britain. Japanese culture is much more attuned to nature than western culture and many of its religious ceremonies are directly associated with natural cycles. This is true of Christianity too but only because we nicked a load of pagan ceremonies that were associated with natural cycles and tarted them up with references to Jesus.

The New Year in Japan is not only the culmination of the whole year before it but a time to begin anew. There is a big emphasis on the “first” thing of the New Year, the first meal, the first bath and most importantly the first shrine visit of the year.

Now not being Japanese I have no obligation to do this. I could have waited till all the Japanese people were back at work before I resumed my travelling. This would have been the sensible thing but it wouldn’t have been the proper thing. I was determined to get into the spirit of the thing and go to a massively popular shrine on the most popular day of the year for shrine visits and partake of the Japanese national past time, “just exactly how many people can we get in one place before it becomes physically impossible to move”.

Prior to the actual shrine visit Ryan, Patrick and I headed off to see something I’ve been trying to see for a long time now Sanjusangen-do, the hall of a thousand buddhas.

Now those of you that can read Japanese have gone, “hang on Adam. Surely sanjusan means 33?” Well yes it does and the name refers to the 33 bays in between the pillars that support the hall and in which the buddhas are housed. However frankly when you’ve got a hall with a thousand buddhas in it naming it after architectural features is a bit dull so amongst westerners it’s generally known as the thousand Buddha place.

Technically there are 1001 buddhas. A large statue of Kannon in the centre and 500 identical statues of Kannon either side. Each statue has 42 arms and each arm holds 25 worlds in its palm so according to Buddhist mysticism each statue has more than a 1000 arms in addition to there being more than a 1000 of them.

Kannon is the bodhisattva of compassion and mercy. Kannon is a woman but before she became a bodhisattva she was a prince called Avalokiteśvara. Avalokiteśvara was also briefly depicted as a buddha himself and completelty separate from Kannon (or rather Guan Yin as it is in sanskrit) leading to the slightly odd situation that while most buddhsts consider kannon to be female most images of Kannon stem from depictions of Avalokiteśvara and so consequently she is often depicted with a bare male torso and a small moustache, as indeed she was in Sanjusangen-do. Apparently you shouldn’t think of her as either female or male but rather a form encompassing both as compassion is not an exclusively female energy.

The reason for the thousand arms is highly debated and depends on which buddhist philosophy you subscribe to. In some it represents a similar thing to daibutsu’s 7 fold lotus leaf i.e. it demonstrates the presence of the buddha in all things and our connection to nirvana through attaining oneness with the universe, in tohers its an allegorical representation of the dharma. Rather than getting into all that I’m just going to copy the mystic legend behind it from wikipedia (slightly edited) and leave it there.

“According to legend Guan Yin vowed to never rest until she had freed all sentient beings from samsara, the process of reincarnation. Despite strenuous effort, she realized that still many unhappy beings were yet to be saved. After struggling to comprehend the needs of so many, her head split into eleven pieces. Another Buddha called Amitabha saw her plight and gave her eleven heads with which to hear the cries of the suffering. Upon hearing these cries and comprehending them, Avalokitesvara attempted to reach out to all those who needed aid, but found that her two arms shattered into pieces. Once more, Amitabha came to her aid and appointed her a thousand arms with which to aid the many.”

It’s a constant barrel of laughs is buddhism isn’t it.

Anyway the hall itself is definitely stunning. In no way is ti an exaggeration or a cheat like the thousand arms there really are a 1001 statues in there. Individually they’re all beautiful, absolutely gorgous works of craftmanship and the overall effect is quite mindbogglingly. Your brain just can’t quite process what its seeing, an effect enhanced by the strange mystic air it posesses. A feature that all the finest buddhist temples seem to have, mostly a feature of lighting I think.
It’s not as immediately breathtaking as daibutsuden but it was definitely well worth seeing.

Unfortunately they don’t allow photography inside at all. Not even sneaky camera phone trickery is allowed as the monks get very, very annoyed. We were told all this by Ryan who has been before and done just that so we took his word on it.

So I've nicked one off Wikipedia and I'm legally obliged to state that this is distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License.



Plus there was a service going on whilst we were there, something I haven’t actually seen before. Obviously I don’t understand one word of sanskrit so I had no idea what was happenning but it was all very reverential. I’ve been struck on more than one occasion that Japanese worship is a lot more like performance art than prayer. Rather than suggesting an idea for contemplation it seems to try and evoke a state of mind in the recipient such as ecstatic fervour or quiet calm. All that chanting, the prayer wheels and bowls and the drumming and gongs are less about what the actual words are than in trying to send the listener into a trance, where conscious thought is abandoned. This is of course what all that meditation is about, losing the conscious sense of self and its quite moving to be witness to it.

Moving on from Sanjusangen-do we wandered over to an Udon place (a kind of noodles) where I had duck –udon and then made our way to Yasaka-jinja, the local shrine of Gion and affectionately known as Gion-san.

Two things were quickly evident.
1. We shouldn’t have eaten. None of us realised that of course this
was a festival, and for the Japanese that just means an excuse to
eat constantly.

2. There were a lot of people here.

No a lot.

