Hong Kong

Hong Kong Island has got to be one of the most densly populated places I've ever seen, though Macau Island actually holds the distinction of the most densley populated place on earth.
Hong Kong is totally different by night and day. At all times of the day you will find hectic driving, honking horns and tons of people but at night you must add a complete neon jungle. The night cruise on the water showed a fabulous skyline that is really enchanting.

Expo III

Now we’re really looking formal here with a title like "Expo III"
The Expo is divided into “Global Commons”. They’ve grouped areas of the world together so that you can visit Europe, the south seas, Asia etc all in one area. Global Commons 6 is our favorite. It is most of the smaller, southern asian countries, along with Australia (you figure it out…maybe ‘cause it’s in the same ocean?). Anyway, we are impressed with most of the pavilions. Thailand is gorgeous. You enter into another world with a lot of information about the plants and animals that thrive in the country. They have a small restaurant there with some vegetarian choices…but I haven’t been able to try them yet ‘cause they’ve been sold out every time…pretty popular I guess.
The Phillipines is interesting the theme uses the coconut “Usbong: seeds of life” because it leads the world in exporting coconuts. It has a wonderful dish made with squash and coconut cream…delicious!
We also liked the Pacific Islands pavilion. They worked together to create a display with information from each of them. Guam is, of course, included as well as Fiji, Somoa and others. Makes me want to take off. I LOVE island life.
Malaysia is another one that is just a treat to go through. They wind you through the island life there – flora and fauna. Really a spectacular display. We have some great pictures of some of the dancers from there.

Expo...the sequel

I want you to know…we haven’t taken this Expo thing lightly…we have season passes (thank goodness) and have already gone 9 times. No, we haven’t seen everything yet. Back to the favorites
Egypt is another spectacular pavilion. It is full of artifacts and you can get up close and even touch some of them! We had to ask…they’re all replicas. Oh well…they do look very good. They even have an open sarcophagus with a very dried out mummy in it and to our untutored eyes it looks quite real. And for the food update…they also have vegetarian food. Not much, one item, but hey that’s good in a dedicated carnivorous society. All of the food is native food but ‘tweaked’ to accommodate the tastes of the Japanese. Fish is frequently found in many of the dishes, whether it’s native or not.
At night they have a Koi Pond performance. They use the water and laser lights, similar to Disneyland, to show a number of typically Japanese characters. I’m afraid the story is lost on some of us but the display is quite nice. Pretty simple but entertaining to watch once. They also have “swaying towers” – 3 very tall towers (they’re INTO towers here) that are created so that they can be moved back and forth, in time to the gentle music they play. They also have a “south pointing puppet on a cart” that shows up every half hour. The puppet pulling the cart does some gymnastics as it moves the cart around. The puppets are very flexible here and there’s a long tradition in creating some pretty elaborate puppets in Japan. There are even whole museums dedicated just to puppetry and they do major puppet show productions.
Stay tuned for the next episode….

EXPO!! First installment!

Bampaku or the Aichi World Exposition is a fantastic place to visit. There are pavilions representing over 100 different countries and food to go with them.
We have a few favorite pavilions. Mexico is fantastic – plus I understand what they’re saying – very important! You enter at the sea and climb up through the desert and into the mountains and the caves. It’s really quite a feat, considering how small the area is. The cave actually has the drip, drip, drip of slowly falling water.
Singapore is fantastic. They have a few dancers who performed a few native dances – with a twist…one of the costumed characters would suddenly drop to the floor and do some break dancing routines, jump up and they’d all continue dancing. He was quite popular. They have a room of memories…hollow books are opened up to display an item of some sort with writing about why it was important to the person. A purple heart was there, a cleat from a shoe (they won the game), jacks, report cards, doll set of dishes….lots of touching, little things about life. Really a cool idea and you could spend a long time opening up the boxes.
Another favorite pavilion is India. It really does one of the best jobs of sticking to the theme “nature's wisdom”. You enter to see two well-known symbols of India - the Bodhi Tree and the Dharmachakra (wheel of truth/reincarnation concept). They have a towering tree in the center and most of the information kind of flows around it. Really a calming pavilion to go through. Not only that – they have vegetarian food!!!!

