Friends from Afar

Don’t you love those moments when things just seem to come together. Anyone who has been following me for a bit will no doubt have noticed that things haven’t exactly been going my way of late. Well that has changed in the past couple of days. Suddenly my proteins expressing exceptionally well. I fixed the piece of equipment I broke and whilst writing my 2^nd year report (a daunter at 25 pages) I’ve had a bit of an epiphany regarding my PhD direction. 

It’s remembering days like this that get me through all of the other rubbish. It’s easy to get into a spiral when things go wrong. They say that bad things always come in 3s, or 4s in oriental culture as that's the number associated with bad luck. I think I’ve had a bit more than three but my luck has turned, maybe it’s thanks to the Korean shaman treatment from one of my colleagues (link). I have been working stupid hours again recently but when things are going well it’s easy to throw yourself at it.

Capitalizing on my uplift I tried to make the most of the past weekend before my free time evaporates once more. First stop was into my local city, Himeji, for the Yukata matsuri (浴衣祭り). Now from an outsiders point of view this may seem like an excuse for pretty girls to dress up in pretty outfits and wander the streets gorging on food from the various yatai’s dotted about the place but in fact...nah that’d be a lie that's exactly what it’s about.

Many of Japan’s numerous festivals are deeply rooted in history and intertwined with the Shinto religion. This is not one of them. Well sort of. The festival commemorates the moving of the Osakabe shrine from within the castle grounds to downtown Himeji. This made the shrine available for all the people to worship at.

The movement was commemorated with a festival. Normally people would have to wear their formal (and expensive) kimono’s to such an event, however due to the suddenness of the ceremony many did not have the time or money to make such items of clothing. The feudal lord at the time permitted them to wear their less formal Yukata and it has remained that way for the past 260 years. Of course this isn’t well known and what most people think of is the abundant street vendors, I think it has the most out of every festival in the Kansai area.

Well it was certainly interesting. Besides the usual Japanese festival fare there were many other foods and games on offer, some I’d not heard of before. Sadly I had other plans later on that day so I had to rush off. I doubt I’ll get to it next year but to be honest it was ridonkulesly crowded and there wasn’t much going on besides the street vendors.

In Osaka I met up with some of the friends I’d made surfing. They own a bar out that way and since I had plans to be in Kyoto the following day it was a good excuse to make the journey. It was tiny though so we spent most of the night on the stairs outside. Whenever I’m in Osaka I feel like my Japanese comprehension has gotten worse, or maybe it has just gotten worse who knows?

I hadn’t really thought about where I was staying that night so I headed back to Umeda to scout out somewhere. I remembered being here last time and seeing a very cheap night deal at one of the mangakisa’s (internet café’s) that seemed as good a place as any, though not before netting my first ever win on a UFO catcher.

 

Internet café’s in Japan are something else. Besides renting sitting space and a computer you also get access to a library of comics, movies and all you can drink soft drinks and coffee. They are almost always open 24hrs and I think they do the most business between the hours of 3am to 8am. A night pack gets you a reclining chair and a blanket to get some shut-eye for about 1100yen. Or you could just be like me and stay up all night watching films and dossing around on the Internet.

The following day I set off for Kyoto. I’ve said it many times before. I love this place. It has none of the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, nor the Concrete Jungle feel of Osaka. Well it is massively steeped in history with a ridiculous number of world heritage sites so not so surprising.

My friends are currently on a yearlong tour of southern asia from their honeymoon and they were looking incredible. It was so nice to see them looking so happy and healthy. I basically had no plans for the day as I figured they had plenty of things they wanted to do. I was right fortunately.

First on the list was to try our hand at 弓道、Japanese archery. The “shooting range” was absolutely tiny, a dinky little shop tucked away behind the bushes in northern Gion with only three targets. It was very interesting however, considerably different to western archery.

For a start the bows (called yumi) are like 2 metres tall, it was bigger than me at any rate. Secondly the grip is about two thirds of the way down the shaft, compared to being in the middle in the west. This makes holding the bow a little clumsy at first as the weighting takes a bit of getting used to. Finally the method for drawing is very different. The string is drawn with the thumb whilst the arrow rests on the index finger.

We were ushered inside by a wonderful Ojisan who seemed very happy to have oversees customers. Small though the place was he spoke exceptionally good (albeit very specific to his purpose) English so I’m guessing he gets a fair few people passing through. After a quick demo and some patchwork instruction we were sat down on the cushions and firing away. It was pretty reasonable, 10 arrows for 800yen and hopefully I’ll go back given the chance. I even managed to hit the target with my final shot.

Finished up we did a bit of temple hopping before lunch. I can’t remember which ones, there are like 1000 in Kyoto, but I do remember the gardens of the second being particularily amazing. There were also some incredible trees, old and oddly shaped, inside. It got us talking about how amazing it is that in Japan even in this day and age they have a reverence for nature. In the UK we’d just level it, here they work around it, even in the major cities.

 

For lunch we hit a famous Okonomiyaki place in central Gion. The front of the store has a statue depicting a little boy having his trousers yanked down. That is nothing however compared to the menu. Each table has a large European style menu book and when opened it reveals...a giant picture of an okonomiyaki.

Having only one thing on the menu is pretty amusing when the name of the food translates literally as “your grilled preference.” Tasty all the same and very different again to Osakan and Hiroshima style. I do love all the quirky little regional differences in dishes around Japan.

We had a great chat over lunch about our travels so far. It is amazing how much just seeing a little bit of the world changes your out look on life. I could see the changes in my friends and it helped me see the changes in myself. Sometimes I don’t realise it and I think it’ll really hit home when I get back.　

One thing I think it has done for me is made me more mindful of all the little things around me. When everything is so different, when everything is outside of you comfort zone, it all stands out. I’d like to take that back with me. All three of us agreed that spending so much time away from home has made us realise how little of our own country we’ve really seen. I think travelling is any time spent outside of the known. Any little venture into the unknown is a journey and we take them everyday.

I’ve not been sleeping much again recently but insomnia does make for wonderful introspective time and so I’ve been doing a fair bit. I need to travel more, that much is true. Even though my course has less than a year left I’m not sure if I’m ready to come back home just yet. I miss my friends and family sure, but how will life feel when everyday is just that bit more normal. Perhaps normal is just a perception; time is just what we make it maybe? Who knows but I think there are more places left for me to look to really find out the answer.

長いだけど、継続的な関心をしていただきありがとうございます

Mata nee.