Naoshima: art gallery extrodinaire

A public holiday and my first full day off in several weeks. The first inklings of winter gusted in through the door as I pushed my bike out into the scatterings of rain being harassed by the wind. As we fought against each other on my way to the train station I could see the sky clearing over the sea and sent out a prayer that the weather forecast be right.
Since coming to Japan I have heard many reports of Naoshima; from people travelling through, with the luxury of time that western tourists generally possess. Recently the reports seemed to be more frequent and more outstanding in their praise. I was concerned my hopes would exceed expectations, but at least there was a ferry ride to look forward to, my first time on the sea in much too long.

Naoshima is an island in the middle of the Seto Ohashi Inland Sea. About fifteen years ago a Japanese businessman and art collector, Soichiro Fukutake, asked the famous Osaka based sculptor, Tadao Ando, to collaborate on creating an art retreat. The result is an island devoted to art, where several galleries and museums meld into one against the backdrop of a truly stunning piece of water。

I met two of my students, Yukari and Hisako, at a local train station and we journeyed into Takamatasu together, from where we would catch the ferry. Yukari had organised the complicated itinary, having been to the island many times before, and I was most happy to have such a friendly tour guide. Waiting for the ferry Kevin and I were jumping "waku waku" up and down in excitement; the fever was infectious and it didn't take long before Hisako and Yukari were both equally beamy. I dragged them up on top of the ferry, refusing to sit inside a warm cabin watching TV when there was a perfectly good, icy cold wind to be blasted by. However they didn't share my enthusiasm for long and I soon lost them to the TV. I snuggled deep into my jacket, pulled out my iPod and had a long overdue deep and meaningful with the waves and the sky.
We arrived at the island to be met by a chequerboard of white plastic traffic cones, a recurring theme across Naoshima. Despite all the raves I had heard, I had little idea of what to expect, but was immensely happy to leave all the figuring out to other people, having asked the wind to take away all my preconceptions, hopes and expectations.

We boarded a bus and headed up to the Chichu Art Museum . The first two characters in Japanese mean "earth" and "in" - an underground concrete bunker designed by Tadao Ando that is lit by entirely natural light. The bus dropped us off at a small cafe cum reception, where we were relieved of money and briefed on Chichu etiquette. Then followed a short walk up to the museum itself past a garden that is supposed to represent Monet's impressions of light. Yukari said that everything in the grounds is art, including the leaves artfully dropped by the maples. I asked about the gardeners currently dredging the pond, and their tools and she laughed and said "of course".

The museum itself is inspiring. My favourite work was one of Monet’s waterlily pieces, but to be honest there could have been a picture drawn by a five year old in the frame and I would have been equally impressed - although a la Donald Sutherland I’m pretty into kids masterpieces. The room this particular piece is housed in is all white. The flooring is made up of tiny white square marble tiles and the light filters down through the gap between the walls and the ceiling to be reflected across the room. The result is the most evenly lit exhibition space I have ever seen, no ghastly overhead light reflections to be found here.

Crazy cars

To get the whels rolling, this is my car: the car made for people who need a lot of headrooom, for which there is a dire need in Japan. Called the "Toppo" it likes to go bungee jumping off bridges in high winds, minus the bungee cord. However, it was free, and it gets me from A to B. I especially like the turquoise trim lines. It also has a racing steering wheel, which I do quite like, though a slight delusion of grandeur for a car with only a 600cc engine under the hood. Great milage though.


This is the car parked next to my house. I've heard these referred to as "snails" by fellow gaigin. Check out the headlamps. A car made for couples with narrow shoulders. It reminds me of the three wheeled car my mum had when I was very small.


This pair I spotted on the weekend. Why oh why??? And the colour scheme . . . what is that. Apparently these custom made cars are quite common in Japan and cost a small fortune to modify. But why would you want to.


This one was snapped early this year en route to Okayama. This batmobile is a tad cooler, but still defying explanation.

Feeling blue???

My new favourite brand of coffee...


I think Nescafe could borrow some hints for their marketing campaign.

Superman

The only thing I can compare it too was flying. Not that i've ever sprouted feathers or fists and taken off myself. I've never even had a true flying dream, though I once had a 'learning to fly' dream. Much smoother than flying though. We curved and glided through the stratosphere rather than roaring and bumping into, around and through the air currents. In a curious contradiction, it was one of the most natural forms of transportation I've ever experienced, in a waking dreamlike sense; transitions were blurred and non-logical but fully acceptable. My own somniacal headspace most likely enhanced this non-real state of mind.

Looking off into the distance, we didn't appear to be going very fast, however when I pulled my focus closer to the window and imagined being in a car doing this speed, the experience was exhilarating. I felt as if we were forging a path into the future, keen adventurers all; not in a tacky new technology way - on this sleek machine I could feel the coexistential relationship of time and space as we sliced through the air with our fists; our snake like nose pushing aside the grasses of japanese suburbia as we vanish before a passerby has even registered that they have seen us.


Coming through customs just after 12pm I was informed that the next bus to Marugame wasn't leaving until 2:30pm. A gruelling 4 and a half hour trip meant I wouldn't be home until after 7pm. Instead I would be walking through my front door within an hour of when the bus would have left.

This was my first time on Japan's famous bullet train, the Shinkansen. Capable of speeds up to 300km/h the experience is not cheap, but after blowing so much cash in going to Africa, another $50 on top of the bus fare seemed well worth it. The equivalent of A$100 or US$76 got me smoothly from Kansai airport to my home town. I don't see myself catching the bus again!

Shuji

This is my new Japanese name given to me by my new shuji sensei, Akate Sensei. I started studying calligraphy a couple of weeks ago. The first lesson I began in yochen – kindergarten – but progressed to fourth grade mid way through my second lesson. Everyone says my writing is very good but I think they are being Japanese about it. However, today was my third lesson and I was given the great honour of writing with a fude – brush – for the first time; this seemed incredibly fast to me.

The first picture is my name written in kanji. It is an excerpt from the second photo. It is custom to always write your name next to your writing. These larger characters are the kanji for karate; Sensei asked what character i would like to start with, if there was any character i especially liked. After we talked of the integrating philosophies of karate and shuji she chose the kanji for karate for me. This is one of my first efforts. Hopefully it will get better, however much to my chagrin I am under instruction to show my shuji to my karate sensei. I am worried he will laugh at my beginners efforts.

Practicing my strokes mid last week, it occurred to me that the sweeping movements are very similar to the curves one makes with one’s body in karate. It reminded me of the philosophy in Jet Li’s film “Hero”, where the protagonist studies the calligraphy of his opponent to understand his swordsmanship. Excited by this idea, I started looking up the internet to understand better the connection between the two art forms.



I pulled the following excerpt from a martial arts magazine . . .

