Nagano

Hi everyone,

It's time for what will probably be my last post from Japan. I've spent the last three weeks in a hotel near a ski slope in Kurumayama, Nagano prefecture. I think the best and the worst times in Japan have both been here. It's an amazingly beautiful area, I've been skiing and loving it, and I enjoyed the work (being a waiter). But relations with my co-workers got pretty strained at times, which made living here very unpleasant.

Next I'm going to Tokyo to do some frantic shopping, then to stay with my friend James near Mito. And then I'm going to the UK to meet some relatives. I'l be in Europe for three weeks, returning to Australia on 26/3. I fly out of Japan on Monday. So I'm close to coming home now. I found the traveling lifestyle very hard at times, but now I am completely adjusted to it, and it's going to be weird settling in back home. Although I've already got plans to go to my parents' house at Coff's Harbour, and I'll be seeing my other friends too, so I doubt things will be boring. I'm going to miss this country, the people and the landscape. But I'm glad to be moving on. I think it's time I did something different.

I think Japan has a lot of things going for it. The government here actually gets things done, the country runs well, which is a big contrast to Australia. Although the economy is in a downturn right now, during the boom times they invested a lot of money in infrastructure, so they will have something permanent to show for the times of prosperity. They have embraced commerce to a degree not present in Australia, the economy is incredibly dynamic, there's a lot of activity going on. The service here is incredible, if you have a problem with something like electricity or water you can call the provider and frequently you will be visited by a tradesman on the same day, or even at night.

If there's a downside to Japan, I think that some of the policies of the government are a little xenophobic. I'm told Korea is the most ethnically homogeneous country on the planet, and I think Japan is not far behind them. They don't want foreigners living here. Being an Australian, I find that quite hard to understand. And it makes me unhappy because I would like to come back and live here for a year or so, and it would not be easy. I think Japan is a nation that is afraid of the world beyond it's borders, and has been for nearly 200 years.

I have had an incredible time here. I left behind almost everything that was familiar, which left me feeling very disoriented at times. But it also allowed me to discover that many of the things that I used to worry about are not important at all, and that there are very few preconditions for achieving happiness. I've learned how to deal successfully with adversity, and how to become comfortable in the most uncomfortable places and situations. And by getting myself through so many difficult situations, I've gained a confidence in myself that I've been seeking for years. So I've got a lot out of this trip.

Time to start packing. I hope everyone is well. My dog Pep died a few days ago, so I'd just like to say RIP Pep, 1992-2008. No doubt he's peeing on the carpets in the afterlife.

Bye,

James

This is the front of the hotel. I'm the snow shoveling monkey. As you can see, at times I have been very busy.


During a snowstorm.


After the snowstorm.

The donjon (central keep) of Himeji castle.

The shapes of the arrow slits in the walls indicate which group of soldiers (ie, triangle group, square group, etc) should stand there.

One of the internal gates. The weird angles you can see are a feature of the castle that was designed to confuse any attacking enemy.

Another view of the main keep. This is an original castle structure, there aren't many of these left in Japan.

More arrow slits above one of the gates.

You can see here one of the huge beams they used to build this place.

Osaka again

Hey folks,

I'm back in Osaka again. I just spent two weeks in a place near a town called Bicchu Takahashi, which is in Okayama prefecture in southern Honshu. It was a region of steep cliffs and narrow ridges, with very little flat land. But there are many people living there, and have been since ancient times. It's very cold, in fact it was just as cold as Hokkaido, and there was snow (although not too much). It's an incredibly beautiful area, with lots of forested mountaintops and rocky outcrops.

The place I was staying at was a tomato farm. They also have some fields where they were growing broccoli and hakusai (Japanese cabbage). It's a very successful farm, the guy that owns it has lived there all his life, and from the looks of the place, his family have been there for several generations. No-one there speaks good english, so I got to exercise my Japanese. The work I was doing was pulling down the remains from the last season's tomato crop, and preparing for the next crop, which will b vegetables, since the tomato season starts in September.

It was quite a tough place to live. The Japanese don't seem to worry too much about comforts. My room was pretty nice, it was insulated (which is highly unusual for a Japanese home) and had a good heater. But I was sharing it with two other guys, so it was crowded, and sleeping was sometimes difficult. I didn't have proper clothing, and I got sick for a while. But I'm OK now. The people there were very interesting. There was the family that owns the place, and there were a whole lot of younger people working there. There were three girls, Tomochan (Otsubo), Hamachan (Miyuki) and Anchan. Tomochan and Hamachan had quit their jobs and dropped out to do farming (Tomochan was an illustrator and Hamachan was a nurse). They found the farm through a program called Bora Arbeito (volunteer work in Japanese). Anchan had just finished high school. There were two guys there, Miyashitasan and Jagasan. Jagasan was a paid employee, but he didn't plan on farming forever, he was studying to go to uni to be an elementary school teacher. He ran the day to day work at the tomato sheds. Miyashita san was finishing high school, I think he was doing the job to earn a bit of money.

I had a good time there. The highlight was this party they had as part of some kind of religious ceremony to honour the ancestors. There was a lot of chanting and bowing which I understood not at all. Then they got out the food and the sake and the karaoke. I didn't understand much of the conversation but it was fun watching the various psychodramas unfold around me as the alcohol took effect.

So I finished there, and now I'm in Osaka. Yesterday I went to Osaka castle, today I'll be going to Himeji castle, and tomorrow I leave for Nagano, where I will be working on a pension. Osaka castle was really cool, although I read some poor reviews of it on the internet. It's huge, it's got to be almost a kilometer across on each side, and the inside has been turned into a garden. It's an enchanting place to wander through, trees and moats and enormous stonework. The museum in the central tower was also cool. They have the sword there that was (supposedly) used to behead Toyotomi Hideyori as part of his ritual suicide after losing the Summer War. Also plenty of armour and other .

My time here is coming to an end, and although I've loved my time here, I'm looking forwards to returning home. It will be nice to stay somewhere for more than two weeks. Also it will be nice to eat a pizza and a kebab, which are at the top of the list of things to do when I get back :) And hopefully I will get a few weeks of warm weather before it gets cold again, although I don't have very high hopes for that.

And now for some photos. And as I start to write the commentary I discover that either Blogger or Picasa has ritually deleted about half the photos that I painstakingly selected and uploaded. Hooray for crappy software. Anyway...

This is the central tower of Osaka castle.

This is one of the huge stone at the Sakura gate. This one is estimated to weigh 130 tonnes. It is the biggest there. There are five stones estimated to weigh more than 100 tonnes.

This is the outer moat and wall.

This is part of the outer wall. Huge stones were used everywhere.

This is the youth hostel where I am staying. There is also a hotel in the same building. The youth hostel is the top two floors.

Okayama photos

Here is the farm.

The neighbours.
The family graves.

A cow, hard at work on the Great Cow Conspiracy.

The tomato sheds.

The inside of one of the tomato sheds.

The hakusai field. The hakusai is covered with a sheet that stops the snow from making too much direct contact with the plant.

From left to right, Anchan, Miyashitasan, Hamachan, Jagasan.

Fukuoka photos

The skyline, looking towards the sea from my apartment.


Some kind of tower that is part of the port.

Another building next to my apartment.

A police box.

This is Fukuoka tower, which is in some high-tech seaside suburb which I have forgotten the name of.

The building on the right is some kind of recording studio.

Someone burning rubbish on the street.

This is a music venue, I think. It's called Maglo Square. It's right next to Be1 and DrumSon, which are some other cool venues. I never got to see a show there, unfortunately.