Rene's Visit

A couple weeks ago my brother Rene and his PHD supervisor Andrew came to Japan on their way to a conference in Spain. It was fantastic to catch up and spend some time travelling with them, as well as just showing them around Shizuoka. The night they arrived, Chihiro's family welcomed them with a big sushi feast, and Chihiro's father attempted to get them drunk on sake. He partially succeeded, and at the end of the night we had a group photo of "the boys". Note Rene had to bend his knees a fair bit to fit in! Everyone was really amazed at how tall he was. The other photo is one of the many election vans that were roaming the streets at the time before the Sept 11 elections. They're incredibly loud, and kind of annoying because they just advertise themselves repeatedly without actually saying why you should vote for them. (They are polite though.)

They came along to one of my kendo lessons and took some photos, so now you can see what I do two times a week! The first photo is me waiting for the start of the beating (er, I mean lesson), while somebody demonstrates a no-shadow-leap move. The second is of the training in full swing.

The main trip we made was to Kyoto, where we hired bikes to ride around for a day. It turned out to be an excellent idea, as most sight-seeing spots are fairly close to each other, and you can get around much quicker than by bus or on foot. First stop was this magnificent Buddhist temple. There was an even bigger building next to it that had an entire warehouse built around it because it was being restored (approximate completion date: 2008). Some interesting things I found out about it was that the temple's sect was created by the ruler of Japan 400 years ago, to draw worshippers away from a powerful sect that opposed him. I guess it shows that politics and religion have always been related, and not even something as simple and personal as Buddhism is spared from the ambition of men. This, and the boastfulness of some of the exhibits ("this magnificent temple is recognised world-wide", etc) seemed to detract from actual spiritual feeling of the temple. It was amazing though, and the exhibit I really liked was the coil of rope made from the hair of female devotees. This was one of 47 ropes used to rebuild the temple in 1895.

We also stopped at the national museum, where I wanted to take soooo many photos, but unfortunately we were discretely tailed by one of the museum staff wherever we went. Some of the highlights were amazingly detailed and well-preserved wooden statues from the 8th century, original clothing, armour, and weapons from the Edo period, and some long and detailed scrolls telling Buddhist tales of suffering. Some of the scenes were incredibly imaginative, as well as being hideously grotesque and morbid. Actually, they looked a lot like the pre-cursors of today's manga comics.
Next was Kiyomizu-dera, which I had visited with Chihiro almost a year ago when I came to Japan for a holiday. This photo is of some tree-doctors who are performing a quadruple bypass and a trim. We wandered around the back of the temple away from all the tourists and came across a crime-scene investigation outside one of the temple buildings. There were a lot of police around, and the area was fenced off, so we didn't get a good look, but it was a strange sight amongst the surrounding harmony. Down a little path behind the temple were hundreds of small statues, each adorned with something that looked like a bib. Very strange.

We rode the bikes through backstreets in the temple district, stopping at a few parks and interesting places along the way. We didn't have time to go into many temples, but it was nice just to cruise around such an amazing city. Our last stop was closer to the centre of town - the imperial gardens. The palace itself isn't that picturesque, as it is a pretty low construction hidden by high walls. You need special permission to go in, and can't even peek through the cracks in the gates as Rene found out when he triggered a recorded security message that kept on repeating something in Japanese (probably "Bugger off!", though much politer of course). The gardens were phenomenal in size though. The immense gravel roads that criss-crossed the park felt so utterly vast and unrestricted after riding through the crowded city streets.

That night we came back to Shizuoka by bullet-train, and Rene and Andrew got to sample the delights of a station-bought dinner (and beer). The next day while Andrew explored Tokyo, Chihiro and her friend Chigusa took Rene and I to a Japanese garden and tea-house. We tried macha (really strong frothy green tea), and some delicious traditional sweets. Chigusa explained a bit about the tea ceremony, and how to appear sophisticated, and Chihiro helped the hostess translate some things into English so she could explain things to foreign customers in future. On the last night, everyone went down to the river to set off some fireworks. Illegal in Australia, so Rene and Andrew were pretty impressed, and Chihiro's sisters said they "looked like little boys"! And afterwards, off to the convenience store for ice-cream!