"In Shodo, all mistakes are final, just as in the martial arts a mistake ultimately, or at least symbolically, results in the Budoka's death. For this reason, many beginners in calligraphy lack the spiritual strength to paint the character decisively. Each stroke must be delivered like the slash of the bushi's sword, yet the brush must be held in a relaxed manner, as well as manipulated without a loss of controlled calmness. Through rigorous training, a kind of seishin tanren (spiritual forging), the student's mental condition is altered, and this change in consciousness is expected to be carried into the individual's daily life as well. For the Budoka, the added strength and composure, which is cultivated by Japanese calligraphy allows him or her to more instantly respond to an opponent's attack without hesitation. In one sense, the shuji-gami, or calligraphy paper, which is so sensitive that the ink will "bleed" through it in seconds, is one's opponent and the brush one's sword. Every kanji, or character, must be painted with a perfect asymmetrical balance, which like a person's balance in Jujutsu, must be developed until it is maintained on a subconscious level.

"Shodo requires a balanced use of the mind and body, as well as a state of mental and physical integration. As many novices in the martial arts have discovered, it is sometimes rather difficult to make the mind and body work together as a unit. To simply paint a straight line can be a surprising challenge, one that can be accomplished only through a coordination of one's faculties. In Japanese painting and calligraphy, a strongly concentrated mind must control the brush, and a relaxed body must allow the brush to act as an exact reflection of the mind's movement. Shodo, as much as Budo, demands this coordination. Through calligraphy practice, the martial artist has an additional means of realizing the essential harmony of thought and action, and a visible means of illustrating this state of unification at that. To achieve unification of mind and body, of course, demands a positive, concentrated use of the mind, along with a natural and relaxed use of the body. It is this enhancement of concentration and relaxation that many people, including Japanese practitioners of the martial arts, find so appealing."

At Karate, one of my sensei's has remarked several times that my balance is lop-sided, or rather non-existent; after executing a head kick, I always fall too far to one side, and my defence is also one-sided. I blame this on years of riding my bike no-handed, whereby I throw my weight to the left side to counterbalance the weight of the bike which is thrown to the right. Thus am I riding skewift on my saddle. However, swimming laps last night, I noticed that the action of my right arm is noticeably smoother than that of my left, which has considerably less height and grace. I thought back to my teenage years when I sported one of those appallingly long fringes that covered half my face, though hair-sprayed in a tight wave formation. After it was brought to her attention by my hairdresser, my mother was forever nagging me about how I always held my head tilted to one side.

So I continue my musings about balance, sometimes in the pool, sometimes randomly splattered down here for all to pass over. Work at the moment is unbearable, I am caught in the middle of a nasty fight in the staffroom which will see my co-worker quit tomorrow. Normally I would follow suit, to prove a point, but after careful thought I would be quickly replaced and my protest denied. In Japan I am trying to learn patience and cunning; thinking of external consequences for perhaps the first time in my life. I am reading Sun Tzu’s* Art of War again hoping to gain inspiration and also Clavell’s Shogun, allowing myself to be romanced by the fiction of the warrior samurai. After finishing it I will have to read some real history before my mind becomes too tainted by a westerner’s glorified representation of Japanese culture. First however, I want to read Bushido: the way of the samurai. Most of my friends are Japanese; they teach me about select parts of Japanese culture and I teach then about Western; it isn’t until something goes awry and I am part of a complex web of intrigues between Japanese, that I realise the strength of differences in culture.

A break will be good.


* Yes, I realise he's Chinese. However even the Japanese would admit they nicked most of their best ideas from the Chinese.

4 years

Today is 4 years since my dad died.

I miss him heaps.

I hope he would have been proud of me.

Super busy

The last three months have been truly hectic. In April I went from having barely any work, after a nasty falling out with my now ex-boss, to picking up an extra fifteen hours of very well paid work at the Mitoyoshi International Exchange Centre. I got to choose my own hours, the pay increase was significant, the classrooms have real whiteboards and air conditioning and I’m 100% responsible for curriculum; a true luxury. I’m also teaching a really nice mix of adults and kids. For the first time in my teaching career I don’t have any classes that I don’t like.

Then my boss at Mitoyoshi started freaking out about my visa, which incidentally runs out in three weeks. Generally one has their company sponsor their working visa. But I was in the unusual position of working part time for two places, plus a bunch of privates which it’s better that immigration and the tax department don’t know about.

Aya San started pushing me to work full time, so that Mitoyoshi could sponsor my visa. I was dead against this as it means 40hrs in an office. Aarghh. I’d heard of self sponsored visas and started trying to get some information. I went into the immigration office and met with a very unhelpful lady who only served to increase my confusion. I researched the web and was presented with a plethora of theories on how I could get my own working visa. The pressure was beginning to mount. Aya pushed harder and scheduled a meeting to discuss my as yet unsigned part time contract.

At the same time the registration on my car was due to run out, as was my international driving licence. If I didn’t get a visa I’d be looking for a job in a different country. It was all looking very shaky and I was loath to pay out a small fortune getting my car registered if I was to be on the next plane home. However, no car, no job. I had no choice but to gamble on my visa and fork out the necessary cash to get my car inspected and registered. The garage gave me a loan car and apologized because it was a bigger car than mine. Shucks. I had to spend a couple of days driving around in a much nicer car.

For the meeting with Aya San, he brought in an American colleague to interpret. Thad San explained that Mitoyoshi had two major concerns. One was that I didn’t have a sponsor for my visa and might suddenly find myself without right of residence, the other was that they really wanted a full time teacher from September. I was their first choice, but if I declined the offer they would find someone else and couldn’t guarantee my hours. They were playing me and I felt like I was completely backed into a corner. I explained that I had already signed a contract with Fuzuoka elementary school, and it would be a breach of faith I wasn’t prepared to make, to go back on that agreement after they had been so good to me. This was something Aya was aware of and intimated that I might be allowed to keep working there. A compromise was in the making. Thad suggested I go away and write down a list of requirements and we would reconvene.

Next hurdle: driving licence. First I had to go into Takamatsu, almost an hour away, to get my Australian licence translated. I finally found the place after driving around forever in the early monsoon rains; it only took 10 minutes to do, but they charged me the equivalent of $35 for the privilege. And I thought I was making good money! Then I had to book an appointment with a translator at the driving licence centre. They didn’t have any translators available so I would have to take a colleague with me to translate.


I re-met with Thad and Aya, and to my surprise, they agreed to all my requests. I asked for more money than they had originally offered, tuesday and thursday evenings free and I would get to keep working at Fuzuoka. I left on cloud nine. I felt appreciated as a teacher for the first time in a long time and released from the visa stress that had been quietly eating away at my general contentment.

Kumiko and I had an appointment for one pm at the driver’s licence centre, and duly rocked up twenty minutes early, not wanting to be late. When we arrived the receptionist woke the guy from his lunchtime nap to report our arrival, so in retaliation he made us wait until 20 minutes after our appointment time. I had heard that it was relatively easy for Australians and Canadians to obtain a Japanese driving licence. In contrast, Americans are made to do a physical driving test and then drive around on the equivalent of a provisional licence for a year.

I was forewarned to expect lots of questions about the process involved in getting an Australian driver’s licence, but was totally unprepared for everything else. First I was asked for my passport, and then asked if I had a second. I lied and said I didn’t; partially because I hadn’t brought it with me, and secondly, because I don’t want Japanese immigration to know about it. Just in case!!! The we went through my passport in detail. He wanted to know every country I’d ever been to, since getting my licence 15 years ago. Plus he wanted the exact dates of entrance and exit of every country and the duration there stayed. Was this really necessary???? This alone took half an hour. I was glad I hadn’t ‘fessed to my second passport! He took all my documents off to be photocopied and sent us out into the hallway to wait. During this time he also had a second elevenses, lunch and afternoon tea. Then came questions about my medical health. Did I have to have a health check to get a driver’s licence he asked. No. Only an eye test. Why not? Because we don’t go to the hospital every time our foot itches, I wanted to testily reply, but managed to hold my tongue.

