Kobe - Mount Rokko

Yesterday we decided to Kobe again. We'd been to Kobe once before, at the start of our summer holidays, when we went to the Maritime and Science Museums, and nearly melted in the heat. We'd heard there was some beautiful scenery in the mountains behind Kobe, so we thought we'd explore some of that this time around. A quick look on the Internet indicated that Mount Rokko had some beautiful scenery, so we thought we'd give it a go.

Cable railway to get to the top

The views from the top were pretty spectacular. You could see across the city of Kobe to the bay, which contains a number of very rectangular looking reclaimed islands. In the last picture, in the curve of the bay to the left is Osaka, some 30ish km away. There is no obvious demarcation line between the two cities. Just crazy dense buildings all the way. From Osaka to Kyoto would be much the same. City all the way, including Takatsuki in between.

The top of the mountain was a bit of a surprise. Apart from the scenes of the city laid out below the mountain, I didn't really find the spectacular photographic opportunities I had been lead to believe I would find. Maybe my idea of spectacular photographic opportunities (natural landscapes and old buildings) just differs to the review of the mountain that I read. However, the top of the mountain was better than just a site for good photography, it was an opportunity to regress to childhood for a day. Spread across the mountain top was a collection of touristy sites which seemed to have little in common except that they were not Japanese in style, and they all charged fairly modest entry fees which added up to quite a bit over the course of the day.

A tower, because they can

Apparently this is an observatory...

The highlight of the day was a kids' zone attached to a country house. We caught a ride down in a chairlift that had no safety bar across the front.

At the bottom were a number of activities, some free, some not. We decided to pay for a 10 minute turn in a paddle boat. The pond was full of fish desperately vying for a feed from any number of people throwing in food. Acting on impulse, when I saw a hungry looking fish heading towards the boat, I stuck my finger in the water, and sure enough, got a nibble.

While queuing for our turn on the paddle boat, we watched groups of children sliding down the hill on little sledges. It looked like fun. Some went down backwards, many came off.

However, at $6 each for a 15 minute turn, we thought it a bit too expensive, and possibly not sufficiently exciting for twenty-something year olds. Besides, there was plenty of hill around, and I had a better idea, something I remembered doing as a very small child on the slopes otside Parliament House in Canberra. Hunter thought I was absolutely mad, but I persuaded him to give it a try, although he didn't seem to find it as much fun as I did. I think the Japanese people thought that we were absolutely insane, but despite the grass itch, it was definitely worth it. I felt more alive than I had for a long time. Hunter disagreed, he said it made him feel nauseous.

After brushing the grass off, and discovering that I had managed to increase the size of a small tear in my jeans, we hopped on another bus to try and find the cheese castle that was on our map. We failed to find any such castle, but did find a Heidi-themed alpine area, with sheep, goats, pigs, and very fluffy rabbits.

We sat down for an ice-cream, and then caught another bus to Mount Maya, where we were able to catch a series of cable cars back down the mountains.

Hikone Castle

Ok, back to blogging about some more recent adventures...

To be honest, the first thing that struck us about Hikone Castle was the cost of getting there. About an hour by train from Takatsuki, it cost us $15 each, one way. Ouch!

After getting off the train, we wandered up to the castle. Along the way, we ran into samurai kitty. The samurai cat was everywhere, mostly in soft toy form, but this was both the first I saw, and my favourite. When we got home, I looked it up to see what the story behind the cat was. The cat's name is Hikonyan, and it was deliberately created as a castle mascot for the 400th anniversary of the castle, for advertising and sales purposes. Some story... Still, I like the polished granite kitty.

The castle itself was is one of the few original fortified castles left in Japan. Most, such as Osaka Castle are actually modern day reconstructions. Unfortunately, the queue to get in was incredibly long and not moving. We estimated at least an hour's queue to have a look inside, and decided to content ourselves with walking around the castle and admiring it from the outside.

There were also some pretty incredible views over the city of Hikone from the top of the castle hill.

