Finally, Some News

Before we start, the song I couldn't think of last time was Blurs - Park Life.  Thanks for the comments.

Unfortunately, the interesting news is only weather related.  Bummer right?

If you look quickly at this website, you can see the typhoon working its merry way up the country, at a rate of about naff all centimetres an hour.  It's not technically a typhoon, the wind speeds are not high enough.

If you look here, you can see a projected path.  I'm nowhere near the actual storm, I'm just getting the offshoots and flak from the cloud.  If it follows the projected path, I may well encounter some of the fifty knot winds, however.

The reason this is interesting news?  I was awoken at 4 AM by the lightning preceding the storm.  It wasn't quite raining yet, but the storm was brewing nicely.

A prototypical European high energy thunderstorm would contain a large number of flashes, with extremely loud bangs over the course of a short period of time.  The rain would also follow a similar pattern, with heavy rainfall in short bursts.

The lightning here follows the pattern of - mayhem, followed by deafening noise and a helping of terror.  The peal that woke me up had a three or four second delay between the flash and bang.  The flash woke me up, with my curtains drawn.  The thunder shook the house.

In all honesty, I thought something had exploded, because nothing else happened for about thirty seconds.  By this time I was in the kitchen getting a drink.

Then, out of nowhere, god defibrillated Tochigi.  This bang had a simultaneous lightning strike and thundering explosion.  My intestines shook and my ears were ringing.  At this point I shat my pants,  I don't mind admitting as much, and as I opened the window to take a look outside (risking the obvious association with metal) the hairs on my arms stood up.  It must have been exceedingly close, although I'll never know exactly where it struck.

If someone was struck in this storm, you wouldn't even know - they'd be vaporised.

So after a few more strikes some miles away, I went back to sleep.  At this point it was raining quite heavily.

After the alarm woke me up, I could hear the rain pouring down.  It had presumably rained non-stop since I went to bed, and it showed as I cycled to work.  After donning as much waterproof gear as possible, I cycled through foot-high waters, being drenched by every passing car.  They don't slow down or stop for individuals on the pavement or riding their bikes.  Mannered people, indeed.

So the upshot is that, despite the best efforts of the Japanese people, I'm quite dry.  Except for my socks, which I've been forced to take off.  I didn't think far enough ahead to bring a spare pair with me.  Also, their play area (I would call it a field, except there's no grass) is under a few inches of water right now.  When do these people close schools?

I can't imagine all the trains will be running, this preponderance of weather would halt even an English train!  Wait, our trains are notoriously hardy right?

Spare a though for the guys working at fukushima, not only are they killing themselves, but now they're doing it in the rain too.  (At least it's still 30 deg C, at basically 99% humidity, eh?)

P.s  I've just read this article about a publication being made/not made public, regarding the RFU.  Someone fill me in, what happened to make the report necessary in the first place?

What I did Today:

What I did today was get very wet.

I decided to go to the botanical gardens; and seeing as today is my second to last full day in Kyoto, come hell or high water I was going to see these gardens.

Knowing this, He gave me high water.  It's the most rain I've seen since I've been here (including the 'typhoon' (if you want to call it that) because I was asleep when that hit, so I didn't really see any of it) and it finally enabled me to put on my waterproof trousers!  They saw some in anger use, finally!

The gardens are actually really nice, and they fit the tempo of the area to a nicety.  Kyoto is a relaxed city, if that's not an oxymoron.  It's certainly a lovely place to be, and I wouldn't mind teaching in this area.  Hell; I'd love to teach here.

After that expedition I went chinese dress hunting.  Kyoto is as traditional as it comes, and with that come traditional values.  Traditional values essentially means there are no chinese shops in this area, let alone ones selling chinese dresses.  I will continue my brave search however; maybe into the furthest reaches of Tokyo, who knows.

On another note, JET applications started today.  I spent an hour filling in the forms I'll need, only to find out their 'save' option doesn't appear to work.  It's going to take a considerable amount of time to complete, that's for sure...

If you're reading this JET officers:  Please let me come back here!  Please!  I'm begging you!

I'll put the photographs of today up when I have some time, but at this rate that may well be after I arrive back in England.

'Super Typhoon Melor'

So here I am in another coffee shop, thinking on the day that's passed.