Then I was interrogated about the procedure of getting a licence; why Australia doesn’t have a national driving school and it’s okay for your parents to teach you to drive. I was made to feel that the Australian system was sorely inadequate and it took all my will power not to launch into a full scale attack of Japanese drivers and their completely inconsiderate and dangerous driving habits. It fine to stop your car in the middle of a main road whilst you jump out to go and do your week’s shopping, park in the middle of a blind corner; orange lights mean speed up; indicators are there to look pretty and best used in the middle of a turn; and it’s safer to drive much faster in the middle of monsoon rain because the less time you spend on the road the smaller the chance of having an accident. However I didn’t.

Somewhere deep within I mustered a patience I didn’t know before had existed. I tried to explain that we have red light and speed cameras everywhere and the government uses driving fines as a major source of income. I really wanted to, but didn’t mention that most Japanese drivers would lose their licence within a week in Australia.

Then came the punch line. He looked at my licence and asked about the picture on it. That’s me I said. No the motif in the background. Oh, I don’t know – wakaranai – I guess its a plant. He wanted to know what sort of plant, why it was there, the Latin name, what the plant had for breakfast every morning. GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!! We were released and told to come back in a week.

A week later and they had invented a different kind of bureaucracy. This time it involved filling in forms, going to different places to pay different monies, a tedious treasure hunt cum wild goose chase around the building. The eye test was both interesting and harrowing. I realised on the way up the stairs to the eye test line that it was hardly likely to be in roman characters. I decided they probably wouldn’t have it in kanji either, but one of the syllabic alphabets: hiragana or katakana. I still get them mixed up and was freaking out that a reading mistake would be taken as a seeing mistake. Instead they had 3 sided squares; one has to state which side is open: ue (top) shita (bottom) hidari (left) or migi (right). In Japanese I’m hidari-migi dyslexic and was sweating throughout the ordeal, pointing the direction, even though the tester was behind a screen and couldn’t see me.

When I was finally sent off with my brand new licence I was reassured to note that driving licence pictures are equally bad the world over!!

By this time I was feeling much more confident about my chances of extending my stay in Japan. Aya San sent me off to immigration with my visa extension form already filled out and a preliminary version of my contract, some last minutes details still under negotiation. I had a list of everything I needed to take and ironed a shirt especially. It was decided they couldn’t spare a translator and that I would be okay by myself. When I got there I found myself talking to the friendly guy who can speak really good English, who handled my original application twelve months earlier, as opposed to the unhelpful woman whose English is worse than my Japanese. This time however, his English ability seemed to have waned considerably. I decided this must be the first unofficial test. I was applying for a three year visa so i wouldn’t have to go through all this stress again, and I figured they make sure you’re making an effort to learn the language before handing out such a privilege. I think I did okay. My Japanese isn’t good, but it’s passable for the twelve month mark.

We went through all the forms and I was sent of to the big desk to submit my collection of documents. So far so good. Then I struck the iceberg. Aya San had forgotten to date the contract. On top of which I had been forgetting to take my little smiley helpers. This guy didn’t speak a word of English and didn’t seem inclined to get someone who did. He kept repeating the same sentence over and over again and I kept saying I didn’t understand. He was saying something about bringing or taking or returning by I wasn’t sure which and what it was I was supposed to be doing this to. I didn’t have the office phone number with me – that hadn’t been on the list – and I’m ashamed to say I kinda panicked and freaked out. Later that day I had a huge fight with Aya over pay/contractual discrepancies and walked into my adult evening classes in tears. I went home and got very drunk by myself whilst Italy toyed with Australia and I chatted on the net. The next day my liver fell over.

I tried to explain to my students that bad things always happen in threes, but they don’t believe me.

six point three

I learnt a new, very important word today: jishin.

I awoke this morning to feel my building swaying; an odd, lilting motion. Normally groggy and bleary for a while when sleep finally releases me from her clutches, I was awake instantly. Petrified, watching the light above my head swinging crazily. Outside everything was deathly still.

I waited, pinned on my back, for the sound of falling, breaking, objects; and marvelled in a fascinated horror at the way my room was rocking from side to side, aware that there were four stories above me. If I got out of the house, would the whole building, or rather, fragments of the building, bury me in rubble, left to wait for emergency crews?; surely if I stayed inside the same fate awaited me?

Time stood still.
I flashed back to that day in the shower in Sydney, the day a huge track rumbled past the back of our house and everything vibrated for miles around. My mother thought I had tapped her on the shoulder and turned around to find no-one there but hear the sound of water from upstairs. That truck was so big it caused half of Newcastle – a city three hours north – to collapse.

This morning there was no doubt. The building was still swaying rhythmically and I mused that it must have been built to the legendary Japanese safety standards. Would it never end? I felt we had been rocking for over a minute. How distorted was time at this moment? Perhaps it had only been three or four seconds? No, it must have been at least thirty. By now I felt vaguely safer; my room was still intact and appeared unfazed by the tremor. Though the whole building was still moving with the earth, it didn’t appear to be about to come crashing down. As it settled back onto its foundations, the light above me kept swaying crazily, now creaking as inertia took over and twisted the cable. It stubbornly prolonged the experience.

I heard the sounds of doors opening above me as neighbours timidly checked outside for signs of carnage, chattered quietly and nervously among themselves and soon satisfied, went, presumably, back to bed.

Reaching over to read my watch it said 6:00. I desperately wanted to talk to someone. I desperately wanted to talk to my mum. Then I realised it was only 5:00. I stared at my surroundings for a long time, savouring my shock, feeling small and helpless; the child in me wanting to hide in my mothers skirts, the adult knowing I would only worry her.

Then came my justification. If she heard about it on the news first and couldn’t contact me, surely she would be more worried . . .

She took a long time to answer, and when she did, I broke into sobs, desperately trying to quell them, as she, groggy as I normally would be at this hour, tried to fathom who was disturbing her sleep.

We talked for a while about non consequential things, and I, like a small child who has had a nightmare, gradually calmed down and felt reality creep back into the world. Searching the internet as we spoke, there was nothing yet. The news was only half an hour old, if indeed it were news. I went back to bed and fell into a long deep slumber.

When I awoke, many hours later, I searched the internet again in vain. Finally I found a thirty second piece on the BBC Radio headline news.
“A strong earthquake has been felt in Southern and Western Japan shaking the city of Hiroshima. The quake, with a magnitude of 6.3, was centred deep below the island of Kooshu [sic]. Several people were injured, but there were no reports of any deaths. Some railway lines were temporarily closed for safety checks.”

Mum told me it was a public holiday today in Australia. I wondered for an instant if it were in honour of the soccer. Was the earthquake an omen? But the holiday was only for the Queen's Birthday.