Reunification Palace

The palace was really a fascinating place to visit in Ho Chi Minh City. It had figured large in the history of Vietnam and has pretty well remained the same since 1975. The architecture is very open with large, open hallways all around – great for circulation on those hot days! The outside has sectional columns all around – made to represent bamboo. It was partially destroyed during the Vietnam War (called the American War in Vietnam) but it has been rebuilt and it is still in use for official functions.
We were fortunately to be considered “official”. The conference organizers were able to rent the large ballroom area along with the outside halls and we had our gala celebration there – fabulous place! The entertainment was all native Vietnamese dancing, instrumentals and singing. A great opportunity to see some very interesting and unique instruments.

The palace also has a whole network of tunnels and rooms underneath the building – places where they could hide, escape, as well as direct the war through the telecommunications room. One of the tunnels goes all the way to another palace that is now the Revolutionary Museum.

Shopping in Vietnam

Vietnam is an interesting place to shop in. There are some very cheap prices for some things – and very expensive for others. They organize their shops in a very interesting way – all shops selling the same things are right next to each other. That means all of the jewelry stores are together, all of the tailors, all of the electronic stores and so forth. This also makes the competition fierce – they want YOU in THEIR store FIRST!!! On the streets there’s a constant line of talk, handing out things, trying to entice you in, showing you items. In the open market place it was crazy! They’d grab you as you went by to get you to look at things and they’d push and pull and honestly keep hold of you. It was enough to drive me crazy!
I think that the smooth salesmen of the world have been to Vietnam to pass on their sales tricks – get the customer talking “where you from” was heard from every salesperson and confidential “whispers” that they can give YOU a special price, not available to anyone else. Oh well….guess they have to make their money somehow. Did find some things we liked and hopefully didn’t pay too much over its actual worth. It was fun but I think that next time I want to go into a quieter area.

Criss-crossing traffic in Saigon. Believe me, this is a calm intersection at the moment. 

Vietnam Driving!!!

I recall those long ago days when we all sat in those driver’s ed classes and the teacher let us know that absolute chaos and no end of accidents would occur if we didn’t follow the rules and stop at traffic lights, yield, watch right of way etc. Well….I’m letting you know that the teacher was at least partially wrong. The chaos part is true but the accidents…well...somehow, in Vietnam, through the chaos…they are avoided.
I recall talking about driving in Japan. Let me tell you, Japan is a piece of cake with the icing. It’s fabulous. Vietnam is…well…different. First, there are about 500 motorbikes, 100 bikes and 50 cars in any given mile of road. The motorbikes have one person on them, two people, up to 4 people, the family dog, the kids sandwiched in between the parents or friends, kids reading books and kids still in diapers. They also talk to each other constantly. You can see 2 or 3 or 4 motorbikes pacing and the people carrying on a conversation – in the midst of all the other bikes. They are dressed in jeans, ao dai’s (the traditional dress in Vietnam), slacks, dresses, in elegant dresses and suits. And they are carrying…..EVERYTHING! We saw ladders, boxes, ice, fruit, veggies, a computer monitor, a small refrigerator, a crate of chickens, baskets with who knows what inside, baskets of herbs, trash and beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.
Now…the driving. It is called “driving by the horn”. If you want to do anything, you honk your horn. It seems to be a form of conversation. The motorbikes go wherever they want…cut around the cars, cut in front, cut behind, cut around the other motorbikes, turn left, right, from whatever lane…if you honk your horn it’s ok. Lights are definitely suggestions only and they definitely seem to be ignored the majority of the time. The traffic is interlaced constantly with the people coming in from both directions, crossing, turning or whatever. They also have huge traffic circles, just to make life a little more interesting. Those are really wicked!
And then comes the fun part…pedestrians get to cross the street in the middle of all of this. You just look at the bikes coming down towards you to your left – they at least drive on the right side of the road – when they think of it anyway. You watch until there’s a bit of a break in the crowd, they’re still coming towards you, there’s just not so many of them. You step out and start walking, you don’t stop, you just watch them come and they flow around you, some behind, some ahead but they do it. You continue, now looking to the right and watching for the ‘lull’. Sometimes you stand in the middle of the road with vehicles flowing around you but eventually there’s a space to step into and you do it. Whatever you do, you never speed up or suddenly stop. They are judging your pace and adjusting accordingly and with so many coming at you they’re all adjusting at the same time – you just have to hope they’re watching each other also and not watching the cute girl on the bike they just passed.
I’ve decided Japan has wonderful, clear, elegant, easy to navigate roads.