There's a typhoon coming; but those on the news aside, there's not much fuss about it. Although I'm certain it's the biggest one this year (a few reports have mentioned as much) and although I'm certain it's changed direction and is now going to pass right over here, rather than glance us as previously predicted; the people here pay little attention to the matter. Only upon prompting will they talk about it, and this is puzzling me. Maybe the fact that a serious typhoon is a threat to life plays a part in my perceived ambivalence surrounding the subject. Not wanting to relive past events and whatnot. Think back to the storm in the late 80's in England, and the furore that caused. Think winds that are twice as fast and more rain than is logically possible and you get the kind of idea of what typhoon means here.

Or maybe I've got it all wrong. The reason they don't talk about it, even though it's already affecting southern areas of Japan as I write this, is because it's not a big deal. Between the typhoons, massive fires, earthquakes and tsunamis this little bit of wind and rain is probably nothing to get excited about. Six feet of overnight snow would plummet England into the dark (I toyed with the idea of putting ice here instead of dark) ages, but in the Scandinavian countries? What you're used to defines your responses to such situation, I suppose.

Anyway, I'm in an absolutely prime position to witness this storm first-hand and have made the necessary preparations to do so. Yokohama is on the North Eastern side of a peninsula just below Tokyo, and the storm will (if it carries on as predicted) travel overland to hit me. Essentially, the storm is travelling at around 40m/s North North East, and will be weakened by the time it reaches me, because of the land it travels over.

Quick geography lesson: Oceans fuel tropical storms, evaporated water provides the storm with energy, so when it's over the ocean it has the potential to incorporate more water into its' mass. Once over land water can no longer join the storm, so at most the storm will stay the same intensity, but in most cases will rapidly dissipate. Lesson over.

Therefore, travelling up Japan means the storm will lose energy as it rains all over the southern parts. It also means the leading edge can't affect the seas here, as it will on the other side of the peninsula. The high wind speeds will counteract the extremely low pressures (935 millibars!) by essentially forcing the waves away from shore. The situation is completely different on the other shore, with winds and low pressure forcing high tides towards the land. It should be interesting to see the effect on damage between both areas, if there is any of course.

On the news I've seen the smaller islands south of Japan being battered, trees coming down and whatnot. There has also been at least one death, but where I have no idea. The warmer the waters are the more ferocious the storm, (until you go too far south, then there are no storms, but that's a whole different lesson) so these islands are always the ones you see on the news being destroyed by all manner of different god (sic) based acts.

So by preparations I mean I've purchased a few supplies. Firstly, to go with my rain proof jacket, I've bought plastic trouser overall rain proof cover things. If anyone knows their official name, please, do tell. I'm currently hunting for a plastic cover for my bag, and a plastic bag for my camera. Ideally I want a proper bag cover (everyone here has one), but I'll settle for a Tescos bag. (They don't have Tescos here, it was just an example) The plastic bag for my camera has to be completely clear though, I want to shoot through it without taking my camera out. It hasn't stopped raining for two days here because of the weatherfront, so I can only imagine how hard the rain will be once it actually hits – thirty seconds in the rain could spell disaster for my camera. These supplies aside I think I'll be in good stead to check out what's what.
I'll definitely go out and have a nose around when it's dead overhead, that is, until cars start sailing past my window. Then I'm very much the indoor photographer. There's a great park looking onto the seafront, and I think I'll find myself wandering in that direction. I might try taking some drenched reporter style footage, with the trees bent double and twenty foot waves crashing upon the break behind me.

Yeah they do that here too. Send reporters into towns that have been evacuated, wearing bright blue or yellow plastic packaging holding a microphone that's cellophane wrapped to stop it getting wet, shouting something no one can understand into the microphone. Pretty much the scene I described above. I've not had the chance to ask if anyone here thinks it's weird too, but I'm guessing it's stupid in any culture. It must be fun being the guy who gets to do that. Well the first few times it would be fun. It sure as hell beats going into Iraq and doing that kind of correspondence, anyway.

That's pretty much my day tomorrow sorted, I'm going to get very wet.

Then the day after is my interview of course!

And in other interview related news, I have another interview for a strange but cool sounding English speaking cafe. They hold lessons in English, but also have a cafe where the teachers and students hang out outside of lessons, and speak English! Sounds interesting, but I'm not sure how economically viable it is. Maybe it would be something fun to do at the weekends, to meet new people and earn a little money on the side.

That's it for now, I'm going to head back and collect my washing (it's free here, so it's very much a case of fill your boots.)

The typhoon is called Melor by the way.  You can keep track of it on google!

じゃまた。

Kamakura in the rain!