Nothing special, as the Japanese like to remark.

Cherry Blossoms

Hanami is one of the most important cultural events in the Japanese calandar. Juniors are reputably sent early in the morning, to save spaces for their more senior company members at famous cherry viewing locations, where competition is savage for a good pozzie.

I was excitably looking forward to this tradition, especially when a friend asked me to go to a mountain up the coast for hanami.

We went to Shiundeyama with a car load full of good things to eat. Along the way, we oohed and ahhed at the trees showing off their delicate new clothing on the roadsides and nestled into temple courtyards. Unfortunately, though the week before Spring had burst forward with clear skies and a warming sun, this Sunday chose to be cold and windy, the skies stained by yellow dust that had blown over from China.

We arrived at the bottom of the mountain and were met with a traffic jam up the mountainside, new cars only being allowed up as others decended, due to a shortage of parking space at the top. Luckily, some people seemed to be in a rush to cram as many blossoms as possible into their hanami experience and we didn't have to wait long as the dedicated zoomed off to other locations.

The previous evening had been stormy and seemed to have taken its toll on the flowers at the summit: those on the way up were much more impressive. Hungry, we pegged out a spot and laid out a veritable feast of snacks. Omae San had brought hot coffee, which was much more welcome to me as I had come poorly equipped in the clothing department: the previous week had lulled me into believing spring had arrived. I was huddling further and further into a cardigan I had thrown in the car as an afterthought.

We ate lunch, complimented each other on the food and completed the requisite promenade of the mountain top. Standing around shivering, I was told we were waiting for an event, though I've forgotten it's name. Sorry. Basically it consisted of a bunch of people on the stage – where previously old people had been crooning painful old-style karaoke – throwing mochi (pounded rice) into the crowd. The effect this produced resembled the water churning, thrashing effect of carp being fed. The older generations in the crowd were the most vicious, several times clusters of people crashed to the ground as they fought over these airborne offerings. One old man near me, with an armfull of stash, he must have been over 70, nearly ripped my fingers off as he gouged at a packet of chips I bent to retrieve; I exagerate not.

I never thought Japanese, so seemingly polite, were capable of such barbarism. However, no-one was seriously hurt and my little group scored some of the treasure.

I currently have a bigger version of the top image sitting on my desktop as wallpaper. If you ask nicely I can send a copy.

Hina Matsuri

March 3rd was traditionally Girl’s Day, a national holiday when families pray for the health and happiness of their daughters. Nowadays it is no longer a holiday but the Hina Doll Festival is still celebrated. Families display sets of dolls that have often been handed down through generations, and make offerings of fresh mochi (rice cakes) coloured green, white and pink and cut into diamond shapes. The red/pink is for chasing evil spirits away, the white is for purity, and the green is for health. The sets of dolls are displayed on a five or seven tiered stand covered in red carpet, like a small set of stairs leading up to where the Emporer and Empress perch on the top step. The next step contains three court ladies, followed by five musicians, two ministers, and three servants ending the bottom row in a five-tiered display. Some of the older dolls I saw were over 100 years old.

Hina Matsuri, like many things Japanese, was a cleansing custom originally imported from China: a girl’s imperfections are passed into a paper doll which was subsequently floated down the river. In some regions the custom is still practiced. My friend Omae San invited me to view the Hina Doll Festival in the neighbouring town of Utazu. The weekend after the 3rd, families and businesses within the old part of the town had opened up their homes for the general public to view their displays. To be honest, I was much more interested in seeing the inside of Japanese homes than in viewing the doll sets; many newer versions I had seen for sale in stores, and considered a tad gaudy for my taste. We went to the Utazu Town Office to drink some ceremonial sake and collect a map of the walking route. Some 80 or 90 residences were partaking in the festival. It was a beautiful late winter’s Sunday, crisp and blue, pleasant in the sun, a tad nippy in the shade. Our first stop was a very large, old house that has been restored as a museum of some sort. Guides were on hand to explain the history of the dolls and the house, and between their exuberance, Omae San’s patchy English and my delinquent Japanese I think I became more confused than enlightened. I spent a lot of time nodding my head enthusiastically and spouting Ahh sooo desu ne, guessing at meanings that an occasional ray of understanding would splinter into beautiful rainbow textured shards.

In the first main room, a women dressed in a kimono, knelt in front of a Koto, a thirteen stringed zither like instrument, which she was delicately playing. It lent a perfect atmosphere to this perfectly preserved old house built around a central garden, the rocks, moss and stone pools the zen image of how a Japanese garden should look. The corridors that edged the house double as an insulation barrier; large windows letting in light, the rooms themselves separated by sliding paper screens that can be opened or removed to allow ventilation and more or less light as desired.

We finally head back outside and followed the meandering groups of people drifting here and there. Some houses had a small display viewable through a window, others had devoted whole rooms to the hospitality of their collections. A few stores had joined in the celebrations; I particularly enjoyed the contrast created by this small grocery store that had forsaken product space for doll space, and a fish shop that had managed to squeeze in a display.

One of the last houses we visited was home to a women who had spent some time studying in Australia, some years back. On display they had a picture painted by an old man of the district, which she insisted on giving to me. It being Sunday afternoon, the Matsuri was drawing to a close and she had been looking for a suitable home for this piece. In a gesture of international solidarity, I a chance stranger she had just met, was to be the recipient of this gift. She also made the gift through Omae San, so I wasn’t really sure if she was giving it to me or not until we walked outside and Omae San presented it to me. Another instance of the generosity of spirit of the Japanese people that has made me feel so welcome since I have been here.
Thank you.

Neighborhood Beautification

As I walk back to my apartment after work, a little old lady is walking in front of me, hunched over from too many years in the rice paddies perhaps. She carries an extra long pair of BBQ tongs and a paper bag. As I walk behind watching, she stops and hunches even further over to pick up a stray cigarette butt someone has discarded into the gutter and deposits it into her paper bag.

Hiroshima

An early morning, a later than expected start, a long day. But omoshiroii.

It was my first time across the Seto Ohashi Bridge, that which I have gazed at, run towards and made partway across upon a wayward train. Actually I think it was my Kanji reading ability that was wayward. This mammoth engineering feat, part of a massive road expansion scheme last century, comprises 12km of adjoining bridges which cross from Shikoku to Honshu. As I may have previously mentioned, Shikoku was the backwater until 1988, when many of those reading this would have been caught up in a hype of an altogether different kind. Most in Japan still regard those from my home island as country bumpkins, and after the coolness Hiroshimians displayed today, I would be inclined to agree. But who wants to live in a big city anyway?

However, as big cities go, it struck me (in a very fast day) as a pretty liveable place. It’s surrounded by mountains, and the longest tunnels I’ve yet encountered in Japan, some over 2km. However, being guided around by your Japanese friend in a very comfortable car with nabe, jostling from carpark to carpark, possibly isn’t the best way to get a good impression of a place. The pleb in me would much rather have been getting lost on the tram system. Despite nabe, we still managed to get lost though. Nabe is a navigation system that tells you where you are and how to get where you want. All the important places of interest are included, from the Peace Park to the major department stores. Pretty much all new cars have one and Japanese aren’t big on old cars. A calm woman’s voice interrupts your conversations to politely tell you where and when to turn, when you’ve arrived somewhere, etc. It also doubles as a TV in case the batteries on your keitai (cell phone) are flat and you need an electronic device to distract you whilst you’re driving. I guess a tv would keep the kids quiet forever when you subsequently run into a concrete tunnel wall.