At the bottom of the castle hill is Genkyu-en garden. It was pretty enough, but to be honest, I've seen enough Japanese gardens now that that one rather failed to impress. It looked somewhat ill-kempt, there were patches of dirt and the paths were in some places eroded. However, it did have some pretty views of Hikone Castle, and still beats the pants off the Toowoomba Japanese Gardens.

Teahouse

Ise Jingu

After staying the night in Nara, we proceeded on to Ise. Actually, I wouldn't recommend that path to anyone. Although, on the map, it looks like Nara is halfway to Ise, the reality of the train lines means that it's really not quick or convenient to travel between them.

Ise Jingu, the shrine located at Ise, is considered to be the spiritual heart of Shinto, the native animistic religion of Japan. It was the only major tourist attraction I visited last time I was in Japan, and I remembered loving it, so I wanted to go there again, and take Mum, Dave and Hunter with me. To be honest though, maybe because this time around I've had to opportunity to visit a large number of locations, Ise really didn't live up to my memories. However, it was still pretty cool.

There are two main shrine complexes, the outer and inner shrines. Each complex has a major shrine to the goddess Amaterasu from whom the Emperor's line was (before the war) said to descend. There are also a number of smaller shrines to other deities. On these more minor shrines, I loved the contrast of the gilded beams and the thatched roofs.

Minor shrine at Gekū

Minor shrine at Naikū

 The outer shrine, or Gekū, had a very natural wilderness feel to it, while the inner shrine, or Naikū combined incredibly manicured gardens with wilderness areas. The below photos are all from Naikū.

Unfortunately, the main shrines themselves are closed to the public. You can get a bit of a view of them, but no photographs are allowed. I actually managed to get myself roused on for trying to take a photo at the outer shrine because there wasn't any signage to indicate no photos, it must just have been assumed to be understood, and security was in place to make sure.


After visiting the shrines, we stopped for some lunch in town. Dave was feeling adventurous, and ordered sea snails. Apparently they were quite nice...

Nara

Ok, I'm catching up on some really overdue blogging here...

While Mum and Dave were here, we went on a trip to Nara. This was actually my second trip to Nara, but I didn't get around to blogging about it the first time either, so I guess I'd better get my act together.

Nara was the capitol of Japan before Kyoto, which was the capital before Tokyo, and is famous, among other things, for its population of deer. From memory, there have been semi-tame deer in the city for over 1000 years. Last time we went to Nara, it was spring, and the deer were moulting. This time, however, they were in full splendour.

They own the streets...

We decided to feed them. To be honest, I'm not sure that I'd do that again. The greedy beasts know not to bother the food sellers, but as soon as the food changes hands, mobbing occurs. They attack from all angles, desperate to be the one who gets the food. They're not aggressive as such, but not above using a determined nudge with their (hard, bony) antlers to encourage a handover of edibles. I also got a light nip on my belly for moving a cracker out of reach. Still it was a good experience.


The most famous building in Nara is the Tōdai-ji temple. At 57m by 50m wide, it's the largest wooden building in the world. However, despite it's immense size, it was last rebuilt in 1709, after being destroyed by fire (like every other wooden building in this country, it's been rebuilt numerous times), and is only 2/3 the size of the previous rendition.



Of course, it wouldn't be enough to just be the biggest wooden building in the world. Inside, is the world's larges bronze Buddha statue, along with a number of other impressive statues.

Also inside the hall is a pillar with a hole in it, supposedly the same size as the Daibutsu (Big Buddha)'s nostrils. If you can climb through it, apart from being really skinny, you will also, according to tradition, achieve enlightenment in the next life. Thus Hunter is enlightened, but Lucy felt extremely claustrophobic, and chickened out.

Leaving the Nara Park, I found further confirmation of what I already believed. Deer are bottomless pits. Yes, those flowers are on a shrine...

What, me eat those flowers...? Well, they taste so good!

Typhoon Roke

Once again, this is just an update to say that we're fine. It's been pretty windy most of the day, but like with the last Typhoon, I've seen worse in Aus.

School was called off today, which was fantastic, because I was supposed to have my really difficult kids. A certain group of teachers (three teachers of a very difficult year level) was vocally excited when the cancellation of school was confirmed at nine o'clock, and I felt much the same way.