DisneySea

“Welcome to Tokyo DisneySea – Where adventure and imagination set sail”….so began our adventure this weekend to DisneySea.
As you enter the magical world, you are greeted with a spectacular fountain of the earth. The mammoth globe has sheets of water cascading through the seas surrounding the continents as the globe rotates on its watery base. It’s a real, breath taking entrance to the land of the world oceans. The water theme is continued throughout this Disney set on the coast of Japan.
It doesn’t have as many rides as I remember from DisneyLand but it makes up for it with spectacular settings. The central mountain for DisneySea is Mount Prometheus. They have done a spectacular job making it fit into the “land” it is a backdrop for. When you are in the Mediterranean Harbor, it is an old volcano with ropy lava cascading into the harbor. Shift a little, moving into the American Waterfront, and it becomes a tree covered mountain. Further on, it’s a part of the Lost River Delta and finally an active, spouting volcano as the backdrop for Mysterious Island. The buildings, of course, are very authentic looking, and filled with stores and restaurants for your pleasure (and lightening of the pocketbooks).
Kaz and Kazumi went with us for the day and we had a wonderful time. It was great knowing what was being said to us and being able to know what the signs said. The restaurants where centered around the theme area but definitely with a Japanese twist….Italian pasta dishes all have far more shellfish included and mysterious island had some mysterious dishes to the American palate.
Some of the rides were pretty traditional but there were a few surprises. The Aquatopia cars gave the appearance of being water based bumper cars without the bumping. It looked like you were being drug around the water in a set path, finally ending up back at the beginning. In actuality, you were seemingly randomly moving about the water, forward, backward, spinning, stopping, not following any one car at any given moment. Somehow, when you were brought back to the beginning, you ended up in the same car order as you had started. No idea how that worked.
You’ll have to start planning for a trip over to Japan to enjoy this adventure. It’s well worthwhile!!!!

Check out our pictures

I've added pictures from our Christmas trip. We're also going to be going to Tokyo to Disneyland next week so watch for more pictures!!!!! They can be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/zooguide2002/