Whatever you’re picturing there were more.


people and lanterns


people and stalls


girls in kimono

Mostly they were clustered around the main shrine, hurling money into vast bins and offering prayers or else buying fortunes and lucky charms. We had all bought a fortune in Sanjusangen-do (in English but I lost mine as usual) so we didn’t bother with the crowds for these. I did, however, buy a lucky arrow. No idea why it’s lucky but apparently it is. Next year I have to take it back to the shrine to be burnt and buy a new one. This apparently is also lucky. I mostly just think it looks cool.
Truth be told there isn’t much to say about the actual shrine visit. I’ve now seen so many shrines that the novelty of a lot of it has definitely worn off. I think I need to take a break from shrines so that when I start going again I’ll be enthusiastic about them once more.

Mostly we just ate festival food, (the taiyaki was goooood and Ryan introduced Patrick and I to a Kyoto speciality, rice pancake folded over red bean paste that was ooey gooey and gorgeous; if very difficult to eat), watched crowds of people, had a wander and stopped so Patrick could perve on girls in fancy Kimono’s with massive fur collars.
Oh and we watched a juggler for a bit who dropped his clubs almost every time. You’d think he’d practise a bit before he subjected himself to the scrutiny of that many people.

Aaaaaas for nearly being arrested well there isn’t much of a story there just a little tease. Y’see on New Year’s Eve (well day technically) as we walked home calling out happy new year to everyone we saw Patrick paused to chat up some goth girls (never stops that boy). That momentary delay may have saved us a lot of trouble because asw e walked on we came to a junction. Marching across was a MASS of coppers and a huge herd of rowdy whopping gaijin, some in cuffs and looking distinctly the worse for wear. No doubt the revelry had all got a bit too much for them and they’d been hauled in to stew in the cells for a bit, not that unusual. Problem was, there were so many of them that had we accidentally got swept up in their crossing we would have undoubtedly been lumped in with all the other gaijin. And quite frankly I’m not supposed to get arrested, I have a government job and if that happens they deport me. So a lucky escape methinks.

And that’s the past finally dealt with onwards into 2008! A shiny new year all innocent and unsullied. This Monday is the “coming of age day” so I may have a look for any festivals going down but if not I’ve got a party and some airsoft already lined up and that’s a full weekend right there.

Have a good one everybody and see you back on Tuesday.

Makaeme (Happy New Year, alternatively you can say it posh but I can never remember how to say that akemashita something onegaishimasu or summat)

Aaaaaaaand that was Christmas.

Did you miss me? Probably not as you were all too busy enjoying yourselves over the festive season. Well alas its back to work time now but hopefully we’re all energised from the festive break, recovered from our hangovers and ready to get back to work and back to blogging.

But first I’m going to update you all on what I did during the holidays. It’s mostly dull with a few bits of interest buried within but you have to suffer through the whole thing.

Schools are pretty free with giving holidays around this time of year due to the combination of school breaks and a lot of national holidays in a row. Because of this it only takes a few Nenkyuu (paid leave days) to manage to get a couple of weeks off work. Most JET’s use this time to go on a proper holiday and travel around Asia a bit. As I’m trying to save money for when my missus gets here so I can travel with her I elected to stay at home and see if any of the JET’s left in Kobe were up to anything.

As it happens nobody had any real plans at all and in desperation I decided to offer to throw a party myself.

And with that decision any hopes of saving money this winter were thrown out the window and I learned I am a fucking idiot (sarcastic comments about “it took you this long” should be directed elsewhere).

Christmas parties, for those not in the know, are expensive.

Irregardless I had an absolutely brilliant time spending that money. For the first few weekends in December and during the first few holidays I spent every free moment scouring Kobe for all the foods you need to throw a Christmas dinner; sprouts, Turkey, Gravy, Quality Street, etc, etc.

My efforts were largely futile as the vast majority of British festive food is simply unheard of over here. In fact judging from the contents of most of the foreign food shops I went to Britain’s contributions to global gastronomic culture seem limited to cadbury’s chocolate, ribena, some beers, black pudding and stilton. Most missed of everything I was searching for was Christmas pudding and mince pies. Especially mince pies, this year marks the first since I was an infant that I haven’t had a mince pie, I feel slightly cheated.

Incidentally Fran indicated to me far too late a source of mince pies in Osaka so next year I’m set.

Failure’s aside all this foreign food shop trawling (and let me tell you, it is so weird to have to go to a foreign food shop to find something you recognise. It’s not that I’m surprised seeing ribena it’s that I’m surprised to see it lumped in with some mango lassi as a generic foreign item despite one being British and the other Indian) was a brilliant excuse to splurge on all the stuff I miss from home that I normally can’t justify the expense of. I entirely sated my month long craving for cheese and even found some Sam Smiths Taddy Porter! Sam Smiths is a brewer from my home town, well nearly.

Completely without a trace were Christmas crackers, mince pies, Quality Street, Christmas pudding, any kind of Christmas themed table mats, water biscuits, pickled red cabbage and stuffing. However every time I found something on my list did make me genuinely happy.

