From the Japan archive...
Christmas Anecdote
Tuesday, 21 December 2004
I know this is bit late but I thought, as it's christmas, I'd share a special moment with you that happened in Japan. One day, after a big day of wondering around in Shinjuku, Tokyo we decided (as we did everyday) that we were sick of Japanese food and started attempting to find a place where we might have a proper indian type curry.
Sayonara
Saturday, 13 November 2004
Well frankly Im still confused but me and Catherine have compiled a list of what we reckon are the top ten most Japanese things. Here it is:
A bomb
Saturday, 13 November 2004
We went to Hiroshima a few days ago, it wasnt at all what I expected. The city itself has a really good vibe about it. We went to the World Peace museum. It goes without saying I suppose that dropping a nuclear bomb on a city is devastating and harsh but the peace museum really brought it home.
mmm Dericous!
Saturday, 13 November 2004
We went to see Mount Fuji the other day. Its a big mountain with snow on top and all that. Just so you can visualise it we will put a picture and our three part video diary of mount fuji on the website when we find a place with the relevant technology. Joe if you read this I think you would be proud of my camera techniques. The area around it has the air of a deserted english seaside town.
It was well worth going though cos we ended up having to stay in a mini ryokan type place with its own communal hot spring bath. We stayed in a tatami mat room and this old Japanese woman in a kimono shooed us around the place. Its quite regimented in those places and you are expected to have a bath and eat with the other guests, for dan that is probably the equivalent of having a smeer test in an auditorium full of everone you have ever known so he wasnt liking it at all, I did think he was going to cry at one point and he just bolted and wandered around the cold dark village for a few hours while I attempted to join in with the culture. The bath was wicked, and noone else was in it so I got to splash around like a fat little seal for about half an hour (sadly there has been no weight loss on my part, mainly down to me eating everything on the grounds that either I recognise it and may not find anything that seems ok again for a while, or I dont recognise it and therefore classify it a cultural). THe next thing that happens in the minishuku is you have to go to the meal in your woefully small kimono style dressing gown. Throughout the meal the woman kept coming up and pointing to dans food with gestures of whats happened? I returned them with what I hope were gesture of "hes sick and has gone to the chemist for drugs". Raw fish turns out to be acutally quite nice, though I reckon its better put in a pie. Most of the food was really nice but probably not what I would choose normally. There was an elevated plate of cabage, beansprouts and raw fatty meat which looked foul you had to light the candle thing underneath and cook it. It was still pretty rank though. All in all it was quite good, but devastatingly expensive.
These people are trying to kill me
Friday, 12 November 2004
Well, we are back in Tokyo now feeling safe and sound in a nice western style hotel but the last few days have been rather trying I have to say. On wednesday we decided to go to the Fuji Goko area which is a bit of a rural holiday resort type place where alot of people start from when they climb Mount Fuji. There's hills, lakes and very nice views of the mountian and we were talking to a load of welsh blokes that had just come back from there and had stayed in a luxury style hotel with views of Mount Fuji from a hot spring bath and so on. Ah yes, we thought, sounds like a pleasant thing to do on the way back to Tokyo so off we went.
After a train and two bus journeys that lasted for many years it seemed we ended up at the tourist information place wanting to book a room at this hotel we heard about. it out of season for Fuji climbing at the mo so we thought it would be fine, unfortunately, it wasn't. No space at the nice western style hotel with the hot spring bath etc etc. The tourist info dude suggested a "minishuku" which is basically a down market cheapo version of a "ryokan" which is a very regimented, but plush traditional japanese hotel. Anyway, we had no choice and we booked it. It included two meals...
NINJAS!!!!!
Sunday, 7 November 2004
Yeah!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! We saw REAL ninjas in the REAL place in Iga where one of the most famous ninja clans comes from. They had fights and threw ninja stars. It was cooler than a pasty.
We travelled out of Kyoto into literally a very random place in search of the ninja museum that I've been going on about for at least two months. It took us for trains (and alot of confusion) to go right out into the country to find the place which was in fact some kind of cheesey japanese family day out thing (no westerners at all though) but it was still pretty good. It basically involved a castle with a farmhouse near it but the farmhouse was actually a ninja hideout with lots of traps and secret passages and stuff. They show you round that, then you go through a museum of ninja weapons and stuff then to a demonstration which was by far the best 15 minutes of my entire life (except for when Fenn revealed that he used to be a woman, of course). Gift shops were quite poor but, Joe, Ive managed to get you an authentic ninja headband.
We've also seen some other stuff but it's just not as interesting as ninjas so I can't be arsed to talk about it. But...... we got talking to a Yammie couple today who were all buddist types and martial artists and they told me about and even greater thing than the ninjas:
In Kyoto, there's a working film studio where they film lots of samurai films such as alot of the Kurasawa films and.....LONE WOLF AND CUB!!! Yes, Daz, I shit you not....how good is that? We shall be visiting shortly. Apparently, you can dress up as a samurai. Prepare for amusing photos! In the meantime though, I've just put up a few pics in the photo section including a movie of the ninja demo.
Oh and yes, Japan is quite cultural too. I had a Maccy Dee's today. The staff are very polite.