We still had to go to school, but once school cancellation was confirmed, we just did work in the staffroom all day. I thoroughly sorted the school's English materials (previously, only the materials used so far were sorted, the rest were a bit of a mess), made a few more materials, did some lesson planning, practised my Japanese on a few of the teachers, and then got sent home early, being encouraged to go home before the wind picked up again. Yay!

English Camp

On Saturday, we had the pleasure of a 13-hour day at children's English Camp for Yr 3-6 students, unpaid. Actually, despite a little initial scepticism, it really was a great day. It was raining on and off, which made it a little challenging, as we had to update our plans several times based on the weather, but in the end it worked out pretty well. To be honest, we only had the barest of plans beforehand, so changing it up was very little hardship.

Some highlights of the day included a game of Crocodile Crocodile (hopping instead of running due to limited space), Body ABC (what it sounds like, forming the various letters of the alphabet with one's body), and musical statues, done as various animals.

In the evening, the kids cooked a dinner of curry and rice for everybody. Watching the kids chop vegetables was a little hair-raising, there really is no such thing as Workplace Health and Safety, or Risk Assessments here. Hand the kids knives, and tell them to get chopping. However, despite a few cringe moments, we were served a pretty good curry, and I had no recognisable body parts in my serving.


Over the course of the day, we made friends with a lot of the kids, mostly girls, who were incredibly sweet and friendly. There really is something very special about a kid coming up to you, trying to make conversation despite language difficulties, and then just slipping a warm little hand into yours and grinning at you. A particular sweetie was a little girl called Emu (pronounced Em, as in Emily, with a faint short u sound at the end). She's a student at one of Hunter's schools, but too young to be taught regularly by him, and she took a real shine to us. We tried calling her Emu, but she didn't much like it...

In the evening, they lit a big camp fire (fortunately, it had stopped raining by then), and after Andy did some really cool fire twirling, some drummers arrived on the scene. The drumming was awesome. I don't think it was traditional Japanese, there was a huge wooden xylophone involved, and it sounded really tribal. I really love that style of drums, be it African rhythms or Japanese Taiko. I think I prefer complex drumming rhythms to "real" music. Having worked with kids for the past 6 months, Hunter and I have lost many of our inhibitions, and we danced like crazy to the beat, sometimes together, sometimes with various members of our gaggle of followers. They were much more self-concious than us, but with a bit of coaxing, and a bit of just grabbing them by the hands and helping them get started, we got quite a dance party going. It was a blast! Later, we were taught a "proper" dance, and had some other fun and games.

At the end of the night, when it was time to say good-bye, the kids just didn't want to let us go. I admit to feeling a bit the same way myself. They trailed behind us up the hill as we went to get our stuff, and trailed behind us back down the hill again as we went towards the bus, calling out "bye-bye" and "see you" all the while. They kept waving after us for a long time. Somehow, in the space of a day, they wormed their way into our hearts.

Great kids

I've made a few posts over the months complaining about how horrid the kids at a certain school can be. Well, they haven't improved, but I feel that in the interests of fairness, I have to write a little about how wonderful the kids at other schools can be.

I have three schools where all classes are are consistently good to excellent, one school that has one class out of 6 that is difficult/out-of-control, with the others being good to excellent, and of course, one school that has three out of five classes being difficult/out-of-control.

I admit unashamedly that I have my favourite classes. I have some consistently excellent classes at most schools, and today I had a lesson with what would be my altogether favourite class.

If I get them to sing, they will raise the roof. If I get them to dance, I will end up exhausted from keeping up with them. In team games, they really get behind each other, and cheer each other on. There's a girl with Down's Syndrome in the class; she's incredibly happy and friendly, and she has several friends always around to look after her, play with her, and make sure she doesn't touch anything she shouldn't. The girls who look after her seem to really enjoy being around her, it's not a chore. They are always happy to see me arrive, and make me feel welcome. On days when I've been at the school but they didn't get an English lesson, they constantly pestered their teacher as to why. I've had an open lesson for parents with this class, and it went like a dream, and Mum and Dave also sat in on a lesson with this class (a deliberate choice of class). I could go on, but I hope you get the idea, the kids are incredible.

