Long time no see

Things have started to get a little busy here, hence the long break from posting. That, plus I'm a little lazy, and it doesn't help that I have to contend with a celeron equipped laptop that takes 3 minutes to display all my photos in thumbnail format.
To make sense of all the various photos that have been posted, here's roughly what happened.
We went to watch the Yamakasa festival, where basically teams of men run around the town carrying a one ton float in a race that starts at 4.59am. We then went to school and boarded a bus bound for Hiroshima. Arrived in the afternoon, took a ferry over to Miyajima island, visited the Itsukushima shrine, had dinner, went back to the Otori mon at night. The gate was quite remarkable indeed.
The next day was spent at the A-bomb museum and its surrounding, lunch at the Okonominura and then back home. We were scheduled to move from our apartment to our host families, so the next update will probably be on that, as well as a few other activities, such as a nomikai (drinking session), a tea ceremony and others. Stay tuned.

Okonomiyaka, Hiroshima style. They add a huge amount of vegetables to it, in contrast to Osaka style okonomiyaki.
The Okonomimura, with 3 stories worth of nothing but okonomiyaki stores.
The A-bomb dome, now protected by a fence complete with infra red sensors and CCTV.



Paper cranes with wishes for peace.



Hiroshima castle. We only got to see it from our bus.

Another shot of the Otori mon.
The Peace Park and the A-bomb Dome at Hiroshima.
One of the exhibits at the A-bomb museum.

The gahment supports the sewage system on the island, apparently.
No idea what the name of this temple is, but it is a nice shot, no?
The Otori mon at night. As it was low tide, we were able to walk up to it.
The dining hall where we had dinner.

Fancy a Kendo doll for S$300?

The Otori mon. You can actually walk to the gate during low tide, which we did later in the night.
I was thinking that the small square platform here would be nice as a shiai-jo. Incredibly scenic, being next to the water.
Deers on the island will eat just about anything, especially paper. I had to risk my camera cover to lure this critter for this shot.
The platform I mentioned above. Its actually meant for some religious ceremony.
I was taken aback when I found this at not just one, but a few souvenir shops. Bokkens and bokutos.

The tide coming in. The entire temple seems to float on water when the tide is high, making it quite a view indeed.
Some random shot of some buildings.
The entrance to the Itsukushima shrine.
A shot of the exterior of the shrine.

The jetty over at Miyajima. It has an uncanny resemblence to Tekong. Refer to the photo below.
Arriving at Miyajima.
The Otori mon from a distance.
Our first surprise upon arrival was the fact that deer are allowed to roam free on the island.
Not a perfect point of view for comparision, but the resemblence is there.

The Miyajima Grand Hotel, where we stayed for the night. Possibly the most extravagant place I've ever stayed at.
Fancy a ride?
The view right after leaving the ferry terminal.
The first view of the famous temple.
Getting a briefing about the rest of the day from Kozo san.

Trip to Hiroshima

The bridge linking Kyushu to Honshu.
Lunch prior to leaving for Miyajima.

Tired participants after the festival.
Some of us ATW students.
Me and my peer tutor, Kuwazuru Masayuki.

More Yamakasa pics

Yamakasa 2005

Each float is preceded by a bunch of children and older participants carrying signboards with the team's name.
One of the teams passing by the ground floor of my apartment.
Various shots of various floats.

The mess we left behind.

Making yakisoba (fried noodle) step 2. Refer below for step 1.
Cook till golden brown and you're good to go!
Step 3: add soba.
Step 1: Add meat.

The BBQ getting underway.

The shed where we had a BBQ after the farm trip.
Making my way back after the weeding. The wind had lighten up, so it was somewhat easier.
Beef and chicken we had for the BBQ.

Eddie almost wanted to quit school and become a full time farmer.
Getting our hands dirty weeding the field.
Stephen washing his feet after the weeding at a storm drain.
The first few brave souls to step into the field.
Making our way down to the field, by walking along the edge of the terrances. Throw in some strong wind and rain, and you can imagine the fun we had just getting to the field.

Farming trip photos (1)

Briefing from the farmer (left) before we moved to the field. Standing in the centre is Shikai sensei, our lecturer for the agriculture course.
A shot of some of the guys who went for the farming trip

A shot from the bus while on the way to the rice field. True enough, we were to have quite the problem with the weather for the entire day.