Driving, Round Two

Driving in Japan is definitely an experience. For a start, they have some of the world’s narrowest roads. Things that we would look at and consider to be a bike path, they actually drive on on a regular basis. Some, but not all, are one way roads. The road we regularly use to go to work is one such road – very busy, frequently in use, and you spend most of the time creeping up the side of the road or pulling into the small driveways and such on the side of the road, or not, in which case it's sorta like a game of legalized chicken in which you hope the other guy pull off to the side before your front bumpers meet. Another road we use on the way to our taiko class is horrible. Take a very narrow road, add lots of turns (fortunately with those wonderful mirrors) but add the ditch on the side of the road (the ones that are very deep and wide enough for a car tire to go into it). It’s a very popular road because it cuts off close to 20 minutes to get to the main highway…need I say more? To get to the dentist I go to, you have to cross a rice paddy on a very narrow road on the dike between fields. It's so narrow I wasn’t even certain it was wide enough for the car!
The attitude towards stop lights is also different. OK…picture this. The light turns yellow….we generally think of stopping because it’s going to be turning red. Uh uh…wrong. It’s turning yellow so you gun it to make sure you get to turn on that light cycle. Now…it has turned red…well….it’s still ok to go for the next 4 seconds because that’s how long everyone has a red light. It was designed to make sure everyone was able to get out of the middle of the intersection but they use it as a great excuse to not have to stop. Now…the cars that are stopped going the other direction are now creeping forward because, after all, the light is going to turn green in 4 seconds so they want to have a jump on the light. Once again, need I say more? Now…add the motorcycles and scooters to this mix. These guys can go anywhere, weave between cars, come up to the front of the line, pass you on any side at any time. They like to come up to the front of the line and the creep out – they’re halfway into the intersection before the light has turned green! Scooters also regularly drive wherever they want to…sidewalks, across fields, weaving among the bikes and walkers….it’s a crazy mix!
Oh yeah…and if you want to just run into a place (cleaners, grocers, flower shop, whatever), just stop the car. It’s fine, really. The guy behind will probably honk the horn but he’ll get over it and you can run in without worrying about finding a parking place. Trucks, busses, cars….everyone just stops when and where they want to. I’m sure it’s not legal, it’s just done. Another dimension to the mystery of driving here.

The Wonders of Japan

I’ve said lots about places we’ve gone, but little about some of the small things that just happen here in daily life. Here’s another look at Japan…

I’m always amazed at the service you receive here. Let’s just go to the gas station. They begin by directing you in. While the tank is filling, they wash your windows (yes, all of them) and they even will dump your ashtray! When you leave, they stop cars to help get you back in traffic! Talk about being directed…all of the major shopping malls and many of the not so major stores have parking lot attendants who help you in and out of the traffic on the street!

We have noticed a difference in the care of city trees, on the streets or in the parks. In the States, chain saws come out and trees are quickly dealt with. Here, we have watched men climb the trees and prune the trees, with hand clippers, so that they will maintain the beautiful, characteristic, cultivated shape. In most parks around the various castles and shrines, the grounds are raked and swept (even the gravel) to eliminate the leaves that have fallen to the ground. Moss is valued for its beauty (boy has my attitude changed on moss) and it is found in numerous gardens. Here the grass is weeded out of the moss.

Now, checkout the post office. Just imagine…you have a package that arrived and the post office left the note at the house on a Friday. You figure Monday you’ll go pick it up. Well…here, Sunday night, around 8:00 the doorbell rang. I walked out to the gate to discover the Japanese Postal worker there WITH our box to be delivered!!!! Yes, I did say it was a Sunday.

In the stores, particularly the gift stores, the sales people take exquisite care of your purchases. All of them are wrapped as if for a gift, no matter what you say (or not as the case may be). Even a regular store takes pain to package your purchases carefully.
While we’re on the subject of shopping…the grocery stores here do not have the huge carts we do. Picture the little hand baskets we have. Now, picture a little cart just the right size for a hand basket to fit on. That’s the carts they use here. When you make your purchases, you put the basket on the counter and they ring you up straight from your basket to another one (no issues of worker injuries here). If you have glass items they will add a protective wrap, free of charge. Even the 100 yen store (dollar store) has cut up newspapers available for wrapping your glassware! When you pay, you carry your basket over to a table and pack it there. By the way…don’t lick your fingers to open those plastic bags – bad form here. They have damp cloths that you touch to open the bags.

Remember all of those larger sized handkerchiefs we have received over the years? We have now discovered how wonderfully useful they are! First, you can use them as a lunch box. You wrap them around the containers you’re bringing, tie it up, slide in your chopsticks and you’re ready to go. You also keep one in a pocket or your purse. When there are no towels in the toilets, you use the one you’re carrying. (Just like in Ecuador, you carry Kleenex with you always – and, wonders of wonders, they pass the little packages out with advertising stuff on the street corners so you never have to run out! Finally, you can even use them as handkerchiefs, however, here you sniff in public and escape to a toilet to blow your nose.