One thing I was struggling with was what exactly the main course was going to be. Most people in Japan (me included) don’t have an oven, just gas hobs and a grill so even if I found a Turkey there was no way of cooking it. One plan I had in mind was to get a chicken from KFC. KFC in Japan have a limited amount of roast chickens that you can pre-order from them and collect on Christmas day. Unfortunately by the time I found out about this all the chickens were sold out. I went to every KFC I could think of in Kobe looking for one that still had chickens and Ryan was frantically ringing shops but there was not a chicken to be found.

So we had Pork Tenderloin instead.

The final menu was

Starter
Prawns fried in cream cheese and paprika with spring onions
Veggies got a salad of winter leaves, cherry tomatoes, green beans, avocado and home made dressing

2nd course
Steamed crab with lemon butter.

(Since winter started the supermarket has had crabs legs in every day and I adore crabs legs. Unfortunately they’re too expensive to buy just for me to eat so this was an excuse to finally eat some. They were delicious.)

Main course
Pork Tenderloin marinated in mead and grilled with apple
Apple and mead gravy
Mashed potatoes
Sautéed potatoes
Carrots
Sautéed carrots
Mange tout
Home made chipolatas
Home made sage and onion stuffing

Veggies got nut roast and a vegetarian gravy instead of the pork.

Pudding
Christmas pudding
Chocolate cake
Traditional Japanese Christmas cake

The traditional Japanese Christmas cake is a weird thing, mostly because Japan has no tradition of Christmas. It consists of an ordinary sponge topped with cream and strawberries. In the best Japanese culinary tradition it is stunningly and elaborately decorated and is a virtual work of art but it’s flavour is a secondary consideration and is merely okay.

And can I just say once more how weird it is that Japanese people eat Strawberries in winter.

Then I had cheese and crackers and smoked salmon.

Terry’s Chocolate Orange Segments (best stand in for celebrations/miniature heroes/quality street)

Plus I picked up some beers and a couple of boxes of wine.

Come the actual day, nothing went quite to plan.

My day started out brilliantly, I got up, cleaned a bit, spoke to everyone at home and had a leisurely breakfast. I went out to go get Ryan to help me prepare and no sooner did I step out the door than a box arrived with my Christmas presents.

I got some books and comics, most of which have already been read and some DVD’s of British comedy shows and stand-up comedians. My British friends are all very jealous of my Big Train DVD and my nerdy mates are all impressed by my complete Nemesis the Warlock volumes which are some truly excellent comics.

I also got some Harrods tea (which is delicious) and a Christmas pudding with brandy sauce. So thanks Mum and Dad.

Then it all started to go wrong.

Because 2 hobs and a grill is not sufficient to cook for 8 people I was counting on Ryan lending me his cooker to double my cooking capacity. Come the day neither of us could work out how to detach the cooker from the gas so we felt it best to leave it alone severely curtailing my cooking abilities. He did let me borrow his microwave so that helped.
The second problem was late arrivals. I told everyone to arrive between 3 and 4 but Jason and James didn’t arrive until 7. So I didn’t start cooking the starters until 4 o’clock and thus delayed eating further.

Third problem was me underestimating cooking times so while the first and second courses were quite timely the main course wasn’t on the table till nearly an hour afterwards.

Fourth problem was trying to keep everything warm with only 2 hobs, a job I dismally failed in but that didn’t matter so much because we had a microwave and very hot gravy.

Fifth problem was my attempt to make vegetarian gravy, about which the less said the better.

Nonetheless the meal went down okay. Everybody professed happiness with it and ate what they were given. Jool’s girlfriend Ayumi even claimed to like the vegetarian gravy (she must have been lying). The pork tenderloin wasn’t especially tasty but was unbelievably tender and juicy and the gravy was delicious.
Jools brought some games and such, James and Jason arrived in time for pudding (the Christmas Pudding was gorgeous and a big hit and all the desserts were devoured) and having drunk, and talked and drunk some more, sung Fairy Tale of New York about 4 times in a row and watched the Father Ted Christmas Special everybody went home and I tried to watch one of my new comedy DVD’s and passed out on the couch.

Bliss.


Being in Japan during Christmas time, in fact just not being at home at Christmas time is a decidedly disconcerting experience. It clearly is Christmas, there are trees and lights up, there are santa displays in all the shop windows and there are Christmas songs playing in every shop you walk into. Yet it doesn’t feel like Christmas, it’s all a little bit off-kilter and slightly wrong. For example none of the Christmas songs sound right, instead of Slade, Band Aid and Wizzard most shops seem to be playing some techno/girl band version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or muzak versions of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”. There are ads up for gift ideas but there’s also the nagging feeling that most people aren’t bothering to buy a gift. Then there are the simply utterly bizarre things, such as the vast swathe of sexy Mrs clause costumes on display in Tokyu Hands (mental note made for when my missus arrives), including Christmas versions of power ranger uniforms spliced with santa outfits or reindeer outfits. That one just escapes me, power rangers + reindeer = what possible occasion are you going to wear these for?! Fortunately I stopped trying to understand anything that happens in this country a long time ago.

All the days following were spent in a well fed/drunken haze as I slept lots, enjoyed my Christmas presents, ate and drank lots of left overs (one whole pork loin had not been touched due to J and J arriving late) and saw enough of Jools, Ryan and Patrick to get fully sick of their faces.