So it was raining this morning.  Me and a fellow traveller, whose name I will now get wrong: Hooshan, were sitting in the lobby wondering what to do.  So he googled 'tokyo in the rain and out popped a review of the ancient capital of Japan, long before Tokyo, and before Kyoto even, this place, 'Kamakura,' was where the seat of power was placed.  The review stated that Kamakura is a nice place to visit in the rain, and upon loudly debating this in the same lobby, a German piped in saying, 'I'm sorry to have eavesdropped, but I hear Kamakura is really nice in the rain.'  So almost entirely swayed we asked the receptionist to give us directions there.

In a bizarre twist it transpired that our receptionist was born there, and recommended that the previous reviews, both electronic and personal, were complete bubkus.

Undeterred we forged ahead into several fascinating areas.  Generally the two most impressive features, a giant bodhivista (Spelling?) and another giant buddha thing were indoors, while the gardens took some (hopefull) great photographs, because the lighting wasn't too harsh to become overpowering, or too dull to render photography impossible.  Therefore, two plucky tourists gambled on the weather machine, and ended up winning.

It did however rain buckets on my way back, after I had parted from my travel companion.  As an interesting side-note, the raindrops  here are fingernail sized, and carry an improbable force, dissipated in a violent fashion upon anything that may dare stand in its way.  I was drenched after ten seconds, and despite wearing a waterproof jacket, my trousers and bag contents were soaked.  Maybe some waterproof trousers and a waterproof bag container are in order at some later stage.

My favourite part of the day was a 10 metre tall wooden statue of a goddess.  It's the biggest in Japan and is absolutely amazingly decorated in gold leaf, with extra sprinklings of vanity all over the place.  It's made from a single tree, the name of which eludes me at the moment, although it's quite a well known tree.  It must have been monumental as well, because this thing was about 2 metres wide, as well as being 10 metres tall.  Unfortunately no photographs were allowed.

Onto the pictures:

The Japanese style full English breakfast contains many odd accoutrements.  Cucumber and what is possibly mashed potatoe, with (offscreen) oddly cut toast.  As usual, portions are quite mean.  Free coffee/tea refills are a nice american style touch though.

Cool looking bus with supporting pole type things on the front.  I'm not sure if that would pass a pedestrian impact safety test in Europe though...

It was a little gloomy at this stage in proceedings, but this temple marker was huge and well deserving of a picture.

At certain religious festivals people wish upon a rock, and try to throw it on top of these markers.  I'm not sure if they get what they wished for, but I'm certain that a lot of people get headaches.

As I understand it, these structures mark the beginning of temples or shrines, but this one led onto a big shopping street.  God is in the dollar I guess.

Perfect lighting!  I hope the rest come out this well.

The submerged plants in the picture to the right looked like some kind of lilly, but they stood up to a metre out of the water with no support.  May any horticulturalist know what these are?

There are also 15 pound (estimated) carp swimming around in there.  They looked pretty common to me.

This place proved to be the first of a number of traditional looking Japanese gardens, the likes of which is universally reckoned within the hostel, to exist only in the movies and an extremely small percentage of upper class, private Japan.  I guess it's not surprising to understand that what we know of another country, may turn out to be misrepresentative of the truth!

Terribly blurred picture of the carp.  Doesn't really do justice to it's size.  Although I guess the old joke goes that it was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big.

Looking out of the lily type plants, onto the mountains that permeate this town.  The mountains are as much a feature of the land as the plants that grow on them.

More of the same view.

The younger brother of the one that got away.

The path leading towards the main temple area.  Line of sight is difficult  to recreate with a photograph, but it was impressive to see the temple in the distance, it's a lot bigger than it looks here!

This all looks traditional and quite nice, until you see the bloody kid, on his bloody scooter!

Sans bloody kid, unfortunately still with bloody scooter.

This is on the steps leading up to the main temple.  It's kind of like the scroll containing area in asakusa.

The design of the eaves alone is intricate, before you take into account the paintings on the roof of most of these structures, or the construction of the roof itself.

I guessed that this raised platform was for some kind of performance.  No English speakers were on hand to prove or disprove this theory, so it stands as a tentative reasoning behind this structure.

One guard dog stands with his mouth open, the other closed.  One represents life, the other death.  Their proximity defines the co-existence and intimate nature of both aspects of our existence.  Plus they look mean.














I've sifted through some 150 photos so far, and there are about 200 more to go, so I'll finish the rest up tomorrow.

These must take a long time to paint...  I wonder why all the end parts are yellow?

This is the kind of classic design feature I always associate with Japan, it's nice to see it actually exists over here, albeit in a tourist form.

That's a damn big drum.  I think they're called taiko, but I'm not sure.  This type of drum is the same kind that reach house sized proportions during the big festivals, and I assure you, having experienced the noise from a variety only four or so feet wider than this, the experience is physical.