Went to see the Softbank Hawks vs the Rakuten Golden Eagles at the Yahoo! dome. (everything is owned by some business) Luckily I knew enough rules to at least understand the game, but i still prefer soccer at the end of the day. The entire game took 3 hours from start to end, with little action most of the time, and a split second of excitement. But it was really fun watching the crowd cheering, as they really get into the spirit of things.
They have quite a unique way of marketing. If the customer doesn't come to you, you go to the customer. There is literally an army of people like the guy here, who carry everything from a portable beer dispenser on his back to ice-cream to sandwiches etc etc.
See if you can count them all. Those with bright coloured clothings are the sales people I mentioned. Bear in mind that this is only a small section of the dome.
One of the more enjoyable moments was when everyone inflated a yellow balloon and released it at the same time at the end of the half-time show. I have a really nice video clip, too bad I can't show it to you here.
Me and a few friends at the game.

More pics of Kyudai

The dojo at Kyudai, Hakozaki campus.
This is where we foreign students gather to access the net. Its not usually this crowded, but everyone was waiting for the baseball game to begin later in the evening.

My room. It's meant for one, but it houses 2 at this point. This here is the micro-kitchen.
Someone sleeps on the bed, someone sleeps on the futon next to the bed. We take turns.

It's a good day to die

No, I do not intend to commit suicide, that's just my favourite quote from warcraft 2. I'm headed off for my second session of Kendo with the Kyudai kendo club in about an hour, the first having been on saturday. They train here 6 days a week, but there's no need to attend them all, thankfully. The saturday session was short, at 1 1/2 hours, but it was a killer. Actually, it isn't as hard as you might think, just that I'm somewhat out of shape. A few kiri-kaeshi, followed by men-uchi, nidan waza, for around the first 20 min. A short kakari-geiko later, we formed up in rows for a ji-geiko session with the 6 senseis present. Each ji-geiko lasts around 5 min, and with the numbers present, I managed to get to practice with 2 senseis. Nearly died. But I get the feeling that saturday sessions, being on a weekend, are a little different from practice on other days, as I didn't see that many senseis on the friday that I first went to watch their trainings. In fact, only one sensei, Shiroki sensei was there that day. We shall see whether this observation holds water soon enough.

Random uploads

The following pictures will seem rather haphazard in terms of chronological and frankly, any and all order. The reason is simple. I am using a school computer to upload pics, so it isn't as easy as point shoot upload type. Its more convulated than that. The process is roughly as follows:

1) Take photo with lousy camera that sucks under low light conditions.
2) Transfer from camera to my own laptop.
3) Burn photos from laptop onto CD-RW.
4) Go to school laptop and upload photo.

It seems at times that the laptop I'm typing on is a 386 or something. It takes several minutes just to display all my photos in thumbnail format. Plus typing on a Japanese keyboard can drive you mad, as the punctuation marks are on different keys, slowing you down greatly. Last but not least, I can't be bothered to correct the sequence of photos after they are uploaded, so bear with me, yah?

Briefing before the start of the tournament.
Cigarettes are dirt cheap in Japan. Apart from costing just half of the prices back home, they are also easily available from vending machines, which carry a rather pointless 'minors are not allowed to buy cigarettes' sticker.
Living in Japan is an exercise in common sense, and trying not to tear your hair out. This was taken in a train, obviously.
Case in point. While the english translation is appropriate (a rarity in Japan), the actual transliteration reads: 'Anyone also can toilet'.
The dojo located below the hall used for the middle high school tournament.

Katsu-don. While it was very good, it almost came up during practice later, as we had lunch a little too close to training.
Shinais galore.
Watermelons in Tokyo are so heavy, it takes 2 people to carry one.
A street near the Togoshi dojo at night. The restaurant where we had dinner with Tajima sensei is located here.

Lost in Tokyo? No fear, just refer to the map and try to locate your line, then your station!

Differences btw Singapore and Japan: Part 1

Disclaimer: things written here are of my own view and do not necessarily reflect the truth. Reader beware. That being said, here we go:

1. Bus drivers here talk non-stop, taxi drivers are the strong, silent type.
Actually, its not that busdrivers here are talkative, its just that they anounce everything they do.
'We are now at xxx bus-stop.'
'We are moving off.'
'We are stopping at a traffic junction.'
'We are turning right.'
You get the idea. Taxi drivers, on the other hand, hardly make a sound, other than asking you where you wish to go, telling you your fare (clearly displayed to you anyway) and the obligatory thank you.

2. There is little if any graffiti here.
While this can be attributed to the general sense of cleaniness and social responsibility here, there may be another plausible theory why one does not see much graffiti here, like in the US or some other places: Most Japanese can't spell. When you start seeing peace mispelled as 'peece', you know that there's a problem.

3. Drivers here are generally nicer
Its amazing how much faith the Japanese public place in their drivers. They seldom check before jaywalking across small streets, trusting drivers to slow down and make way for them. Good luck to you if this was Singapore. I still find myself waiting for the car to go past before I cross. Not that all drivers stop for you, but a large number do. While the drving atmosphere is nicer, the road designs here will drive you mad though. An infinite number of small roads, poorly designed junctions etc.