So speaking of death and destruction, our first stop in Hiroshima was the Memorial Peace Park. If I sound a tad cynical it’s probably because my emotional defences are pretty high after seeing too many photographs and relics of scorched and mangled bodies.

My friends scored themselves a volunteer guide and though I was quite happy picking up about 20% percent of what she was saying (my Japanese is slowly getting better) and reading the helpful English explanations lining the walls, they decided this was too important an occasion and the gist would not suffice, so I got my own personal guide and we were subsequently parted.

Hiroshima has historically been a military centre of power. The Sino-Japanese war and the following Manchurian invasion were launched from here. When the Pacific War broke out in 1941, Hiroshima served again as an important military base. And when the Americans were looking for a place to drop a devastating weapon, Hiroshima served a number of important criteria. It was more than three and a half kilometres wide and surrounded by mountains, this making it an excellent guinea pig city on which to test their new toy. Most importantly, intelligence indicated that Hiroshima was the only military stronghold that contained no POW camps. I guess dropping the world’s first atomic bomb on your own people is bad for PR.

Keiko San, my guide, spent a lot of time telling me how nasty the Japanese soldiers had historically been in conflict. It made me feel uncomfortable hearing this peaceable women denigrate her fellow countrymen so. She went on and on about the atrocities the Japanese had committed and I wondered if she hadn’t been to some modern day Clockwork correction camp. The Koreans who are outraged by Koyazumi’s visits to the war shrine to pay respect, because a small number of known war criminals are included in the list of soldiers, should listen to this women if they want proof of how contrite the Japanese are. But that’s a different debate that I don’t understand completely.

The Japanese, like most people, are fiercely proud of their culture and identity. I asked Keiko San how it felt, day after day, telling the world (for their were tourists from all over) what bad people the Japanese were. For her, the essence was in the tense; the Japanese were, but now are not.

After the Japanese surrendered, a couple of days after Nagasaki was likewise flattened, a contingent of peacekeeping soldiers was sent into Japan to restore order. Keiko San described how the Hiroshimians were scared of the soldiers that were to be sent over because they expected them to loot, pillage and rape, as is the wont of soldiers. Instead, she said, the people were surprised by a bunch of friendly Australians, and here she went into raptures over how wonderful the Aussies were. I felt ill and embarrassed.

It was weird. The Japanese, though they had changed, would forever have to bear the shame of past atrocities; whilst the Australians, for once being of good behaviour, would always be heroes to these people. I tried to explain about recent conflict in the Middle East, how Australians are as base as anyone, but that didn’t matter. My brain was unsuccessfully searching for a sixth gear as I tried to mesh these juxtaposing attitudes. For the first time in Japan I felt truly culturally alienated from the Japanese. Most things I don’t understand in Japan I put down – perhaps ignorantly – to ignorance. But this wasn’t a question of lack of information or communicational ability. We just thought differently. Not as I might have a different opinion to someone with a similar educational and cultural background, but on a different planet. And I spent the rest of the week trying to get my head around this.

Keiko San was a peace activist and an anti-nuclear activist. Her grandmother had been one the of survivors of the bomb, but like many, was too traumatised to talk about it. Keiko San, like many of the next generation, had taken it upon herself to educate about the dangers of nuclear capabilities. I told her about Jabiluka, of which she hadn’t heard, and instead of convincing her of the evilness of the Australian Government, it confirmed me as a fellow activist and she found that sixth gear I was still looking for. Unfortunately I wasn’t in the mood to be preached at and soon got tired of her well intentioned but slightly jarring hypes for peace. I believe there’s more chance of the Bush family giving over their entire fortune to provide AIDS relief in Africa than there is of us ever finding world peace through love and enlightenment.

Having said that, don’t get me wrong, I think what Keiko and her colleagues are doing is bloody excellent. These people give up vast tracts of their time to educate the rest of the world about the effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. Just because I don’t agree with all her views, doesn’t mean I consider them less relevant. It takes a whole planet of people to change our world and there can never be one true formula.

We continued to pass by remains of clothing, photos of burnt and charred bodies, and a museum full of emotionally plaguing material. However, I didn’t need to see this stuff and was more interested in learning about the radiation effects After spending several years hearing how the half life of radiation dug up from Jabiluka would last 20,000 years - more of less by a few thousand years - I have always been curious how it possible for a city to be rebuilt on a site where a bomb was exploded, whilst the area around Chernobyl will never be habitable whilst our species is still writing history. Unfortunately Keiko was unable to give me an answer so had to turn to the internet:

The initial radiation from the explosion lasted for a minute and the strongest effects were felt within a radius of one km from the hypocentre. The residual radiation lasted for 100 hours; anyone who came within this zone during this period also suffered from radiation exposure. However, irradiation of soil and buildings is caused from the absorption of radioactive neutrons. “Neutrons comprise 10% or less of A-bomb radiation . . . in contrast, gamma rays--which comprise the majority of A-bomb radiation--do not cause ground materials to become radioactive.” *
Thus most of the radioactivity decayed quickly and the levels of residual radiation in Hiroshima are less than normal background levels.

The last part of the tour was dedicated to a little girl called Sadako. She was a baby when the bomb struck, though suffered no noticeable effects. At age 12 she suddenly developed leukaemia, then known as A-Bomb disease. As you would be, she was super scared as all those who had contracted the disease had died. Her friend told her of a legend whereby if a sick person folds 1000 paper cranes, they will get better. She died having folded only 644 cranes.

Her friends started folding cranes to honour her memory and word soon spread. Money streamed in from all over the world and 3 years later a monument was built in Sadako’s memorial. Every year children from all around the world send cranes to be placed at the memorial annually on August 6th, Hiroshima Day.

We had ostensibly come to Hiroshima to do some shopping for Yuka Chan’s work, (this is her grinning expectantly on the left) things she couldn’t get on Shikoku. When I asked why we hadn’t gone to Okayama or Osaka, two big cities much closer, she made various asides about traffic and the difficulty of driving, and then grinned and said “Okonomiyaki.” Each region has it’s own speciality dish that cannot be made authentically outside of that region. To eat Sanuki Udon outside of Sanuki, the old name for the region I live in, is considered a heresy. People come from all over Japan to eat Udon noodles in Kagawa, and similarly, we had come to Hiroshima to eat Okonomiyaki.

Rather like a pancake style sandwich, it’s made on a hotplate that doubles as the bench at which you sit. The smiling women seemed quite used to having their photos taken and I went a bit nuts with my camera as they prepared this elaborate dish in front of us, the hotplate between us and them. The pancake batter serves as the top and bottom, in between lies a veritable feast of cabbage, vegetables and most importantly, according to Hiroshima style, fried noodles of the ramen variety. It’s usual to include large quantities of beef, bacon and seafood in between, but this of course was out for me. The whole thing was topped of with slatherings of Special Okonomiyaki Sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed and spring onions. When ready it was cut into four quarters and slid across the hotplate, where you eat it then and there. Can’t get much fresher really.
Yum!* If you’re more interested in radiation effects, I found this information at a little site put together by Hiroshima International School. Thank you.