New Years in Japan fulfils many of the roles Christmas does in the West. It’s a celebration for families to get together, eat a huge dinner and play games. It’s also the big card giving event and the time of year when most businesses shut.

Not having a Japanese family to spend time with (next year my hints will have to be much bigger) I elected to do a Western style New Year and get rat-arsed.

Fortunately because most businesses shut down a friend of a friend’s wife’s mother’s bar was not in use!

Sorry, try again. My mate Jools knows a guy called Rob, Rob’s mother in law owns a bar and no one was using it so Rob was given the keys so we all got to take it over and do free karaoke all night.
It was fantastic!

The bar itself was incredibly posh, no taps just bottles and most of the bottles were of very expensive cognac and brandy. The décor was very up-market and we were loose in it like naughty school children on a dare.

Unfortunately no pervert mode on karaoke this time. Although whenever anybody did an anime theme song the title sequence of the anime usually played on the monitor. Actually I should probably explain. Unlike theme tunes in the U.K. a big part of the Japanese chart isn’t composed of bands but of the theme tunes to popular animes. This isn’t quite as odd as that makes it sound. There’s a huge crossover between proper bands and theme bands so that sometimes established artists will do the theme for an anime, such as Gackt doing a Mobile Suit Gundam theme. Also most anime themes aren’t that different from J-Pop (also known as howling satan beast pop and distinct from the not at all bad j-punk and absolutely hilarious j-rock) so it wouldn’t be as incongruous as say the Big Break theme tune going to no.1. And admit it, if they had the Only Fools and Horses theme on karaoke you’d sing it.

The best part of anime themes as a westerner by the way is the random English used without rhyme or reason. So I can sit there in blissful ignorance as my mate Ryan goes “SHINING FINGER! Duh be doo (lots of random Japanese I don’t understand) I GET A CHANCE!”

My favourite example of this is still “I wanna rocks, rocks to the chest” from Naruto.

And that, other than veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery nearly being arrested and a trip to a brilliant temple is pretty much all I did for Christmas.

Photos and news on that near arrest on Thursday.

And calm down Mum I’m only joking.

Well partly….well wait till Thursday.

Strange Japanese Band Names

I'm in a bit of a rush today so in leiu of anything of real merit here is a list of amusing japanese band names.

Apui - they're not at all shit.

Balzac - also a bit harsh on themselves.

Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad - I really fancy a Mongolian chop right now. How about you famous alt rock musician Beck?

Bump of Chicken - this sounds significantly less appealing than a Mongolian chop.

The Candy Spooky Theater - and now I want some candy.

The Chewinggum Weekend - remember that weekend we chewed some gum? good times man, good times.

Earl Grey - what is it with the food themed names anyway?

Fake? - enigmatic?

The Gerogerigegege - I actually know what this means in Japanese and it still doesn't make any bloody sense.

Godzilla and Yellow Gypsy - one of the weaker entires in the series. A traveller is not really a match for an 80 storey atomic fire breathing lizard no matter what the Daily Mail says.

Golf and Mike - this is a duo and neither of these are their real names. I understand the whole taking a nickname thing so I have no problem with golf but why Mike? His real name is Pirath, where's he getting Mike from?

Happy End - I've got a very happy end right here, nudge, nudge, wink wink.

Head Phones President - I intend the visit the land of headphones one of these days. I hear it's very quiet.

Husking Bee - ....a....no....no jokes fail me.

Hey Sey 7 - ok. seven.....was that meant to do anything?

kinki kids - I know why they're kinki, they're kinki for the same reason I am. Can you guess what I mean? Answers on a self-adressed postcard.

kome kome club - that's ko-meh, ko-meh club and not what you were all thinking perverts.

MALICE MIZER - actually quite a good band. their name is short for malice and misery. It's the answer to their own question, what is a human being made of? Malice and misery. Good band but they should cheer up.

Maximum the Hormone - ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Melt-Banana - ok...ewwwwwwwwww

Merengue - is it a pudding or a merengue? No it's a band. Bet they'd go well with melt-banana.

Mr. Children - I know technically there is nothing wrong with this guys name but honestly doesn't he sound just a little creepy?

Puffy AmiYumi - Ami and Yumi are their names and they are both apparently puffy.

actually in reality they're not at all.

Fun Fact: Puffy Ami Yumi have their own cartoon in America but not in Japan. Also they sang the fantastic theme song to the Teen Titans cartoon.

Rice - seriously what is with the food names?

Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her - this one is significantly less funny if you know what it's a reference to. Answers on a self adressed postcard. Dad I expect you to get this.

Shilfee and the Tulipcorobockles - also known as the band that got their name when a cat sat on their keyboard.

Shonen Knife - translates as "girly knife" which sounds like an Australian insult.

SMAP - SPORT MUSIC ACTION PEOPLE. The Japanese Boyzone and exactly as horrifying as that mental picture is.

SONS OF ALL PUSSYS - Wait. All pussys? how does that work exactly? Surely you can only be the son of one pussy. Unless your a cat in which case at most you can be the son of 2 but in no way can you be the son of all pussys. No I think you need to rethink this one.

The System of Alive - I kind of want them to fight System of a Down. Don't you?

