Morrisons in Japan

The second week of the school Holidays were even better than the first. I never thought I would get the opportunity because of the distance, but my parents managed to get a 5 day stop over in Kansai, on the way home from a boxing tournament in Australia that my Dad brought a team to.

Hanging out with them was wonderful! I had forgotten how at ase I could feel. Wonderful! I got to show them around my town, and even have them stay in a Temple. Oh, and coming from Oz, they were not impressed with the snow that greeted them.

"Don't look at he camera!"

Brought them by bullet train to Hiroshima and then to the holy island of Miyajima to hunt down some Monkeys. Then on to Kyoto so my Mom could some more of her own Huinting: geisha. It took a while, and then Success!

As usual, you can see more pictures here

Cry Baby From the front page of today's newspaper. Asashoryu, the cuurent Sumo Champion, has upset the crowd. The Number 1 is not supposed to loose, and yet he has lost two matches in as many days. Some throw their cushions in disgust, while others taunt and laugh.

Ah Sumo, where else can you watch big men get ritualistically ridiculed by their fans.

Doya-Doya Festival


http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/davidlmorrison/JapanAug2006toJul2007/OsakaDoyaDoyaSun14thJan07/

It's the Doyadoya (No idea what it means) Festival in the main shrine of Osaka. It's in one of those compounds that houses both Shinto and Buddhist buildings, where the Buddhist monks pray to the Shinto gods to protect their buildings, and vice-versa.

This willingness to take the foreign and adapt it to native needs is all over Japan, most notable in the use of foreign words within the Japanese language. Bread was introduced by the Portuguese, so it's "Pan". They didn't have a word for part time job, so they borrowed
the German "Arbeit". The list is endless, especially when it comes to things that can be described in English in far fewer syllables than in Japanese, even when there are Japanese words than could do the job.

Back on track. It's a Naked Man festival, in which men (high school boys in this case) wearing sumo nappies crowd into a temple and try to grab the good luck charms dropped by a priest from a platform above them. It's a daylight, less violent, less crowded version of the
Festival I took part in last February, the one where I'm visible in the newspaper clipping, and was hilarious to watch this time around.

ESPECIALLY when the participants screamed as ice cold water was poured over them. Here's the photo I submitted to the agencies to put on the wire.

And it was already bloody cold out to start with.

What's the German word for pleasure from someone else's pain? Schadenfreude, I think is how you spell it. Japanese entertainment, TV and Live, is all about the Schadenfreude.

Random Snapshot of September

I realised that I haven't emptied the memory card in my phone for and age.

This album is a collection of the random stuff I found on it that I think gives a nice snapshot into life here.

Enjoy!

(Click Enjoy)