The service continues everywhere. We have an Italian restaurant we like and the man comes out to bow at the door when we leave. At the museums, they will search for us in the museum to bring us an English guide if they didn’t give it to us immediately. Train attendants watch for people racing for the trains and will help with strollers and such to get everyone one in. It’s truly a different world!

Nara

Over the years, the capital of Japan has migrated to various cities. At one time, Nara was the capital of Japan and thus the home of the Emperor. It is also, surprise, surprise, the home of many shrines and temples. The most famous temple of all, the Todaiji temple, is located in the heart of Nara park. It is the largest wooden structure in the world and home of the largest wooden Buddhist statue. The statue is immense and stately, sitting 15 m high, on a carved, wooden lotus flower. The carvings on the flower told the story of the Buddha, the structure of heaven and earth as well as information about Japan. The large Buddha was surrounded by smaller gilded statues, creating a halo effect around the statue. Massive is the only thing to call it.
Groups of deer, considered to be messengers of the gods, run freely around the park area. They are quite tame and will pose for you to take pictures of them, however, just think about buying some of the treats to feed them and everything changes. The placid, sleeping deer suddenly become energized, racing over to you as you frantically attempt to tear off the paper to offer them a deer cookie. They steal from each other, nip you, knock the cookies out of your hand, and eat everything, including the paper. It lasts for approximately 20 seconds and then they instantly seem to know you are out of food for them and they return once again to the mellow, placid creatures you had originally seen.
We had the chance to visit a few more shrines, most notably the large, Karusa Taisha shrine, located on the edge of the primeval forest. Unfortunately, Japan takes celebrating the New Year quite seriously and many things were closed the week leading up to the New Years. We have decided that a 2nd trip to Nara, probably in the spring to enjoy the wisteria blooms it is famous for.

Hiroshima - Miyajima

Hiroshima is a city with a single focus…the elimination of nuclear weapons and world peace. They have dedicated everything they do to achieve that end. The monuments to honor the dead always contain the peace message along with it. The mayor writes a letter to every country who tests an atomic weapon, hoping each one will be the last one that is ever written.
The A-Bomb Dome is a grim reminder of the destructive power of the bomb. Peace Park is the home of the many monuments and tributes to the thousands of people who lost their lives. The museum is a terrible reminder of the horrible destruction. There really aren’t words to describe it.
After a somber day in Hiroshima, we took off to the island of Miya jima, and island held in awe for its fabled beauty as well as its famous Tori gate and Itsukushima Shrine. This incredible shrine is built right out upon the water with the foundation posts submerged in the sea. Unfortunately, this means that the posts decay easily and the shrine is battered by the ocean as well as typhoons, requiring constant and comprehensive maintenance. Even the beach and sandbar that emerges at low tide is kept clean and free from even the accumulation of algae.
The shrine has numerous buildings, connected with long, covered walkways. There are also several “stage” areas around, some covered, some out in the open. When we arrived, the monks were busy rolling out a red carpet and setting up one of the outdoor stage areas with another red carpet. We hung out on the fringes and watched, figuring something was about to happen (and no one was telling us to leave, in fact, they set up seats for people and we all sat).
Eventually, a number of priests came out and sat in a cloth draped shelter. Next, some men in elaborate silk robes appeared. Some wore masks, some carried various weapons, and all were dressed in elaborate, embroidered silk robes. The first dance was performed by a single man who wore an elaborate headpiece and carried a ceremonial sword. He very formally moved up to the stage and mounted it, then performed the stylized dance, moving through defensive postures. It was accompanied by music performed by some of the priests in the shelter, using various flute type instruments and a small taiko drum. More dances followed with groups and masks varying by dances. Afterwards we found out that we had had the honor of seeing Bugaku dancing, a performance that is only held nine times a year, generally for religious ceremonies or court occasions.
Afterwards, we decided to hike to the top of Mount Misen. We were armed with a nice, picture map of the area and it looked like it would be a pleasant hike, going past numerous temples, shrines and pagodas, and ending up at the small hut to be located at the top. It was a grueling, 5 km hike up STAIRS to the top. We did pass one beautiful Daishoin Temple grounds that was a great place to take a break but after that we were on our own. We almost gave up (it was starting to rain) but we persevered and were rewarded with a great view of the island and ocean.
We headed down, through some more temples, heading for the ‘monkey house’ and the ropeway. The monkey house turns out to be an open area with many monkeys cavorting around. One of the workers came out and threw a bucket of food scraps out and you should have seen the bee-line those monkeys made for the food. Watch out!!! They were fun to watch them play with each other. A few had babies who moved away cautiously but quickly scampered back to mom when something threatened them.
We decided to take the ropeway down and when we saw how far down the mountain it went we were very thankful we did. It was both very steep and VERY long.
Stay tuned...Nara coming up!

