One Blog-Post To Rule Them All: Two Weeks of Travelling in Japan
Sam and I have been busy traveling around Japan. We traversed the entire country and took thousands of photos. Here's a small sample of the best photos we took.
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November 2009
Chiran - Samurai Houses
Another highlight in Chiran is the superb preservation of local Samurai houses. After the Kamikaze museum, Sam and I hitched a taxi to this little neighborhood.
There were about 7 fully preserved Samurai Houses & Gardens. Visitors are welcome to stroll down the street and walk around the gardens.
I looooove Japanese gardens, so this was quite a treat. Each of the gardens is meant to convey some deep abstract meaning.
After our stroll through Chiran's Samurai neighorhood, we catch a taxi back to the train station. We barely miss the train, and so we find ourselve near the ocean with an extra hour before the next train comes.
From the shore, we got a great view of the local exploding volcano. Apparently, it's no big deal to the natives.
Chiran - Kamikaze Museum
We visited a very fascinating, albeit disturbing, town today. It's a town called Chiran, and it's near the southern tip of Kyushu, which is Japan's most southern main island.
Chiran is interesting because it was the most active airbase of Kamikaze pilots during World War II (specifically, the Battle of Okinawa, to which Chiran was the closest Japanese-held airfield).
A museum has been erected to share the story of the 1000+ kamikaze pilots. It was an odd sensation to stand here as Americans, but much to our surprise, we found the local Japanese very warm and friendly. It's a wonder how things have changed in 60 years.
(Unfortunately, the museum didn't allow cameras past the front door)
The museum was quite interesting. It had a large collection of personal memoirs and letters from the pilots. These are some interesting highlights (Note: I find this stuff interesting because I enjoy Japanese History, but I think most people will find it a bit disturbing):
(1) Most of the pilots were young, between 17-22, although we saw records as old as 32.(2) Most of the pilots (~90%) died en route to battle. It's unclear if it was due to mechanical failure or actual gunfire from ships.(3) The Kamikaze program wasn't limited to pilots ramming their planes into ships. Kamikaze were also ordered to collide with B-52s.(4) Not all of the pilots were Japanese. ~10 pilots were from Korea (which Japan occupied during the war). Even more interesting was the American-citizen-turned-kamikaze-pilot. This American (I forgot his name), was of Japanese descent, born in Hawaii. When war broke out, he and one of his brothers came to fight for Japan. Ever more interesting is the other two brothers enlisted in the United States Military and fought in the European War.
(1) Most of the pilots were young, between 17-22, although we saw records as old as 32.(2) Most of the pilots (~90%) died en route to battle. It's unclear if it was due to mechanical failure or actual gunfire from ships.(3) The Kamikaze program wasn't limited to pilots ramming their planes into ships. Kamikaze were also ordered to collide with B-52s.(4) Not all of the pilots were Japanese. ~10 pilots were from Korea (which Japan occupied during the war). Even more interesting was the American-citizen-turned-kamikaze-pilot. This American (I forgot his name), was of Japanese descent, born in Hawaii. When war broke out, he and one of his brothers came to fight for Japan. Ever more interesting is the other two brothers enlisted in the United States Military and fought in the European War.
The town is surrounded with these lanterns. One for each of the 1000+ pilots who died.
A replica of a 'Zero fighter'
Modern Chiran is also covered with many of these statues, the Goddess of Peace.
Last Day at GenkiJACS
Our days at Fukuoka's Genki Japanese And Culture School have come to an end.
The school has a going away ceremony, where each of the graduating students are presented with their diploma.
Our friend Philip graduated with us. He plans to stay in Japan for a few years, or until he gets deported back to France. His next destination is to be a ski instructor at some Japanese ski resort (nevermind that he hasn't skied in 11 years! He must have really impressed his new employer).
The school was so impressed with Samantha's last soiree with kimonos, that they decided to have another event, this time with super, high-class, uber-expensive Kimonos. They approached us and asked if they could use Sam's photo (along with some other girls from the school) on the website or in future pamphlets.
Teachers and students marvel at how well Sam looks in the Kimono. Meanwhile, Sam gains a new appreciation for the pain and agony Japanese women must go through to wear these things.
But it all pays off, we got some great photos.
Next: We'll be traveling around Japan for ~2 weeks, then back to the good old U.S. of A.
Next: We'll be traveling around Japan for ~2 weeks, then back to the good old U.S. of A.
Calligraphy Class
In our last week of school last week, I took a calligraphy class. We began by making stamps. Japanese people use a personal stamp for official documents instead of signing in pen.
Our teacher had done some research on the meaning of each of our names. At school I was known as "Samansa" (because the "th" sound doesn't exist in Japanese), so my teacher suggested I break down my name into "sa," which can imply small, then "man," which means 10,000, and "sa," which (apparently) means sand. Here my name is written in katakana at the top, and then broken into the kanji for small 10,000 sand below that:
So I traced the outline of my stamp and copied those figures onto paper inside of that outline. Then, flipped the paper over and wrote the mirror-image of my kanji onto the base of my stamp. Finally, I used a little tool to carve where my pen marks were.
Fun!
Once I had my stamp, I was ready to... create art! But first, I needed paint.
We were taught the traditional method of putting regular water into a special dish, and then using a stick of compressed ash (propped against the dish from behind, in the upper right of this photo) to turn the water black. We rubbed the ash stick against the bottom of the dish, so it would dissolve into the water, for a few minutes. The longer you rub, the blacker the water turns.
Then we learned how to paint the kanji for "dream" with the correct brushstroke order and everything. Apparently it's considered the most artistic if you can make uneven strokes, so that the lines aren't uniform, but rather have some character. For instance, our teacher showed us how to make a stroke so that the top portion of the line would have breaks in it as if there weren't quite enough ink on that part of the brush, while the bottom part was solid black.
Since I'm not too sure what this kanji is *supposed* to look like, it felt like a bit of a shot in the dark for me. The teacher would highly compliment a particular stroke every so often (while politely not mentioning the other strokes on my page), and I would think, "really? that one's good??" So it was always a big surprise finding out which parts I did well, and not so well.
And... voila! Mine is the top row, second-to-right here: the one with my stamp on it :)
