Kyoto Coloured Leaf Hunting - 京都 紅葉狩り

Kyoto is a great place to go for sightseeing as you cant throw a stone in the city without hitting a beautiful temple, shrine or Japanese garden. But in autumn, the scenery takes on a whole new level, thanks to the Japanese Maple and Ginko trees which burst into vibrant red and yellow. The colours are so bright it almost looks artificial and the photos really don't do it justice.

 

The weather was not on our side and we were rained on almost the whole time we were there, but that didn't stop us. Nor did the fact my shoes weren't as waterproof as I had original though. I have been to a lot of places in my life, but I was genuinely awestruck at how beautiful it was.  A big thank you to my patient wife who did not complain at her having to constantly wait for me to take over 900 photos throughout the day.

Autumnal Japan

Autumn is a great time to be in Japan. A lot of the trees change colours with dramatic affect. The red leaves almost look on fire and yellows seem to glow they are so vibrant. Going to Kyoto soon which has some amazing spots to see the leafs change, so I hope the leafs with will still be in colour and on the trees.

Autumn also brings autumnal clouds, something I didn't realise was seasonal. But the wispy lines of clouds, as shown below, mainly only appear in Autumn.

Another Festival

I know having taken part in my own little towns festival how much goes into the force used to bash their Mikoshi (mobile shrines together), but Kuse festival was something else. The shrines are larger and on wheels. They look like boats and have a small helm for people to bang away at big drum in a rhythmic fashion. The force that they collide with and the fact there are so many people rushing around, it is surprising no one is hurt.

The stools also had some fine delicacies, with more things on a stick than you can shake-a-stick at; including banada cover in chocolate, squid in a sweet sauce, intestines of some animal and tiny toffee apples (Which makes sense as you can eat it so much easier).

We also had Maki's parents and her grandmother with us. Her grandmother is 90 years old, but must be some kind of super human, she had been walking up and down mountains all day, the festival in the evening and still looked ready for more, with a permanent smile on her face. She can hear better than me and she has eyes like a hawks. I think if the 'Fountain of Youth' can be found anywhere, it's in Okinawa.

Japanese Weird Confessionary – Part I – Make Your Own Gummy Sweet

Japan has some odd sweets and over the next few weeks we'll show you some of the stranger and unique ones. Todays is how to make your own gummy sweet with pretty colours and using special powders, water and stencils. Check out the Youtube video, too (Sorry it's a bit long, the next one will be more concise).

Supermarket Squid

Just another normal day at the supermarket buying a rather large squid.

Mini-Sumo

One of my elementary schools (Primary school) had an 'event' last week. You see, they do Sumo as part of their P.E. Lessons, which I think is great, keeping the Japanese tradition alive. But there is something special about their Sumo ring. It's not a 'ring' at all, it's square. Now, I'm probably like you and thinking “So what John, big whoop.” But, this is the ONLY one that is square in Japan, or for that matter, the World's. It's such a big deal that news crews from every major channel in Japan turned up to film the small children battling it out on this square Sumo-Dohyo. I almost got an interview by NHK (Japanese version of the BBC) but they ran out of time and had to dash of to another story. However, I could be seen in the background on some reports. It was fun to watch the kids wrestle and let's face it, an easy day at the office.

Random English of the Month – Happiness

I found Happiness and on the same week I found God, too (See the previous article). Its conveniently in bottle form.

If I Read Any More Japanese Today I'm Going to be Sick!

I'm hard studying. I'm studying for a Japanese test that I will take on December 2^nd. But there is a lot to study in a short space of time!

Since my frustration overload with Japanese over the summer, I had been trying to motivate myself for getting back into a routine for studying and wanting to study again. It's not easy. When I was in Italy, the words came so easy and I could see the progress from day to day. But with Japanese it's like a game of snakes and ladders with no ladders! Just when I feel like I'm making some minimal kind of progress, I land on another metaphorical snake. But, nevertheless, I find drabs of motivation and time to study hard. I am slowly chipping away at the sum 400 words I need to study (These are only the ones I don't know that are required for the test) and the 111 Kanji (Chinese style characters) required to pass the test.

With the Kanji, I have a love / hate relationship. Sometimes it can be beautiful and poetic, easy to read quickly when you know and random scribbles of meaningless script, bemusing and confusing, when you don't. Sometimes they come easy and with my creative mind I can assign stories to their meaning and sounds. For examples, the Kanji for 'east' 東, looks like a the Kanji for 'tree' 木 with the 'sun' 日 rising behind it. Where does the sun rise? In the east. It almost remembers itself. Others are more like pictures themselves, like to rain 雨. Tell me that doesn't look like rain through a window! Others are too complicated to remember, like the 23 strokes it takes to draw the Kanji 艦.

My grammar, however, is serious poor and trying to work out what goes where and how to change it when your dealing with a language as far from your own as hieroglyphics, it can kind of be expected. But my greatest stumbling block seems appears to my reading speed. I've always spoken Japanese and there isn't a real need to read basic sentences like “I like sushi” or “This is Yamada-san's bag”. The test I will take requires a lot of reading, and while I know if I study hard to remember the 400 words of vocabulary, the 111 Kanji symbols and get my head around the principles of Japanese grammar; my fear is, if I can't answer enough questions, I won't pass. Bare-in-mind, this is the simplest of 5 test and you might have some idea of the Everest of a language I am staring up at from the lowest base camp.

Watch this space!