Another week, another blow to the head

Hi everyone,

Blogging time again. I just got off the phone with Mr. Yasuhiro Nishio. He works at Milky House, an inn in Hokkaido. I've secured accommodation there from October 20th. I'll be working six days per week which is more than I want to do, but I'll be getting paid for my work, so I'll be able to build up my savings a bit. And I'll finally make my way to Hokkaido, where I have been trying to go all along.

I'm wrapping things up here at leaf farm, sorting through all my stuff and getting ready to pack. I'll be leaving on Tuesday. I plan to go to Nikko for two days. Nikko is a historic city near where I am. One of the people I met here told me about it. Apparently it has the feel of an old city, the streets are narrow and winding. There is a big shrine there and some other stuff, I don't really know what I will do there yet but it sounds interesting.

I had a good weekend. Today I went to the Tokugawa museum. Ieyasu Tokugawa was one of the warlords that united Japan after a long period of internal wars. The park I went to previously (Kairakuen park) was built by one of his descendants. The museum was kind of empty compared to what I was expecting, there are some other exhibits going in other cities (Tokyo and somewhere else) so not all the pieces were there. There were a lot of personal effects, stuff like a shaving kit, a calligraphy set, lots of books and papers. All thee things were crafted with great skill and were very impressive. A lot of thought went into the visual design, there was a lot of attention to detail in the subtle shades of colour that they used. The emphasis was on the craftsmanship, there was no gold or precious stones used.

There was also a suit of armour which was of great interest to me, being obsessed with samurais and ninjas as I am. Japanese armour is extremely well designed. I was looking at it trying to figure out how you could attack someone inside it, and there are not many options. You couldn't use a vertical strike to smash through the armour because it has huge shoulder and neck guards that would deflect that sort of blow. I don't think horizontal blows would have enough power, which leaves thrusts, and all the easy targets have thick plates of armour over them. So I think any battle between samurai would not have been over quickly. Still, people spent hundreds of years fighting in this way, so maybe they figured out some tricks to speed things up a little.

Yesterday I went to Aikido twice. I learned this brutal move called Gan seki otoshi or rock drop throw. You lift your opponent on to you shoulders and then drop them, very uncivilised, more like wrestling than Aikido, so it was a lot of fun, although I couldn't even pick my partner up. I don't think anyone did the full technique with the drop at the end, like I said, it's too uncivilised. I found this photo.

On Friday I helped Dorothy with a class of kids again. I made a little girl cry just by touching her hand. How's that for evil! I'm getting good at doing the dance for the "this little finger song", I'm going to try to get an MP3 of that one so I can share it with you. I enjoyed playing with the kids, they are utterly anarchic. As Dorothy said to me, "If a little child sits still and listens to you, they must be very sick". A little girl destroyed my pen in a process of scientific experimentation. I wish my pen still worked, but I'm glad she shares my love of science. Maybe one day she will learn to start fires!

Speaking of which, when I was finished with the kids I burned a big pile of bamboo. To be honest, burning stuff is not nearly as much fun as it used to be. Maybe the fact that I first had to move the huge pile of bamboo to dig a pit to burn it in may have something to do with that. And I also smacked myself in the head, I was breaking a length of bamboo with my hands and it snapped unexpectedly. I had a bruise like half a golf ball for a while, but it went away quickly enough. I was quite impressed that I managed to do that much damage using only muscle power. And with the cut on my forehead I look like a street fighter.

This is the Judo hall in the budokan, where we do Aikido.

Myself and Sakatani sensei

This is a Tanrenbo, "training stick". It weighs 13kg. You are supposed to swing it like a sword, I could barely lift it into a vertical position.

This is the Kyudo (archery) range at the budokan.

This is the Shinto shrine to Dorothy's father, inside the house.

This is a bug that came into my room. It was a good jumper.

This is another sports carnival. This one includes adults, and is open to everyone in the region. The teams are organised by district. Some members of my host family competed in the events. In this event, they are dragging two rubber balls aloing inside the rim of a bicycle tire. It's a relay event, the changeover is very funny because the balls usually roll over the rim and the players have to chase after them, very entertaining.

An Iroquois helicopter used as a monument in a park. It was top of the line military hardware in it's day, so it shows how much the Americans trusted the Japanese at that time. By way of contrast, the Iraqi army isn't even allowed to operate it's own crappy Russian hardware, let alone have access to the latest American gear.

A shrine I found in Uchihara, which is a town near Mito. I went to Uchihara to see an exhibit on a local army unit that was in WW II, which I will write about later. The pictures below were taken in the temple's grounds.

A house in Uchihara.

Looks like business isn't too good at this shrine, the grounds are completely overgrown, no-one has been in here for a while.

I wasn't very excited, I thought it was kind of a bland structure, but maybe I just didn't get it.

That's all for now. I hope you are all well.

Later,

James