UNESCO English Camp '08

30 Japanese participants, 7 ALTs from UK, US, Canada.

Ken, Brett, Nobu, Nana.

There were a bunch of young Japan Self Defense Force guys from the nearby base and they were the genkiest, most fun, polite bunch of young lads you will ever meet.

Nobu took off with my shoes so I had no choice but to hobble after in her heels.

That's a gigantic rice ball in my mouth.

"Angry dance!" - Brett.

"Higher! Higher!!" - Brett.

An evening of folk dancing, led by this ojisan who took his job seriously and wasn't afraid to tell us that we were, on the whole, the worst group of dancers he had ever tried to teach. But everyone had a great time nonetheless.

Nana, Ryu, Atsu: very happy to be folk dancing.

An outing with my English conversation class.

Fujioka-san, Goda-san, Kaizu-san, Inoue-san.

Grilled grapes (my idea; this isn't normal in Japan).

Classic Goda.

A perfect little patch of heaven on earth: quiet, sunny, soft grass, luscious apples galore....

Takao-san displays his pick.

HIMEJI CASTLE/ osaka.

Brett and I took a weekend trip to see Himeji Castle and, since it's only an hour further, Osaka as well. I've heard numerous people say that Himeji is the "best" castle in Japan, and I never really understood what that meant; surely it's a matter of opinion. I can understand if you say the biggest, or the oldest, or even most beautiful... but the best?

Now that I've seen it, I have to agree with those lofty accolades and go as far as to say that, most things considered, Himeji Castle is pretty much the only castle worth seeing in Japan. The best part about this place is that it is one of the few (if not the only...) major castles that weren't burned down during the bombings of World War II. This means that you can climb up five flights of stairs and see the guts of the building as it was when it was inhabited in it's glory days. This is, as the saying goes, priceless. I can't tell you how disappointing it is to view a stunning structure from the outside only to encounter bare concrete walls and stairs once inside (Kumamoto Castle).

Himeji, on the other hand, is made of wood -- dark, heavy, massive timbers worn to a sheen in places by countless footsteps or sleeve brushes. Anyways. Just look at the pictures and you get the idea.


But first, here's Brett and I on the train to Himeji. I thought it was funny that we were both wearing t-shirts that are pretty much the same shade, only different colours. My auto-shoot function was too quick for us to pose properly, however.

I couldn't even fit the whole thing in the frame, it's so huge.

A middle-aged male tourist from Singapore. I could tell because he told us.

Drawers drawing...

...this.

Awesome cooling station set up on the grounds. If you enlarge this photo, you can see a fine mist being sprayed from little hoses along the edge of the roof.

This many guns necessitates a gun rack.

He had another one in his other bag.

Himeji city. Note the complete lack of urban planning. This is not unique to Himeji.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Osaka.
We thought we'd drop in to see Osaka Castle as well, although we knew it would be like ingesting a Budweiser after drinking an Asahi Dry. Or something like that. Anyways, we knew we should've probably seen them the other way around.

Osaka castle has an amazing history which you can easily look up on the internet. It also has a really great park surrounding it.

There was tons of this weird red algae-like stuff on surface of the water in the moat surrounding Osaka Castle.

One way to protect your home is to cut GIGANTIC boulders and fit them around your yard. This is what the lords of old did with an unlimited labour-force.

A church in Osaka. It's also a hotel. It's called Lutheran Hotel. I'm thinking that despite the name, this hotel must allow more than just Lutherans to stay. I don't think they would be silly enough to think that they could stay in business with the patronage of all fourteen of the Lutherans in Japan...

"Hotel" Toyo. I put "hotel" in quotation marks because it was more like an abandoned building that some enterprising person found the night before and put up a sign the following morning. In the wikipedia travel article that we found it in, it said that Hotel Toyo is often used by poor/homeless people who need a place to sleep. That's how cheap it is. We calculated that it's actually cheaper than Brett's apartment in the suburban netherlands of Kudamatsu, with the added bonus of having someone clean your room for you.


This is what you get for $15 per person, per night. It's actually hard to believe there is such cheap accomodation ANYwhere in Japan, much less in the heart of Japan's second-largest city.

The entrance to a bar called... Fun. What else can you say?

Golden Week cont'd.... Kamakura.

I've been here several times before, but it's worth photo-ing every time. The beautiful hike through a range of heavily forested hills from my aunt and uncle's place takes us down into the ancient city of Kamakura, featuring magnificent temples and shrines.

This boy was deeply into his DS. I think his family made him come on this trip when really, all he wanted to do was stay at home and play DS so he compromised by doing both. He would run ahead of his family, plop himself down and play for a minute while his family caught up with him, and then run ahead again, etc...

Bamboo is awesome.

There's that kid again! Brett and I were a bit startled... "Didn't we just pass him...?"Old, old trees received as gifts from China in the year 7th century.

A father chasing his well protected-child.

Stacks of traditional sake kegs... with Asahi beer cases??

Golden Week continued... Tokyo.


A really weird Uniqlo store in Harajuku district. Uniqlo is a Japanese clothing brand specializing in cheap, simple fashion - cool t-shirts, sweaters, jeans, fleeces, etc. Nothing high-brow, but ideal for everyday fasha. This particular store, however, had nothing but t-shirts... moreover, t-shirts sold in plastic canisters with codes written on them... it was like a giant t-shirt vending machine.

The floor was a giant mural.

My cousin Taiki and me. He took me and Brett to a really good yakitori (lit. "grilled bird") restaurant that he works at. I gave it a thumbs up.

Here is photo that I felt moved to take. Japan's cities are really messy and cluttered and much of that has to do with the fact that they don't bury their telephone or cable lines like we do in the rest of the modern world. When I first came to Japan, this was something that I noticed immediately... Why the heck are their so many powerlines everywhere?? It brings new meaning to the image of "urban jungle".

Azusa at the gate of the controversial Yasukuni shrine. It is dedicated to the memory of soldiers and others who have died serving Japan. The controversial part is that of the roughly 2.5 millions people enshrined, over 1000 of them have been convicted of war crimes by a post-World War II court. Some of these guys did some sick sick things during the war.

A bookwall.

"Live at the Budokan!" We didn't see a show, but we saw the outside of this legendary stage where many a rock star has made their Japan debut.

Oh, wait, this isn't part of Golden Week at all! This was when Brett, Aaron, Matt (above, with Brett) and I went to Tokyo to see the FOO FIGHTERS. Which rocked the hell out of us. Here we are pre-show, eating outside a nice cafe. It was cold out so the waitress brought out these really nice Scottish wool tartan blankets.