Thee Michelle Gun Elephant - I christen thee michelle gun elephant. May god have mercy on thee and all who sail in thee.

Vajra - okay I admit I'm stretching now

AND NOW THE FUNNIEST BAND NAME THAT HAS EVER BEEN
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SPREAD BEAVER

Now if this were some punk band trying to be shocking it wouldn't be funny at all but this guy is a sort of Mum's favourite ballady type sunger. Think of him as the Japanese Ronan Keating....except his name sounds like a sexual instruction.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm done.

(I'm sory for everything Mum, really it isn't your fault that I turned out like this.)

Pretty, pretty lights.

Sorry for missing Thursday's post last week guys.

I'm going to defend myself on two accounts okay. Firstly I spent last Thursday sending Christmas presents and to most of yuo that read this that manes you directly benefit from my lack of blogging. Secondly I typed up a bonus post yesterday but my internet decided to go screwy and eat my typing.

Anyway as an added bonus to go with the rest of today's post I HAVE A TELLY! This means I now have access to the gloriously insane world of Japanese television. As I type this my TV is on for the first time and I'll be keeping you all updated on whatever madness comes on screen.

Already in the time it took to type that the news showed a "handball" game. A sport I wasn't sure actually existed.

So what have I been up to then. Well on Sunday Night I went to go see the Kobe Luminare, the biggest and most famous festival in Kobe. They started it in 1995 to honour the anniversary of the Great Hanshin Earthquake. It consists of some really elaborate and orante Christmas lights which were donated to Kobe by the Italian government. Really they're just a set of glorified Christmas lights but they're quite famous and as I live in Kobe I thought it would be a shame to miss them.

And I'm really struggling to type at the moment because I'm very distracted by some kind of Yoga-themed game show and....
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DOCTOR WHO DUBBED INTO JAPANESE!

This is truly surreal. The guy doing David Tennant is utter crap but the voice of K-9sounds exactly like the original, and Rose just sounds....odd.

Anyway back to the Luminare.

So firsly I have to stress that I had to queue.




... and queue




..... and queue. For a long time.



And it wasn't just that I was queuing but that we got herded like human cattle all around the city in a big loop. It was the city wide equivalent of when you go to a theme park and think that you're nearly at the ride. Then you turn the corner and realise you have a whole room of zig-zagging barriers to get through first. It even had those barriers.

One thing the queueing emphasised too was quite how many people in Japan. I'm always aware that Japan has a lot more people living here than in anywhere I've lived before. Hell whenever I need to cross the road in Sannomiya there are always close to a hundred people waiting to cross at the same time.

However that's nothing compared to the crowds whenever there's a festival. Simply put you don't realise how many people live in Japan until they all try and go to the same space.

Anyway I didn't much mind the wait. This being Japan plenty of enterprising people were selling things in the queue and I bought a coffee to warm my hands and settled into a gentle wander. Enjoying the brisk air and the lights and sounds of the city.

Besides there were plenty of sights on the way.


Sorry for the poor quality pic. You can just about pic out the Anchor that's been set up to look as if it was some kind of giant anchor on the mountain.


And this would be one of my favourite shop names in Sannomiya.

And when I finally got to the lights well....



I thought they were worth the wait.















I stand by my statement that they're just glorified Christmas lights but they were worth seeing all the same. They are gorgeous, and I love the way they seem to float in the air without any visible means of support.

What did surprise me was that the Luminare was more than just the lights and actually had a proper festival attached.Now festival in the Japanese sense usually means 10 billion stalls crammed into one place selling an enormous variety of food. The form seems to be to eat constantly whilst looking at whatever visual attraction is the excuse for the festival. So not wanting to break with tradition I set out to get fed.

Amongst the foods on sale (alongside the game and toys stalls) were yakitori (various kinds of fried food on sticks), kebabs of various kinds, inuyaki (flattened fried squid on a stick), barbequed corn, noodles, doriyaki, sweet potatoes, hot dogs on sticks, lots of sake, some beer and some coffee and candy strawberries, a bit like toffee apples but with strawberries, which to me seems a bit of a waste of a strawberry frankly.

Being me I opted for the takoyaki (octopus dumplings) and they were gooooooooooood. I also had some taiyaki. A bit like doriyaki this is anko in pancakey style dough. But unlike doriyaki the dough is shaped like a fish and it's fried first. I also had some tasty little pancake balls which were incredibly addictive.

Suitably fed I had an amble over to the so called "event stage" and watched a female choir do accapella versions of Christmas songs. They were actually pretty good but as it was a Sunday I had to dash off and get some sleep.

Anyway this was mostly an excuse to show case pretty pictures so I hope you enjoyed them.


And on the telly is the fucking DONDAKEE transvestite. Apparently he's won some kind of award. If I haven't mentioned this annoying git on the blog remind me to because he is the bane of my existence.

Oh good he's gone and been replaced by....I think another transvestite. Have I accidentally tuned into some kind of fetish channel?

And on that note, goodbye.

EXCITING THINGS 3: Himeji-Jo

First order of business in order to educate my father.

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and now onto the exciting things.



Exciting Thing Number 3

Remember how I was so excited by the giant Buddha and said it was easily one of the most impressive sights I have ever seen.

