007 Monk

First of all, Happy Birthday Nan. <--- Click here.

It's all true.  This day was fantastic.

I organised to help a monk, with a couple of others, dig over some land in his garden, in order for him to create a vegetable plot.  In exchange, we'd be treated to an awesome food fest in an extremely traditional Japanese style.

However, we didn't do any digging, we just had an awesome feast.  It was brilliant.

These monks live in an amazing house, single storey, that covers some prime real estate in the kyoto region.  It's a really traditional Japanese style, and is absolutely unbelievable.  I want to live there.

So this is upalupa-chan.  I can't take a photograph of her without some kind of face being pulled.  She has an incredible talent, as soon as a camera is turned on, her face becomes some kind of comedy image.

うーぱーるーぱーちゃん。

This is an upalupa.  It's a salamander basically, and her nickname is upalupa-chan.  Besides, I like saying the word upalupa.  It's fantastic to say.

This is the monk.  He's particularly fond of James Bond and therefore takes a number of James Bond inspired nicknames.  Such as, 'James monk,' Double 'O' monk etcetera.

He's basically amazing.  He's a really nice guy, and has more energy than anyone I've ever met before, so he's just really good fun to be around.  I think this is only really true if you're five years old at heart, like me, so he could probably become a little tiring after a while.

 So some people asked for more pictures of me, here they are.

We randomly came across these girls dressed in Kimono, and I stole a couple of photographs with them.

See below for the comedy version of this picture.

Yeah, the comedy version.

They instinctively knew the pose to strike, without any input from me; so I just played along with them.


It's genetic, all asians can do this pose with zero thought.

If you see this pose, it means someone is taking a photograph.

This is taken from a bridge over a 'creek' kind of thing, looking up at a bridge.

If you go to the correct areas in Kyoto, which I did through these Japanese J-hopper connections, the streets and town feel like something from the 18th century.  It really is fantastic.

There are still parts of Japan that fit the postcard image!

A temple whose name I've already forgotten.

The compound contains the largest monks sitting place in Japan.

Essentially it's a hall, where up to four hundred monks congregate at any once time in order to practice their meditation.  It's a solo study, so it's one of those scenarios where they could be in there for a month, or an hour, or forever.

This is a different bulding, and one that was used to stage a big budget concert in 2006.  Interestingly they filmed the whole affair and put it on dvd, in 5 different languages!

The monk who lives in the house we visited opened a brand new dvd case to show us the video, so I don't think he has many foreign guests.

In case you were wondering.  Yes he has a 30 inch HD LCD tv with a built in blu-ray player and a ps3 slim.  He also has a motorbike, and another TV in his well equipped kitchen.

He is definitely a monk too.

This is the entrance to the monks' house, with うーぱーるーぱーちゃん showing us how an open door works.

Basically speaking, you walk through it.  Although the bike proved to be something of a hindrance.

It's an amazing house, like I've said before.

This is the garden we should have been digging over, but were quickly ushered away from.

A part of me is vey thankful that we didn't have to attack this area, because the task, as you can see, is a daunting one.

However another part of me felt quite gulty that we were stealing this guys food without giving anything back.  They're quite reliant on other people helping them.

So this is the interior sectio of the house, overlooking the back garden.  The back is an entirely different kettle of fish...

The whole building is extremely traditional and wooden; and presumably rather cold in winter.

This is the zen buddhist garden of choice.

If I knew anything about the religion I'm sure there ar some idols or icons I could point out, that create the quintessentially buddhist garden; but I don't so I won't.


The grass is actually a kind of moss.  I'm not sure how you would mow that...

This picture is to the left of the one above.

It's looking back at one of the wings of the house to the left when you enter.  Basically the whole thing seems to be quite modular, and I don't know whether it was all built at the same time, or if parts were added at different times.

It's an exceptional building though, as I keep saying.

And this is the guy that lives there.

He's うーぱーるーぱーちゃん's and James Monks friend.

He doesn't speak any English, but with the help of the other two (their names are too long to keep retyping!) we were led through something of a zen biddhist meditation ritual.

It was all very interesting, and it was fantastic to gain a small insight into their world.

They showed me their impressive collection of bells, gongs and all noise making instruments as well.

Ever impressed by noisy, shiny or silly things I really liked these particular aspects of the ritual we later undertook.

Also, James monk (pictured) demontrated why he has the name he does.  Watch the video I put at the bottom.

The thing he's holding would later be eaten, having just been picked from the forest/garden at the front.

It tastes awful.

I don't know what it's called either, but it looks horrible and tastes horrible, it's one of those fruits or vegetables that makes you wonder what its' purpose is.  What does that thing contribute to the world?

I don't think we will ever know.

I like this picture, because the great big bowl behind hi is one of the instruments I talked abotu earlier.  You hit it with some kind of small hammer, and it makes a noise, except it makes a noise for about a minute.  It's an extremely interesting instrument for sure!

The monk also looks really monk-ish.

Yeah we had to eat that...

Ah I just thought of a purpose for its' existence!

To make people laugh...

So they cooked the meal, we cleaned the dishes.

I hope they re-cleaned them again after we did the dishes, because I'm not very good at it.

I'll probably never see the monk again though, so I'm safe from his wrath.  Even though I don't think buddhists have wrath.

Everyone sits down for a pot of nabe.  Nabe is just hotpot; and this one had a little bit of everything thrown into it.

It was delicious.

The beer helped too, of course.

And now we see why she is called salamander-chan...

Nice gills you've got there!

Two of the three girls I live with.  The other turns out to be quiter camera shy, despite being a rockstar.

They're the same girls that performed nans birthday celebratory song.

  So this is the band (nameless at the moment) about to perform their song.

The things the middle girl is holding were the exploding flowers full of confetti that I accidentally set-off.

And finally, when all others had gone to bed; mado showed me how to make onigiri (the thing on the right) and yakisoba (the thing on the left).  I can't make them, but these examples were particularly delicious!

Thank you!



This is how he got his James Bond inspired moniker...



This is an instructional video designed to show how to make onigiri.  The process seems quite easy, yet the actual mechanics elude me, despite having this video to help.



My camera only takes three minutes of footage, so I split it into two parts.

That was the day of zen buddhism and birthday celebrations.