Kyoto in December

We spent our holiday time traveling around Japan. We decided to ride the JR trains - they have a special 5 day pass deal over certain holiday periods. While hotels and such are fairly expensive here, we discovered that off-season travel is much more reasonable.
Kyoto is quite amazing. It’s a large city with a jumbled mixture of buildings and streets – modern skyscrapers, huge department stores, four lane streets, mixed with temples, shrines, fabled gardens and streets no wider than an alleyway. Fortunately, Kyoto has a great system of buses with routes designed to take the tourist to many of the historic sites.
Kinkakuji was our first stop. It is probably Kyoto's most famous temple and garden. The building is three-stories with the traditional oriental style curving roofs. The walls and eaves of the second and third stories are covered with a very fine gold leaf. We didn't make it on a bright sunny day so the reflection on the water isn't quite as spectacular as some of the pictures you see of it. It is, however, awesome. The lower story has an altar that is open for viewing sometimes but unfortunately, we didn't get to see it. The garden winds around the temple and up the hill. While there is a beauty in the stark landscape of winter, we plan to go back in other seasons to see the garden in full bloom.
Next stop, Ryoanji temple, just down the street. This is known as the “Temple of the Sleeping Dragon” and was once a retirement home for one of the emperors. It is also famous for its rock garden, one that is held in the highest esteem as being the quintessential rock garden. People enter (changing shoes for slippers, of course) and sit on a ledge, contemplating the garden. It is a very serene, peaceful scene.
Next stop…the Kyoto Imperial Palace. At one time Kyoto was the capital of Japan and the emperor took up residence in the Imperial Palace. The palace is still used for some of the enthronement ceremonies for the emperor. It is found in the center of the huge Imperial Gardens. There’s a large earthen wall around the outside with six gates for different people seeking admittance, Daimyo (nobles), the Emperor, the Emperess, lesser nobles, and finally the tradesmen, laborers and servants necessary to maintain the smooth running of the place. The main hall is huge and currently contains the thrones for both the emperor and the empress, used during the enthronement ceremony. Although the current Imperial Palace is in Tokyo, most of the emperors are enthroned here in Kyoto. When it occurs in Tokyo, the chairs are packed and shipped to Tokyo and then returned here. The palace grounds also include buildings that sometimes house the 3 treasures of Japan; the sacred mirror, sword and jade.
The small garden outside one of the emperors living quarters is the most spectacular. The water wends its way through carefully cultivated rocks and plants, absolutely gorgeous! It’s another place I would like to return to in the spring.
Stay tuned…Kurashiki coming up!