Himeji castle tops it.

Himeji castle shatters it.

Himeji castle is simply gorgeous.

Himeji-jo (the suffix jo means castle in Japanese) is somewhere I’ve been wanting to go pretty much since I arrived in Japan. Not because I knew it was stunning and magnificent but because other people were going.

Basically my knowledge of Japan before I got here was really quite limited, particularly regarding places to go. However, as I was in no hurry and had a guidebook and other people about me I figured I’d pick up on interesting things to do soon enough. And so it was that in my first few weeks here I’d ask people “what’d you do this weekend?” and they’d reply “oh, we went to Himeji castle”.

However I didn’t actually get around to seeing it until a couple of weeks ago. At first I was waiting for a group of people to go with. Castles are not something that generally excite me, although I have seen some nice ones, and I reasoned that I’d probably want a group of people to travel with. However plans always kept falling through and by the time I got around to starting my own plans people would always answer “oh I’ve seen it”. After a while I got sick of this and decided to strike out on my own….just as soon as the leaves changed colour.

Man am I glad that I waited until the leaves changed colour.



Just….stunning isn’t it.

I hadn’t actually heard of Himeji-jo before I came to Japan and I doubt most people have but I cannot recommend it enough. This is a must see sight in Japan. For starters it’s a Unesco World Heritage Site and the oldest standing castle in Japan today but more than that it’s bloody gorgeous.

Himeji represents what Japanese architects can do when they really succeed. The traditional aim of Japanese architecture has its roots in the Zen and Shinto culture of traditional Japan. A bit like feng shui its all about constructing a building in harmony with the surrounding landscape so that the building actually adds to the quality of the landscape and vice versa. Building and nature combine together, the landscape enhancing the craftsmanship of the building and the building framing and glorifying the landscape.

Too often they get this wrong, especially nowadays, and simply plonk a gorgeous building in a crappy dark forest or ruin a subtle and glorious landscape with a hastily erected and natty looking shrine.

But when they get it right they get it right. Buildings like this are why I came to Japan. Well one of the reasons anyway.



And to top it all off it’s a castle, a real working castle (well not anymore). Not a palace or a villa but something whose main goal was being able to withstand an attack. That’s why it’s so tall. The castle is built on enormous stone walls (called bow curve walls for the curve of them that repelled attempts to climb them) at the top of a hill.

For this height it gets the nickname “the white heron”. Specifically that refers to the way the actual building seems to fly just above the tree line. This is easily my favourite feature of the castle, it looks like some kind of floating fairytale castle, not a real thing. The trees disguise the walls so well that it does seem to be hovering majestically.



And speaking of trees just look at those colours! Fiery red’s, rich browns, distinctive greens, yellows letting it all run together. You could not design a more handsome colour scheme. I like Autumn in England, its my favourite month and that’s in part because of the lovely colours in the tree line but England does not hold a candle to Japan. Here entire mountainsides look like they’ve burst into flames. And you don’t have to travel far to see a mountain here, there’s two by my house and I go up one to work.

Japanese people love red maples actually. Going to look at leaves is a bit of a national past time. It’s called momijigari literally autumn leaf viewing. That all sounds a little bit funny and odd and decidedly Japanese (“now it is Autumn so we must go to look at leaves for that is the thing that is done in Autumn” sounds very similar to an actual sentence one of my JTE’s said once “Now it is the season when Japanese people think it is a good time to read so I am reading because it is a good time for reading.”) until you come here and get swept up in the magic of it all.

Basically the Japanese love nature, and based on the nature they have in this country it isn’t hard to see why.



Anyway enough gushing about pretty colours (sooooo pretty) lets talk about castles.

Himeji castle was first built in 1333 and finished in 1346...then it was destroyed in 1580 but unlike most Japanese Castles it has not been destroyed since then, despite Himeji being bombed in World War 2. This makes it the oldest surviving castle in Japan and it was in use as an actual castle for a surprisingly long time. It was sold to a public trust in 1871 (for a staggering 23 Yen...wow!) and the last battle fought there was in 1868. This is a building that mixes gun racks with hidden rooms and devices for dropping boiling oil and rocks. There are many portraits inside of the wonderfully odd sight of men in full samurai armour loading and firing rifles.

The major building period was in 1601 where the bow curve walls were made, and therein lies an interesting story associated with this rock.



In 1601 Ikeda Teremusa embarked on the process of re-shaping the castle ruin into a habitable and useful defense again. However his major stumbling block was a lack of suitable rocks. It wasn't that there are no rocks in Himeji but that they weren't of a suitable kind for masonry and Teremusa had to raise funds to have rocks shipped from elsewhere. He was struggling to do this for months and as legend would have it an old woman donated her only millstone to start Teremusa off. Soon word spread of her charity and people from all over the region began donating stones to the castle and allowing for the walls to be built.

Almost certainly utter bollocks but a good story nonetheless.

About halfway through the day I got to experience the thrill of being all wise and knowledgeable because I got chatting to some Australian tourists wandering around the castle. I rarely get to exercise my annoying know it all genes in Japan as most of my friends have been here longer than me and speak much better Japanese. So it was really fun to recommend stuff and help them plan out the rest of their trip and point out interesting things in the castle.