This is the facade of the main shrine, no pictures were allowed inside so I tactfully took this shot of the outside.

This is a little way off to the right, and is a modest shrine to (presumably) a separate deity.  It has its' own water dispenser/human soul purifying unit, but I didn't manage to get a decent shot of that.  In this one area there were lots of these separate shrines.

This is a different shot of the same thing.

I've no idea what these are, or what their purpose is, but you see a number of  them around the place, and they look pretty cool.  Incense can be burned around the area, or inside the two taller structures, but I've also seen figures inside them instead.  So, basically, they could be anything.

  There were a number of these elongated paths with a single focal point in the far distance.  On the one hand they looked quite spectacular to the eye, but not to the camera...

Sometimes these gates have golden suns on their faces - this represents a royal tie, and usually means the shrines' upkeep is handled by the royal family.

A common problem?

There were a thousand photo opportunities a minute in this particular area.

These things also appeared to be markers of some kind, as they were everywhere in this particular area, and can often be seen in other shrine areas.

The old trees seem to define what makes a shrine area, and what makes these areas different from other areas.  Although it may sound ridiculous, they look to me like full sized bonsai trees, all gnarled and ugly, but perfectly shaped.

These shoes are actually for fully grown adults...

This impressive structure marked the entrance to shrine number two!

A close up view of the detailing in the supporting beams.  That big roof was supported, as you can see from the picture above, on a frame that all bore the detailing on the left.  Again, it must have taken quite some time to construct this.

This is one of several bells around the area.  This one is not used anymore, it's too old.  The sign even says, do not touch, this is a national treasure!  It looked so old that a stiff breeze might disintegrate it.

Another temple structure, bearing many similarities to those found all around this area.  It feels like the same designer worked on all the structures around here!

Inside was another ornate, gods abound festival of sobriety.  The gods on display looked buddhist, but I can't say for certain.

I'm sure Tokyo-ites visit temples and shrines as much for the greenery as the religious aspects.

This view looked pretty so I took a picture... There's nothing more to be said really.

These sites are still actively used for devout worship, and this area is for private prayer.  It also houses a gift shop of sorts, for all your praying needs; including: paper to write wishes on, that can then be tied to a special rope, in a certain knot, that will therein grant the wish; a wooden slate that ambitions can be written upon.  Once tied to a special rack, these dreams will come true.  And of course, incense; for all your smelling needs.

This is a comparative shot.  The people also give it a sense of scale, albeit a skewed one, because native Japanese really are that small!

Welcome to the third site!  This one has some particularly nice gardens, for all the horticulture buffs out there.

This is the first example (I think) of a proper Japanese style garden, and came at the foot of a peculiar shrine.  It's interesting to see how few of these there are around Japan.

The water contains a number of goldfish, and a massive number of coins, many copper based.  How are the fish not poisened?  Or maybe that's why they're such a bright orange...

There's an awful lot happening in this picture, and I included it to show everyone that the 'style' they have over here isn't always minimalistic!

Lots of these little statues arrange all over the place.  The patience to set these up in orderly rows like this is something only a monk could have.

That's going to make a hell of a noise when it's struck...

The view on a cloudy day, across the bay, where we did stay, hooray!

A slightly different take on the same view.

One hundred pounds to anyone who can identify this bird of prey.  There were waarning signs up saying these things eat your stuff, so be careful, and we got a really good look at it, but not with the camera so we're certain it's a bird of prey.  Which kind, however, remains a mystery.

This building is at the top of the gardens as seen before, and houses an incredible 10 metre statue of a deity.  The largest in Japan, and made from camfer (sp?).  It must have been a hell of an undertaking to create that statue from a single piece of wood.

Close up of the little figures, placed all over any non-walking area in the shrine.

A really evil looking guy with a cool sword and flames behind him.  Message:  Don't annoy this guy.

Normally these gateways are well above head height, something that is not always the case as I found to my detriment.  The headache inducing height of this example is aptly demonstrated by my colleague in this picture.  He is roughly 5 foot 8, so I was perfectly placed to tackle this particular obstacle head on.

This cave was carved into the mountain, and was a shrine of sorts.  This tunnel is actually around four feet high, and is quite claustraphobic, and also quite a strain on the back!!!

These small figures were placed all around, on any surface that would hold them.

More of these cleverly placed figures.  They even put them on the power cables supplying lighting to the cave!







At this stage my camera ran out of juice, but we did see a number of other things, so when my travel buddy gets back home and uploads his photos, I'll put them on here.