A Sunday morning run

It was an icy cold morning. As we drove out to the stadium there was a thick layer of frost on the fallow fields, waiting for the soba sowing. It was much too cold to be running. Manabe Sensei picked me up at 8:30 in the morning; we had to register an hour before the race began at 10:30, and the roads were packed.

The occupants of the cars all around us were fitted out in designer running gear. Manabe San was wearing a brand new pair of runners, bought especially for the occasion. They were crisp and white like the harsh light attacking me through the windows. I wanted to drop them in a muddy puddle for him, but remembered we were in Japan and crisp white sneakers were cool here. My own, though in perfectly good repair, looked somewhat shabby. I’d spent a fair bit of money on them a year ago in lieu of paying fees for a gym I didn’t like. Since then they had been running on beaches, roads, next to the lake at Mum’s place and through the dusty Australian bush. They weren’t a fashion statement despite the expensive logo that could get me into trouble with many of my peers. I didn’t even own a pair of trackpants. A decision I was regretting as I looked out at the frosty soil. I’d looked in the sports stores, but reused to outlay upwards of $60 on clothing I would probably only wear around my house.

At the end of last year Manabe Sensei had come into school proudly bearing an English copy of an application form for the Marugame Half Marathon, and invited me to run with him. It would be the 60th Anniversary and therefore somewhat of an event. The organisers were keen for gaigin to participate and had therefore waived the entry fee for anyone not of Japanese decent. Winter hadn’t kicked in yet and I agreed enthusiastically, not realising it was scheduled for the coldest part of the Japanese calendar. There was a 1km race for kids and then the adults were split into 3km, 5km and 20km races. I’d only been running for a year, since Sebast, my housemate, and I, had been dragging each other up and down Merri Creek, in efforts to run off hangovers when we were capable. I would literally die before I could complete the half marathon. However I’d been running out to the mouth of the river pretty regularly, a distance of about 3km, so decided to up the ante and set myself a challenge. With some trepidation I ticked the 5km box.

I began training that day. We had thirty five minutes to complete the course. I asked one of the maths teachers to help me work out the times, my own skills having fallen into disrepair. I had to run at 8.7km/hr to complete the race in the allocated time. This was a matter of some concern. I knew after the first kilometre I would probably fall back to a tortoise pace. I took my sneakers back home for Christmas and ran everyday in the sweltering heat. Just after returning to Japan, I ran 5km for the first time in my life, at the gym. Actually I ran about three, slowed down to a walk for a couple hundred metres, ran some more, walked some, ran some, walked some etc. But I did it just under the thirty five minute limit. I was going to make it.

Then I was knocked flat on my back by the bout of flu currently doing the rounds. For almost a week I did nothing but sleep and sweat, playing with delirium all night after sleeping all day. I lost two kilos in about three days. A week before the race I was still coughing my lungs up after doing anything more strenuous that a casual walk, and even then sometimes! My cough had turned bronchial and seemed quite happy residing in the moist warm depths of my chest. I was scaring the staff at the gym by falling off the treadmill during heavy fits of phlegm exorcism. But I knew the only way to get healthy was to get fit again quickly and chase and sweat the germs out of my body.

We found the registration desk and went in search of coffee, a feat harder than one would expect in Japan. I had to participate in some dumb parade showing off the international community. We descended the steps and I spotted a union jack next to the southern cross. I went over to join my fellow Australasians to discover we were from the same continent but not country. How completely embarrassing. In front of the Vice Principal of the most prestigious elementary school in the prefecture, I had mistaken the Kiwi flag for the Aussie. I waited for the ground to swallow me up but instead found myself at the front of the procession with the two other A for Australians.

The Marugame Half Marathon is an important race. I don’t understand how running competitions work, but it attracts international athletes. I was told many times that day that the Japanese Olympic Gold Medal Winner for marathon running would be attending. Ironically no-one I talked to was really sure whether she had won at Sydney or Athens, or what her name was. So with V.I.P.s watching, we had to walk around the track waving and smiling at the crowd. If I could only find that hole in the ground. Luckily it was over pretty quickly and then we were all kidnapped and taken below the bleachers to receive our race numbers. That however, took an inordinately long time, and I wondered whether this was some fiendish plan to rid Kagawa of gaigin. When I finally escaped and headed back to where Manabe San had said e would meet me, he had long given up and gone off looking for me. Luckily I met Miyazaki Sensei, another teacher from the school, and he did the tricky mobile phone thing and we all met up.

The race itself was horrible. I was under fit and under prepared. Despite the offer to run together, Manabe San and Miyazaki San both shot off at the beginning leaving me to try and find my own steady pace within a surge of bodies. We ran around the track inside the stadium once and out and up the road. However, before completing the first 400 metres, I knew I didn’t have the energy for this today and it was going to be hell. I trundled along watching as legs upon legs ran past me. I tried not to think about competing and only of finishing. Most depressing was the bandy legged old man of at least 70, I kid you not, whom I couldn’t seem to catch up with.

About a third the way through the race I head encouraging screams of “Kirstie! Ganbaru!” do your best, and the beaming faces of my landlords clutching homemade Australian flags. I grinned back, afraid to put my lungs under anymore pressure, and found an extra spurt of energy for my legs. Hirata Naohisa San had to work that day, but his mother, wife and young son were there with bells on. These guys would have to be the nicest people I know in Japan. They’re just super friendly, always helpful, always interested in my life, past and present, always giving me gifts of some sort and seem genuinely concerned for my welfare.

By now there were runners coming back down the road I was battling up. Clearly there was a turning point somewhere in the distance. I started thinking about slowing down to a walk, but no-one around me seemed to be doing likewise. Everyone was persistently keeping their legs bouncing up and down and there crowds of people watching along the sidelines. I seemed to be attracting more cries than most of Gambaru! Perhaps because I was a gaigin, perhaps because I looked closer than most to falling over backwards. However I felt that if I walked I would be letting all these people down too. I’m in Japan, the land of perfection and perseverance. I couldn’t just give up, even for 100 metres. And so I kept up a vague pretence of running.

As we headed back to the stadium, race clocks on the side of the road read over thirty minutes. I knew I was running slowly, but I didn’t think I was doing that badly. As we headed back the clocks were over forty and all I wanted to do was finish in under 50 minutes. I headed back through the entrance and hoped that the finish line would be soon. There were orange cones dividing up the race track, and as I tried to cross over to where everyone seemed to be collapsing, a fellow runner indicated that we had to run around the track one more time. That last 400 metres was pure hell, and if it wasn’t for my new running buddy by my side i don’t think I would have made it. Back inside the stadium, with thousands of people in the stands watching, there was no way I could walk now.

Finally however, I made it, and immediately keeled over and coughed up a couple of litres of crap from my lungs. Manabe San and Miyazaki San found me and ran off to collect some water for me from the free stand. I went off to deposit the nifty technological attachment to my shoelaces that somehow had registered my time for me. There must have been sensors at the beginning end and halfway points. As the clock was now reading 48 minutes I was severely disappointed in myself and just wanted to get home to a hot bath. As the sweat cooled on my body and the reality of a cold winter’s day seeped into my bones I once again regretted not having bought those expensive trackpants to run in.