Kurashiki

Since we were traveling by train, we decided to spend the night in a town half-way between Kyoto and Hiroshima, our next destination. Quite by accident, Jeff chose the little town of Kurashiki, never knowing what we would find there – and a great find it turned out to be.
We exited the train station to be greeted with a large promenade with a great villa behind an ornate wall with the word Tivoli plastered upon it and a huge ferris wheel turning over it all. Well, not being able to ignore such a large invitation, we decided to check it out. It was an amusement park, patterned after the original Tivoli located in Copenhagen and not unlike a small version of the original Disneyland. The light! The entire place was decorated for Christmas with red, green and white lights covering everything. They had rides, large and small, to appeal to all age groups and shops of every kind, including a street designed to emulate Copenhagen. The buildings throughout were spectacular, interspersed with tiny gardens, waterfalls and elaborate fountains. We had a fabulous time, walking around and enjoying everything.
Kurashiki is also the home of the O’Hara art museum. The building looks like an old Greek Temple, strange in the middle of a Japanese city. It is considered to be one of the leading western art museums in Japan. It includes pieces by El Greco, Claude Monet, Picasso, Gougan, Renoir and many more. They also included a large Asian art section and many artifacts. It was located along a famous canal zone with graceful swans floating through the water with weeping willows bending to the water. I bet it’s fabulous in the spring!
Next…on to Hiroshima.

Buddhist Temple

We had the honor of attending a special ceremony at a Buddhist temple in Shizuoka. I am going to share the layman’s view of what we were able to observe that day. I have to admit I do not understand everything I saw that day, but it was exciting to participate, even on the fringes, of this once in a lifetime celebration.
The care of Buddhist temple is traditionally passed on to a son. Fujika’s grandfather had been in charge of the temple up until his death a year ago. This November, her uncle was officially ‘invested’ in the temple.
As in all special ceremonies, the participants were all dressed in elaborate and ornate clothing. The children, called Ochigo-san for this celebration, were absolutely adorable. They were dressed in purple, ‘blousy’ pants with a multicolored short kimono type of top. They girls wore golden crowns and the boys had golden hats. They were so cute and very serious as they were given blessings from the priests.
The priests from many of the other temples also participated. They were richly garbed in ornately stitched kimonos of greens or purples. The color denotes the rank of the priest, the purple being the higher, “nobler” rank. Her uncle, of course, was in a gorgeously embroidered kimono, purple, with an exquisitely ornate shawl (I don’t know what to call it) wrapped around him (a VERY expensive outfit).
The day started with a procession through the streets with the priests leading and chanting. Her uncle was next, walking under a large, red umbrella, and then the children followed in the parade. Alas, the crowns did not want to stay on their heads so there were many stops to straighten them out, tuck in clothing and getting the sandals back on their feet.
After we returned from the procession, everyone filed into the temple and sat on the small cushions, zabuton, placed on the tatami mats. The ceremony began with a ritual opening of a new gate for the priest and purification. The priests entered carrying incense and or ornate urns and proceeded to ‘pray’ at each corner of the altar. Flowers were spread to purify the temple for her uncle to enter and receive the official orders to be a priest of the temple. They have a special book for the temple which records priests and activities in the temple. (It’s so important to the temple that when there was a fire during World War II, Fujika’s grandmother ran away carrying the notebook with her.)
Check out http://www.geocities.com/zooguide2002/index.htm for pictures.

