Okinawa: Oct. 14-17

I'm just back from a school trip to Okinawa. It was excellent and I enjoyed it very much. Did we go to a lot of places? Yes. Did we stay in first-class hotels? Yes. Did we eat enormous amounts of rather good food? Yes. Did we make real and lasting contact with the locals? No.

Well, this is a typical Japanese school trip. Just like the first brave Japanese tourists to Europe and the USA of the early 1970s, Second-Year high school students (16-17) travel every year with fretting teachers armed with bullhorns in large groups of 150-250 to previously unknown parts of their own country in a cocoon of safety, a bubble in which nothing untoward may happen. Fair enough. They stay in fantastic hotels (no grubby old youth hostels), get charged for evening gourmet meals which they don't quite always receive, although I must say that the help-yourself-to-everything breakfasts are truly magnificent. It's a change. It's a break from classes. It's paid off in monthly installments from the time of entering the school so 180,000 Yen for 3 nights and 4 days plus airfare doesn't seem all that bad. Work it out. Just 1800 dollars or 900 quid, 1250 Euro. No bother, I suppose. Money values change, I know, but back in the days when I was travelling that would have lasted me for -- I don't know? -- three or four months?

No more. That's enough weirdy comment where little comment is needed. The pictures below tell their own stories.

One more thing: if you'd like more info on Okinawa click on the Wikipedia Link at the bottom of the post, just below the last photograph.

1. The Inner Gateway to Shuri Castle

2. The Central Courtyard

3. Battle of Okinawa Memorial Park

4. Memorial Park

5. Memorial Park: strange to see your own surname -- a long-lost cousin?

6. Memorial Park: the Pacific Ocean meets the East China Sea.

7. Memorial Park: some of my homeroom students.

8. Himeyuri: 1000 paper cranes as a memorial to the high school girls forced to become nurses.

9. Himeyuri: entrance to the underground cave hospital.

10. Himeyuri: a rather bitter, disillusioned poem about getting pushed into the final battles.

11. The Chiraumi ("beautiful sea") aquarium

12. Chiraumi

13. Chiraumi

14. Chiraumi

15. Ryukyu Mura (Okinawan Folk Village)

16. Ryukyu Mura

17. R. Mura

18. R. Mura

19. R. Mura: Okinawan traditional dress.


20. R. Mura: water buff in charge of a "farmer".

21. R. Mura: the pottery centre.

22. R. Mura: the girls dress up as Okinawans.

Wikipedia Link to Okinawa

It was a good trip. The kids enjoyed it. Me, myself, I didn't have to pay, so that's another good reason to shut the fff up. We live in different times, and that's the end of it. The pictures trump the words -- once you know what they portay. Nevertheless, if you somehow come around to the point of asking me what I think about dragging the local people who never identified with mainland Japan into the last months of the war -- and thereby killing off thousands of them -- this is probably not the place for it. Comment if you like, though.

Ryoutanji - Okuyama Hansobo

I live in a place in Japan that I don't want to tell a lot of people about, for fear that they'll all want to come down and live here! It's a good place to be, though, because you're not caught up in the concrete neon swirls of the huge big cities and neither are you sticking out like a sore thumb in a small community where everyone knows your business.

Shizuoka "Ken", the county or state (actually a prefecture), lies halfway between Tokyo and Osaka and has a lovely mild climate. We grow oranges. It seldom snows -- the high mountains to the west block all the Siberian onslaughts and we end up with "kara-kaze" or the empty winds and clear blue skies throughout the winter.

We lie between these mountains and the Pacific Ocean with one of the largest lakes in Japan, in truth a lagoon since it is open to the sea, just to the west.

Northwest of our city and a short distance above the northern tip of the lake stand two quite amazing and reasonably ancient temples, pictures of which you will see below. Ryoutanji is the less famous of the two, although considerably older. It is rather hard to find unless you know exactly where you are going. The larger temple, the Hansobo, is a Zen temple with some heavy connections to the old Imperial family of about 500 years ago (one of the old Emperors, supposedly, retired here as a monk). The buildings we can see today date from the early 17th and 18th centuries, by Western reckoning, with a number of new buildings at Hansobo since it has many wealthy modern patrons. The temple sites themselves are much older than the present structures.

Basically, the first three pictures you will see below are of Ryoutanji, and all the others come from Okuyama Hansobo, starting with some weird little jokers, the "O-jizo-sama" about 500 in number, little stone statues, some of them with bibs and hats (said to commemorate dead babies), but with these Zen guys you never know when they are taking the piss, that lie scattered around among the rocks along the very steep slope up to the temple compound.

Ryoutanji: just inside the entrance gate

Ryoutanji: the graveyard (these are memorials with no bodies beneath!)

Ryoutanji: look at the strange almost Polynesian roof beams on the temple to the left!

Hansobo: one jizo with a bib, and a reflective chap without one.

Hansobo: bloke on right is praying away.

Hansobo: just inside the first compound.


Hansobo: around the back of the Main Hall where there is a garden.

Hansobo: a view of the roofs from higher ground. Check out the pagoda among the trees on the far left of the picture: this was built by a patron back in the 1920s.

Hansobo: the Old Boy himself, but a modern rendering.

Hansobo: Six Boddhisattvas all in a row.

Hansobo: a rock garden halfway up a stairway to a higher level


Hansobo: the Boddhi Boys from above.

Up to Tokyo for Kao's Wedding

The Band made the trip up to the Big Smoke last Sunday to play at Kao's reception. I came up by bus the previous day and spent a long liquid evening renewing acquaintance with Alan, the manager of Dubliner's in Ikebukuro, and met a number of other Irish lads who showed up, including Mike, who is pissed off big time with all the chaps in suits and significant neckties that pass for the Irish elite in Tokyo. He suggested a new organization called RIJ (Real Irish in Japan) and we all immediately agreed to join just to shut him up and get on with the pints and the talk. Good craic, and not a spot of bother with the head the next morning which is a sure guarantee the beer was good. The reception next day was held in a French restaurant, Chez Pierre, and I got talking to Pierre himself who hails from Brittany ("anozzer Kelt!!")and says he's been in Japan for 40 years.



The music went down well and we had to do several encores. Afterwards, Kenji & Koji and myself headed off for Paddy Foley's in Roppongi where we had a fair few jars and met Paul, the barman, who had just arrived in Japan six weeks ago. I gave Paul one of our homemade CDs to stick on -- and the manager came over and asked us to play a gig!! Ah, well, too bad we don't live in Tokyo. Not really, I can't stand the place ....!!

Guinness Borracho - Shizuoka City

A great night in Shizuoka City brought Saint Patrick's Week to a close. Along with ourselves - the Gang from Hamamatsu - there were two other bands and the place was hopping. Tight music and a really good evening!!!!

Chez Kao -- Last Gig Before Closing