When Manabe Sensei had picked me up he had invited me out to lunch with him and his family after the race. I wondered what we were standing around waiting for when the first of the half marathon runners came zooming into the stadium. They were amazing. They had just run twenty kilometres but were still running faster than I could probably sprint in a fifty metre dash, if I really had to catch a bus, say. Their muscles gleamed under shiny sweaty skin and the first runner crossed line in a time of one hour. Wow! That means they ran at 20km/hr for an hour straight. It was then the two teachers at my side told me that the clock hadn’t been showing my time at all, but that of the real race contestants. I felt somewhat better.

We headed off past the results computers and had a card printed out showing our stats. I had run a time of 32 minutes 21 seconds, my best time ever despite being sick. Unfortunately I came 130th/180 female competitors. Already thinking about next year I decided I wanted to get below thirty minutes. Cold and weary, but content, Manabe Sensei and I bade farewell to Miyazaki Sensei and went off to meet his wife and daughter for beer and pizza. In the car we looked forward to respectively well deserved lazy afternoons of warm couches and videos.

Kyoto

I dropped my pack at the hotel, but still had several hours before I would be allowed a bed to rest upon. So I wandered into the midst of downtown Kyoto and found myself on the main drag, surrounded by classy department stores. Impressive, but not what I had come to see. I struck off down a side street and came across a long undercover market selling every variety of Japanese food available. I was in heaven. Rice crackers, rice vinegar, rice wine, different grades of plain rice, rice pounded into mochi. Unidentifiable pickled vegetables, candies in minute design, barbequed skewered things, bread crumbed deep fried things. Some things packaged in layers upon layers, others opened for the prodding. There’s an essence of foreign food markets that tantalises the senses and emphasizes the differences between cultures more than anything else. At such times I have mixed feelings about my vegetarianism. So many intriguing delicacies, so many that strike my stomach with fear and loathing! The camera came out and went click, click, click. A synthesized digital click to make the 35mm fan feel more comfortable. But the click is the same length whether the shutter speed is one sixtieth or one five hundredth. Somewhat disconcerting.

I wound through back alleyways, through funky clothing districts, Gion, the theatre district, where I went chasing after Kabuki dancers in the touristy mission of another photograph. At first I thought they were Geisha, felt myself transported back into a more romantic era, the quintessence of the foreign conception of Japan. Geisha in Gion tripping down narrow alleyways in the impending evening to entertain wealthy, if not noble, men in teahouses scattered in quiet corners. But the surroundings were nothing like I’d imagined in the library of Japanese novels I’d been reading over the past fours years. But I was finally here and it was deliciously different and despite hoards of tourists, cars, modern buildings et al I was here - mind, body and spirit entwined.

I finally ended up outside Yasaka Shrine and Maruyama Park. Whilst looking for a toilet I found a noteworthy sign:
What to do in case of an earthquake.
Don’t rush outside.
Quickly put out fire.
Help neighbours.

The name Kobe came to mind, a city not so far away, forever connected to the idea of earthquakes in Japan, as Hiroshima and Nagasaki will always call forth more menacing connections. Over the next couple of days I would see these earthquake signs in localities all over Kyoto. I wondered why we didn’t have them on my little backwoods island of Shikoku. Were Japanese earthquakes too short ranged to reach the couple hundred kilometres away? Or does my country bumpkin island not rate as significant. The Marugame Earthquake. It doesn’t have quite the same ring. I hope. Thank goodness there’s only the Inland Sea between us and Kobe and not the Indian Ocean.

The steps leading up to the shrine were packed, as was the immediate complex. However a short walk towards the park and I found myself in a deserted temple complex and carried into my own personal nook of serenity. I breathed deep and long and moved on. I found a carp pond in the adjoining park and rested my weary legs on a sunny rock, hours of travel finally taking their toll.

Back at the hotel I was astonished and delighted to find the Book of Buddha in my bedside drawer, printed in both English and Japanese. I donned my yukatta and wriggled beneath a comfortingly heavy quilt.

The next morning I awoke refreshed and happy! In Kyoto! A day of sightseeing ahead of me. I love these days where you wake up and know, for the whole day, you have only yourself to answer to. Yesterday I had my aimless wander; the joy of coming across unexpected adventures, today it was time for a more structured approach. A guidebook and several maps were in order, as was coffee and breakfast. In a cafe next to Kyoto Station, drinking bad coffee and munching on pancakes that had barely sniffed the advertised maple syrup, I decided two allocated destinations were necessary: a temple and a garden. Trying for anything more on a cold blustery day was foolishly begging for sore feet and over kill. Kyoto should be like dessert, where the exquisite aftertaste of a morsel is far preferable to feeling weary and bloated.

Kinkaku (Golden Pavilion) is the most famous temple in Kyoto. The day before I had seen hoards of tourists piling on buses bound there. Kinkaku was out. Leafing through assorted literature I found a temple that had a hall filled with 1001 female warriors, Sanjusangen Do. Destination number 1. Having seen enough sculpted trees to last a lifetime, a rock garden was my second priority, and thus destination number 2 would be Ryoanji Temple. As the temples were at either end of the city, I would also get to spend my day hopping on and off buses, hopefully getting lost in the meantime, a favourite pastime in strange cities.

Sanjusangen do was a long wooden hall. The name is derived from the architectural style and the thirty three spaces between the columns that support the building. There are 1001 statues of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, each carved from cypress and coated with lacquer. In front of this army of goddesses are twenty eight other Hindu and Buddhist deities and in the middle is a huge Buddha. The original temple was burned down in 1249, but a faithful copy was reconstructed a short time after and has been standing ever since. No photos were allowed, which increased the atmosphere of reverence the temple had. A lone monk sat chanting in front of the central Buddha, and the air was filled with the smell of cedar wood and the continually burning candles and incense. Despite the unending procession of visitors the temple held a heavy aura of calm. As I regretfully left the building I felt as if time had slowed to half speed.

I left Sanjusangen do and crossed the city on a maze of buses. Luckily the bus drivers were pretty helpful and they also had guides at the main tourist interchange points. Walking up the drive towards Roanji do, the bushes sheltered patches of snow from the sunlight struggling valiantly down from above. The rock garden at Roanji do is probably the most famous Zen rock garden of its type. It comprises 15 rocks surrounded by a sea of gravel. I was looking forward to serenely contemplating this panorama for a long time and finding some zen of my own. Unfortunately they were currently renovating the garden wall, which left this classic scene with a backdrop of tarps and scaffolding which somewhat killed the effect. The bustling, chattering crowd wedged onto a viewing platform at one side of the garden made any form of meditation impossible. I took a couple of interesting shots of the effect the line partially melted snow made across the gravel and headed off to explore the rest of the gardens. I found the beautiful Kyoyochi Pond, partially frozen over with mountainous rocks artfully protruding above the surface. Overhead, a late persimmon tree was showing off the last of its fruit.