Shizuoka - Part I

Fujika, our Japanese daughter, and her family invited us for the weekend to Shizuoka.
It’s a small city but it’s set in a fabulous location. Fujisan, Mount Fuji, is by far the most outstanding backdrop any city could ever hope for.
Fujika met us at the train station and took us on a tour of this great city. We took a bus up to Nihondaira. This is a park/tourist spot where there is a fabulous, photo opportunity view of Mt. Fuji. There are wonderful trails to hike around on and fantastic shots. It would be a great place to go year-round and get pictures of the mountain during all seasons. There’s also a shrine there that is only accessible by cable car…we saved that for another trip. Next we traveled back down to Shizuoka and went upstairs in a large office building. Believe it or not, they have dedicated on whole floor to tourists – you have a fabulous view of the entire city up on the 14th floor (or thereabouts). It was a great way to see the entire city - as well as Mt Fuji. We went down to Sumpu Park, where there once was a great castle, though all that now remains is the gateway. They have a fabulous garden there as well as many walkways and places for the children to play – great for just relaxing. It is so well cared for that, believe it or not, the gardeners were carefully pruning the tree to give it the Japanese bonsai look. We were probably there for an hour and they (3 men) were still working on the one tree.
Fujika kept telling us about the lights we could see at night and oh my gosh – I was not prepared for them. The city has lit up a few city blocks – the entire length of a mid-city park and a number of streets around it. It is so reminiscent of the zoo. Every tree, every light pole, everything available was a cascade of colors. The large building at the end of the park area had a huge tree displayed on it, making you think of Rockefeller Center. It was really spectacular! The streets are closed to cars on the weekends so shoppers were combing the streets for special deals. Every story was playing Christmas carols. It really was a walk down Disneyland Main Street at Christmas – only this time it was in Japan!

Pictures on line - Finally!!!

I have started posting some pictures on my yahoo site at:
http://www.geocities.com/zooguide2002/
It's a work in progress so come back whenever you can.

Shirakawa

We have just returned from a true time warp – a weekend wrapped in 18th Century Japan. Shirakawa is famous for Gassho-style thatched-roof houses. You can check out some pretty good pictures at: http://www3.kiy.jp/~tourj/hida/shira-1.html

They are called "gassho-zukuri" type of houses and are located primarily in Shirakawago – especially since they’ve built a dam that covers most of the other areas where the buildings were once found. They did move many of the buildings to Shirakawa to create an open air museum where they show the homes, crafts and other activities from the 18th Century.
This style of traditional Japanese architecture means "praying hands." It comes from the shape of the roof which is thought to resemble two hands clasped in Buddhist prayer. The VERY steep roof is designed to prevent snow piling up on the roof, and it also keeps the inside relatively cool in summer. Absolutely no pegs or nails were used in their construction. The homes had an "irori" (Japanese hearths) in the main central area. They are small squares filled with sand where the people did their cooking and found warmth in the houses. The smoke from these hearths permeated throughout the gassho-zukuri, darkening the walls and wood over the years. Traditionally, the smoke was used to keep the silkworms warm (families used to raise silkworms in frames in the upper levels of the building). The smoke from the fires was essential to provide a protective coating for the pine and chestnut pillars and beams against insects. It also kept the thatching dry and insect free, meaning that the roofs were replaced every 40-45 years. Now they have to replace them every 20-25 years because they don’t last as long. So much for modernizing things….
Staying there was really an experience. The rooms are clean but very traditional. Tatami mats are on the floor everywhere and all of the walls were shoji screens with rice paper. They have hallways on the outside of the rooms – meaning that when the doors are all closed, there is trapped air and thus more warmth inside (warmth being relative, of course). They had the irori in the middle of the main room where we ate. They had a modern kitchen too cook in but they did have a small wood burning stove that kept the room quite toasty – well…at lest the half of you facing the stove. We ate a fabulous selection of traditional Japanese foods – things most of us had absolutely no idea what they were. Fortunately (for me) everyone else was a carnivore so they took the fish for me.
The beds were the traditional futons on the floor with warm, fluffy quilts pile up to keep you warm. We slept very well – even with the pillows filled with something along the lines of beans – rice husks maybe? The woman told us quite a bit about the house – with simple words and lots of pantomiming and acting out. The house was over 300 years old, though it has been added onto over the years. At one time the barn was attached to the house and they kept cows (mooing and horns told us this). Rooms were filled about 6 inches deep with straw – that made the bedding. They climbed up the ladders with milk on their backs – never did figure out why. She came to the house when she married…she hummed the wedding march. The family still lives in the house – the son and grandchildren on one side, grandma over nearer the kitchens. A very different lifestyle even today.