I neglected to mention that the reason I could point out interesting things was that I had been given an English guide when I bought my ticket and they (being all of Asian descent) had been given the Japanese one by mistake.

And here are some of the interesting things.

Okiku's Well



Okiku and the 9 Plates is one of the most famous and important of all Japanese folklore stories and forms the basis for most Yurei (Japanese ghosts) myths. It's been made into plays, stories and filmed numerous times. Most recently it served as a large part of the inspiration behind The Ring/Ringu films which are brilliant and well worth a watch.

The basics of the story are thus...

Okiku was the beautiful servant of the samurai, Aoyama Tessan. She refused his amorous advances so he tricked her into believing that she had lost one of the family's ten precious delft plates. She counted the nine plates again and again but could never find the tenth. As a servant she could have easily been killed for such an error but Aoyama offered to overlook the matter if she became his lover. She still refused and he threw her down a well to her death.

She became a vengeful spirit who tormented her murderer by counting to nine and then making a terrible shriek to represent the missing tenth plate.

This would be the very well where okiku was apparently murdered if she actually existed.

Obviously the vengeful ghost climbing from the well bit was borrowed heavily by The Ring, as was the general appearance of her spirit as one can see in this wood print.



Spooky huh?

Gun Racks



Such a weird contrast.

Anyway I pottered around the castle for a bit longer after that but eventually left to go try and find Koko-En.

The suffix -en means garden and Koko-En is a traditional Japanese garden. It stands in the remnants of the old Samurai quarters quite near to the castle.

But could I find it? Could I buggery.

Instead I got hopelessly lost wandering around the back of the castle next to rivers, through parks and the like and not getting anywhere near to Koko-En.

Not that I cared as the scenery was GORGEOUS!



Just look at it!



No I was serenely happy being lost.

Eventually I heard some music and wandered off to investigate it and found one of the strangest sights of my life.

On top of a hill, facing the castle was a man and a dog. Not that strange I'll grant you but what made it odd was that he was singing, loudly and unselfconsciously in the direction of the castle.

His song was one of those weird Japanese ballads usually accompanied by the Shamisen. The aim of the singing seems to be to get your voice to go as wobbly as possible (I think the musical term is vibratto but I'm not sure and I know Fran hates it when I get things like the wrong). Rather than one note per syllable each syllable necessitates a wander up and down the scale and a weird wobbly effect that's like.... well remember when you were a kid and you used to press the flap of your ear closed repeatedly so every other second the sound cut off? No..? Maybe that was just me. Anyway it sounds like that.

Nor normally I HATE this kind of singing. Whether its Shamisen singers warbling on like birds caught in a door frame or Christina Aquilera having some kind of stroke it is not a style of singing I like.

But this was guy was good.

And coupled with my confusion, the beautiful sight of the castle and the sheer unexpectedness of getting a free concert like this it kind of turned into something magical. A perfectly serene plateau.

Then his dog joined in so I quickly scarpered.

I did find Koko-En eventually. IT was alright. I like Japanese gardens but this wasn't a particularly stunning one. I stopped in a place that promised I could have a cup of tea and admire the garden and was disappointed to discover it was a restaurant. I really want to sit in a Buddhist temple, on tatami and drink tea and eat wagashi but haven't had the chance yet.

Still it was a nice temple and I had the local speciality, Unagi-obento or Eel Lunch Box. It was very tasty. Unexpectedly sweet and just what I needed after all my walking.

And then I had a walk in the garden and spotted that they actually had a proper tea room with tatami and wagashi.

Bugger.

Now most people and most guidebooks say that once you’ve seen the castle that’s basically it for Himeji, there’re some minor shrines and Koko-En but everyone says the town itself is pretty naff.

I disagree actually. Between the train station and the castle is a handsome very wide tree lined street and branching off from this is a veritable maze of shops. Essentially between the castle and the train station is one big shopping arcade full of really cool independently owned alternative clothing shops which I spent a merry hour just browsing around. Ooh and I bought a hat.

I also found the largest example of what I call a “hippy shop” I have ever come across. By this I mean a shop that sells a lot of beads, incense, vaguely African or Indian crafts and woodwork and some horrible Peruvian hats and tops in rainbow colours (of the type favoured by vegetarian students the world over). This place was HUGE though, it was practically a hippy supermarket and it seemed smack bang out of place in Japan but was packed, apparently there is a big demand for vaguely ethnic tat in Japan going unfulfilled.

I also know these shops by the name of Fran shops because of her peculiar attraction to them. At least she has the good sense not to buy the stupid Peruvian hats.

Sometimes I am frightened.

Looky looky I finally got my hit counter app working properly. Admire it's pristine set of zeroes for they shan't exist for long.

In fact they will automatically switch to a 1 by the time you see this.

Hmmm.

Anyway as promised I am now sticking to a regular update schedule. This weekend should see me finally post about my trip to Himeji (which isn't worth the wait really but has some awesome photographs) but until then please enjoy more examples of my kids messed up and sometimes frightening English work.

This exercise was called Kocho-sensei’s monkey and is basically the bishops cat but written down. For example I drew a monkey and wrote the sentence "kocho-sensei's monkey is...." and they had to finish it using every letetr of the alphabet.

