My Kingdom

Today was a gorgeous day. Abnormally warm, with plenty of sunshine. A couple of farmers were busy plowing up the field behind my house since about 8 o'clock so even though I would have loved to, the sound of their tractors prevented me from sleeping in. It was probably for the best though. After taking care of some laundry and hanging it out to dry, I set off on a bike ride. Today's ride was different from most. Usually, I head west towards the city, because I have some shopping to do or some place I'd like to go. Today with nothing to do I went east, camera in hand, to where my school and the other elementary schools are for a leisurely afternoon ride.

Some kids were practicing baseball at one elementary school. Some seniors were getting ready to play a game of ground golf at my school. A couple of 3rd year girls were hanging out in the shade near the school ground, hanging out and eating bento lunches they bought at the local classic Japanese-style restaurant. After chatting with them a little I kept riding, heading for a nearby river though the main village where most of my students live. When I reached the river I found my way down to the riverside and ate the lunch I had purchased just before at the convenience store.

After lunch, I headed towards the local temple, Eigenji. It's famous around Kansai (maybe Japan?) for it's fall foliage, and even though most of the trees are still quite green, there was a fairly decent crowd around there. I didn't bother going to look though, as I plan on heading back in a few weeks when it's peak season. I turned around and headed back at a relaxed pace taking it all in.











I made this image in paint by pieceing together 5 or 6 other pictures I had taken from the same spot. There's some discrepancies in the alignment, but I wasn't planning on making a panorama, and have no idea how you actually do it right, so all things considered I think it's decent. It's about a 180 degree view of the area where all of my schools are which I have titled "My Kingdom"

太郎防宮アンド瓦屋寺

This is ridiculously old, but one weekend maybe a month ago I decided to take in some of the local shrines and temples. I'm not particularly religious, but hands down one of my favorite things about being in Japan is being able to go and visit temples and shrines wherever you are. I recently read somewhere that even though there are convenience stores EVERYWHERE in Japan, there are still more Buddhist temples in the country. I found this to be quite reassuring to me, but I'm not exactly sure in what way it was.

On this weekend I decided to head west to Tarobogu, a shrine built on the side of a local mountain. The shrine guardian is a tengu called Tarobo, and the shrine god is the god of victory, so when I was there I saw many wooden prayer cards with things like "Let me pass the high school/university entrance exams" or "Help me find true love" written on them. I always enjoy reading a few of the prayers written down by previous visitors. There's usually a couple of really unique ones, but this time most were pretty casual and nothing really stood out. Another attraction of the shrine is what is known as the "wedded rock," Two large rocks with a split between them just wide enough for a person to pass through. It's said that if you have evil in your heart the rocks will come together and crush you as you pass through which leads to a lot of children running through trying to avoid being crushed. I managed to make it through walking at a leisurely pace unscathed.

After visiting Tarobogu, it was still rather early so I headed around to the other side of the mountain where there was a Buddhist temple called Kawarayaji. When I got there I was the only one there and felt a little like an interloper who had discovered a hidden hideaway meant only for a select group of people. The temple and it's surroundings are all covered by a canopy of tall trees and moss covered the majority of the stone walkways around the temple. Around the rear there is an old stone staircase which stretches for what seems about 2 kilometers and takes you down through a forest down the mountain and back into the town. I couldn't make it all the way because I had left my bike on the opposite side of the mountain near the bottom of Tarobogu and had to turn around before I had gone too far, but I have to say that Kawarayaji and its environs have to be some of the most etherally serene I've experienced. It reminded me a lot of my time in Shikoku in the mountains doing the temple tour.

文化祭

Last weekend was the school culture festival. It's called a culture festival but it's really more like a school play/concert type deal. Each class puts on a short play and does a performance of two songs. The teachers actually get to judge the song part of the day and the winning class and runner-up get a trophy and/or certificate for their excellent display.

This isn't to say that there is no really unique cultural things, but they take up a rather small amount of the full day's events. There was a taiko drum performance which started off the festival and shortly after that there was the unveiling of this year's "hari-e" picture. Hari-e is basically a mosaic picture. A large number of students spent the better part of a week gluing tiny 1cm by 1cm pieces of coloured paper onto larger master key sheets. These sheets were then assembled into the final picture which was a shot of the school from the rear garden, and it was hung from the back of the gym. Watching the kids work on the smaller sections it was hard to believe that it would form the picture it did so I was actually rather impressed when I saw the final product.

In the middle of the day, in between the plays and the class song battle there were a few free performances where people and groups put on music, dance, or entertainment performances without any kind of restriction. I ended up playing bass in a band performance with a group of 3rd year girls.

On day I was just messing around with the school's bass guitar when these girls came into the room ready to practice for the festival. When they came in I figured I'd better leave them to their practice, but seeing me playing around they asked "Oh Tyler! Can you play bass?!" I said "Not really at all, I was just messing around." and figured that would be that, but one of them followed up asking "Well, do you want to join us for the Culture Festival?" I said again that I'm not really good at all and probably couldn't learn the song completely with the limited practice time left. "No problem, just play what you can" she replied and I was trapped. I actually surprised myself and learned about 85% of the song with about the 3 hours of practice I had over the remaining few days. I tried to take a video of the performance with my camera that I had set up side-stage, but halfway through the batteries died and nothing got saved at all. Luckily, the school was taping everything with one of their cameras so I should be able to get a copy of the video shortly and then I can put it up on here. So until then, you're stuck with my few, and very poor pictures I tried to take in the dark gym.

Adventures with Mano-san

Mano-san is the head of the office at school. Over the past month we've done a few things together and become decent friends. He's really into music having played in bands for over 30 years, and he likes going around to different places, trying out new restaurants and such. A couple weeks ago we had a three day weekend and Mano-san suggested we go out to Osaka for udon. The thing is Mano-san is also a Buddhist priest and had a Buddhist event he had to attend to that day until late at night, so he said it would be a bit later at night. I said it was fine, and would wait for his mail.

Around 11:00, I got a mail on my phone saying. If you're still ready I'll be there at 11:30 to get you. After picking me up, we picked up a couple of Mano's friends. One of them, said he must be crazy for agreeing to go to Osaka at midnight for a 600 yen bowl of udon. Even on the highway it took us a good couple of hours to get to Osaka. We got there around 1:30 and walked around trying to find the restaurant in question.

I wish I could say something like "So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Mano-san, and his friends, breaking into that little udon shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shopkeeper and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really, but sure enough we got the udon, and left feeling most satisfied." (+20 points if you get the reference) But I can't.

Normally, it's supposed to be open until 6:00, but it turns out they close at 11 on Sundays. Before, we'd even left Shiga the restaurant was closed. It was so deliciously ironic that we all laughed about it on the walk back to the car.

The urge for udon was still ever present though, and we drove around trying to find a restaurant somewhere with late hours. No luck however, but we managed to score some udon at a service area along the highway. I gotta say the Japanese service areas really trump anything in the States or Canada. The service areas are fully stocked. Every one has a food court, along with at least one convenience store like outfit, and a number of vending machines for warm and cold beverages, and snack foods. They are staffed 24 hours a day as well, so anytime you're travelling you can get anything your heart desires. Excellent service. The only downside is, all highways here are toll roads, and they're rather expensive as well. It costs you roughly about 1500 yen per 100 km.

Anyway, I made it home around 5 am just as the sun was coming up, went to bed, and woke up at 10 when the guy came to set up my internet.