It was still only early afternoon when I wandered out of Roanji do, and as I was in the immediate area I hopped on a bus up the road to Rokuon-ji do which houses the famed Kinkaku, or Golden Temple, so named because its walls are literally coated with a thick coat of gold. It has recently been restored and given a golden coat thicker than the original. On this crisp blue winter’s day the temple gleamed strikingly from its perch on the edge of the lake. The crowds jostling for position in the best vantage points couldn’t take away from the magnificence of this edifice and I was heartily glad I had come. I bought a postcard for my mum in the giftshop and found another score for myself; an English language cookbook on Japanese temple cooking, all of which, in true buddhist tradition, happens to be vegetarian. Tired and happy I scrambled onto a bus and spent the trip back to my hotel gazing over mouth watering dishes. My favourite so far is the tofu fried with almond.

Cold Hot Cold

Confused? So is my body!

After experiencing Sydney’s second hottest ever day I flew back into the midst of one of Japan’s coldest winters, and headed to Kyoto, renowned for its cold winters. Transport truly lives up to Japan’s reputation of being exorbitantly expensive. To cross the bridge and get off Shikoku, the island I live on, costs about AUD$60 one-way, whether you car or train it. Thus you can count the number of times I’ve done it without opening your mouth. A weekend clubbing in Osaka could easily eat up a month’s expenses!

But here I was at 7:30 in the morning in the heart of Kansai, the region that covers Kyoto, Osaka and Nara. I didn’t have to be back at work for three days. Santa brought me a pretty decent digital camera for Xmas and temples covered in snow was just too good an opportunity to pass up. So I unzipped my duffel bag and my pack and transferred everything I wouldn’t need for the next three days into one and couriered it off to my bosses house. Yup, In Japan they have this nifty service at the airport where they send your bags on separately for relatively little cash. I think its cause there isn’t enough room on the regular trains for people to struggle on with suitcases and the like.

Almost broke after buying a pack full of books and various other necessities, I declined the shinkansen (bullet train) and caught a common old garden coach to Kyoto. Travelling at 300km/hr will have to wait! I’ve started referring to Japan as ‘home’ and it felt really good to be back as we hooned alongside the Seto Ohashi. As we passed the Kyoto City sign it started to snow and I started to jump up and down in my chair from excitement. I’d been dreaming of snow in Kyoto since I figured out a couple of months back I would have some time to spend there.

Kyoto, the historical and current day seat of Japanese culture. I pushed aside concerns it would be too touristy and a great anti-climax, and focussed on the excitement and the fact I was going in one of the quietest periods of the year, just after one of the major holidays when everyone should be back home.

I jumped off the bus outside the massive Kyoto Station, a ten-floored step like edifice containing a huge departo, and set out looking for the information bureau. There had too be one close in Japan’s most touristy and second most famous city. After travelling straight for 24hrs, with a nasty layover in HCM airport, showers was my first priority and sleep the second.

A hotel was in order. The first thing I noticed was how many gaigin there were around. And as gaigin do, they were all trying incredibly hard to ignore each other. It struck me there are three types of gaigin in Kyoto, however the third type are true tourists and thus do not really belong to the gaigin category. The first type is the Kyoto resident gaigin who are the most disdainful of all tourists and try hard not to be associated in anyway with their western counterparts of whatever colour or creed. Then there’s my category, the tourist gaigin, Japanese residents for taxation purposes but still tourists in Kyoto. I’ve got my backpack strapped over my polar fleece and my new camera slung around my neck. I could almost have stepped out of a Kathmandu catalogue. I look like such a backpacker! But I so desperately want to be differentiated from the other camera waving tourists and hang a sign around my neck say “I live here”. Ah, what’s the point! I follow the gaigin trail to the tourist bureau and queue up neatly to reserve a hotel. Unfortunately check-in time is 2 o’ clock across Kyoto and its only 9:30. Luckily I can drop my bag off at the hotel, but sleep’s a no no for another 4 hours. There’s a public bath across the street though, so a wash and clean clothes are in the near future.

The sento, (Lonely Planet informs me true onsen originate from natural springs, but I can clearly see the running tap in this one) is one of the smallest I’ve ever seen, on a par with the Japanese Baths in Collingwood, not as nice, and nearly as expensive. I guess I am smack bang in the middle of Kyoto, and the proprietors figure they can get away with the cost, being right next to the station. However, the woman who apparently run the place is lovely, and starts to give me the low down on onsen etiquette, clearly mistaking me for an ignorant tourist until I interrupt her with a genki “wakkatta” (understood) and she correctly refiles me in the second category! Just to make clear, interruption is the height of politeness in Japanese society, as long as you do it in the affirmative. It signals to the speaker that you are listening and they have your attention.

For those armchair tourists out there, here’s how the sento/onsen ritual goes. After greetings and small talk about the weather have been exchanged (it’s even more important here than in Britain) shoes are taken off and stashed in a locker. There’s a well next to the door, which is still technically outside even though you wandered in out of the snow three floors up. You step out of your shoes here onto the inside floor and pick up said shoes. Then you empty the entire contents of your pack onto the floor in the search for a clean pair of underwear, as well as T-shirt socks etc and the all important brand new thermal you’ve been dreaming of since you lost your last one at the beginning of winter. All around you are people relaxing, talking, watching TV, smoking, waiting for loved ones and acquaintances. The sento experience is one of buck nakedness. Since the westerners demanded trading rights or war in the Meiji period, bathing has been gender segregated cause the whiteys freaked out about people bathing together. The Japanese women at least, I can’t speak for the men, have taken this enforced modesty well to heart and now wander around with a rightly named “modesty towel” draped over their private bits.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. So, clothes collected I’m handed a modesty towel, about the size of a small hand towel, and rent another big one to dry myself with. I head into the women’s side, a long thin room, lockers over at one side and what my mother would call a vanity unit, next to the door, a row of sinks with accompanying hairdryers, brushes and basic skincare products. I strip, dump my clothes and take my smelly body into the bath room or wet room. I’m confronted with a circular bath in the middle or the room and about 5 or six wash stations on two walls. Climbing into the communal bath is simply not done, but my mischievous side wants to do it just to see what would happen! However not today, tired in a strange city. I wash and scrub and wash and scrub and collapse in the sauna where an inordinately skinny woman is performing a strange rubbing ritual, jumping out, dowsing herself with water and then doing it all over again at two minute intervals. At my gym onsen, the woman perform relay marathon stays of ten minutes interspersed with cold dowsings and ten more minutes, for perhaps whole afternoons. I think they believe it will help them lose weight, or maybe it’s a general circulation thing, but I’ve never seen anyone pummel themselves with a bobbly massage like tool with such fervour whilst in a sauna. I’ve never seen this particular bobbly like massage tool before either.

After I’ve made myself vaguely presentable, dressed and run a hair dryer over my hair before it turns to icicles outside I spot the massage chair. Ahaa, the massage chair, the heaven sent gift for weary travellers. Sit down, lie back relax, drop a buck in the slot and have this strange monster grind rollers up and down your body from your head to your calves for ten minutes. There’s something bizarre about having a machine circularly massage your back, just miss a spot so you try to move into the right position, and then massage your head. But so good, I think, dropping another 100yen coin into its waiting mouth.