For some reason they didn’t grasp that he was a monkey.
A and B were pretty uninteresting.

C - Kocho sensei’s monkey is cute

Every group wrote this and that tells you all you need to know about Japan.They love cute stuff here.

D - Kocho sensei’s monkey is dead/dying/die/die/dlag

Out of these groups one group didn’t come up with an answer, one came up with dlag which, frankly I have no idea about and everyone else killed the monkey….which I’m a little freaked out by.

E - Kocho sensei’s monkey is easy

The little tramp!

F - Kocho sensei’s monkey is fanny
I know they meant to write funny but nonetheless *giggle* fanny.

G - Kocho sensei’s monkey is India
……….what?........oh right I think he means Indian.

J - Kocho sensei’s monkey is Jack

Again ... what exactly did they mean by this?

J - Kocho sensei’s monkey is June
No he isn’t, he’s a monkey, not a month.

M - Kocho sensei’s monkey is man [sic]

No, he’s a monkey

M - Kocho sensei’s monkey is mine

No, he’s kocho sensei’s

O - Kocho sensei’s monkey is octobus

Putting aside for the moment the image of some kind of 8 tentacled method of transportation, no he’s not he’s a monkey.

P - Kocho sensei’s monkey is pig [sic]

NO HE’S NOT HE’S A BLOODY MONKEY! I EVEN DREW A BLOODY PICTURE!

Q - Kocho sensei’s monkey is question

Actually that's Renee Montoya ( link for all those that didn’t get the reference )

U - Kocho sensei’s monkey is unclean

This one impressed me

U - Kocho sensei’s monkey is U.F.O.

Whereas this is just someone writing down the only word they can think of beginning with a u.

V - Kocho sensei’s monkey is victory

For some reason every single group wrote this.

W - Kocho sensei’s monkey is wrong

Hey don’t judge kocho sensei’s monkey, he’s just doing his thing.

Z - Kocho sensei’s monkey is ziblar

I entirely agree

Love Potion Number 9

Okay so maybe not a post every night but still more EXCITING THINGS to come.

Until then I'm going on a massive digression with the first regular Tuesday post and talking about Final Fantasy 7.

Final Fantasy 7 for those not familiar with it is a computer game. You can find out more than you could ever possibly want to know about it here.

However all you really need to know is this. Final Fantasy is not like normal series of computer games, rather than Final Fantasy 7 being a sequel to 6, 5, 4 and eventually just Final Fantasy each new Final Fantasy game is a wholly unique game. It shares some elements with earlier entries in the series but creates its own fantasy world.

FF7 for some reason became massively more popular than any version of the game before or since, to the extent that it's had numerous spin offs and sequels in its own right that aren't technically FF games, its own film (Final Fantasy: Advent Children) and an absolute metric fuckton of merchandising.

The reason this is all pertinent is that this year is the 10th anniversary of the release of FF7. So what says you and I but in Japan to the gaming culture this is a HUGE event. There are new games (FF7: Crisis Core) a new film (Last Order: Final Fantasy 7) re-releases of nearly all the older games, new toys, new merchandise and generally its a big excuse to shift a lot of Final Fantasy 7 crap.

Including my favourite piece of video game merchandise ever.



Look, look it's a "potion" from final Fantasy 7. Potions were just stuff you could buy that replenished health but now YOU CAN DRINK ONE!! Yay! I love this kind of tie-in, stuff plastered with likenesses is one thing but taking a fictional world object and making a real version of it is always fun. So even though I'm not a big FF7 fan (my personal fave is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance) I just had to get this.






The can is pretty nice actually, the print is lovely and clear and the CGI artwork is quite attractive. All in all much classier than a cheap tie-in needed to be.




While I came for the potion most fans will undoubtedly be after the toy included with the can. Now I know full well I'm a grown man and so shouldn't be buying toys, even cool looking ones but honestly, no word of a lie, toys are considered quite cool here. No I'm being quite serious. I know an upmarket women's shoe shop in Sannomiya which proudly displays quite a large set of Ultraman figurines in the window. Toys just don't have the stigma they do in the West as being just for kids(and lets not get started on the porno statuettes). So while I'm not a toy collector I have picked up the odd thing.

So lets see what I got.



AWESOME! Vincent Valentine easily the coolest looking figure in the set. Gotta love the Cerberus statue he's perched on. Plus I love a skinny gunslinger in a tattered red cloak. It worked for Trigun after all.



As for the drink itself. Well it's green, fitting considering the in game potions were green, but never a good sign. It smells alarmingly like the chemical flavour from my childhood known as "bubblegum". A flavour that always annoyed me as a kid because, well bubblegum itself is flavoured. Bubblegum can't be a flavour when it comes in many flavours. That's like having an ice cream flavour or a soup flavour. Nonetheless bubblegum pop was its own flavour. Sort of horribly chemical stuff with a vague sense of fruit but mostly just horrible saccharine sweetener.

So it smells of bubblegum.....how's it taste?



Ah.... of bubblegum.


And now for no reason here's a picture of famous Japanese transvestite Gackt dressed as Vincent Valentine. Enjoy.