Today one of the activities that we did was to draw up a poster with three things they like, which they will use to do a simple self-introduction presentation next lesson. I was wandering around, looking at how they were going, ready to help them with the necessary English if they needed one of their favourite things translated, when I saw a girl with a picture of chocolate. My "demo" poster also had a picture of chocolate. Ayano's picture had I bite taken out of it, so I said (in English), that she was eating my chocolate. She told me, no, it was hers. I asked if I could have some, and she said no. I cried (melodramatically) a bit, she still said no, and I walked of sniffling to much amusement.

A few minutes later, Ayano called me back over, and showed me another picture she had drawn. It showed two girls, one with straight hair and labelled Ayano, holding chocolate, another, with curly hair and labelled Lucy, had a crossed out chocolate. Just in case I had trouble understanding, Ayano explained that it meant that she gets chocolate, and I don't. I cried some more, and went to the classroom teacher for a reassuring hug. By this time, half the class was in stitches.


At the end of every lesson, the children fill out an evaluation form (furikaeri), basically asking a) if it was fun (indicated by circling a face), b) if they listened to the teacher and their peers, and were able to express themselves well and participate (also done by circling a face) , and c) describe something they learnt, or provide a comment. Today's furikaeri for that class were incredible. Every single one was rated at least Excellent. By that, I mean that there are 3 options, Excellent, Good or Poor, but two children had drawn in smiley faces way to the left of Excellent. I've had kids in that class do that before, but never at any other school (well, I have, but that was on the other side of poor...). Also, in the comment field on a certain girl's sheet was Lucy no choco o Ayano ga tabeta - Ayayo ate Lucy's chocolate.

So yes, I love those kids. I love the fact that I can relax and have fun with them, without any risk of them getting out of control. (Kudos to an excellent homeroom teacher too who manages to run the classroom on what seems to be mostly love, as I've never seen her cross, but she always has control, despite the kids being really energetic. However, I believe these kids would still be good with a less talented teacher). Also, because we have so much fun in our classes, they learn really well. For them, English is a treat to be looked forward to, and with a little bit of repeating, and a lot of directed games and activities, they pick up words and phrases without putting much/any conscious effort into it.

Just confirming that we are fine

Just making sure that you all know that we are fine. All we saw of the typhoon was a bit of wind (I've seen much worse before) and a fair bit of rain, but we were well away from everything.

Where someone threatens to call the police on us

Yesterday, Mum and Dave arrived back in Takatsuki after being in the North since Monday.

They had hired bikes for the last calendar month, and after a short discussion, we decided that they would hire bikes again for the three days they would be here (cheap at 100円 or about $1 a day). However, things did not go according to plan....

The guy behind the counter (one we'd never seen before), wanted to charge us 1300円 yen per bike. This was because our subscription from last month had automatically rolled into this month, so we owed $10 for that, plus $1 for each day that we were late for paying that monthly subscription (lucky we were only 3 days over!). I reacted with a "What on Earth are you talking about?". I tried telling him that we didn't want a subscription, had never asked for a subscription, and all we wanted was the bikes for three days. He told me that I was already subscribed, so having the bikes for three days was out of the question. After a bit more backwards and forwards, I decided that I must be misunderstanding him, and decided to get someone with better Japanese in. I got onto Eric, who has been living in Japan for several years, and has a Japanese wife. He talked on the phone with the guy behind the counter, and then told me that yes, I had understood correctly. I kept insisting that I had only rented the bikes for one month, and the bikes had been returned before the end of the month. He kept saying that you couldn't hire for one month, you just paid by the month, and when the bikes had been returned was irrelevant. The fact that nobody had bothered to explain the rules to me was irrelevant. They were written up in Japanese for everyone to see.

We decided to just leave. We gave the cards back, and started to walk out. The guy behind the counter started shouting after us that he would call the police. We came back. I called Eric again, and he agreed to come over. He pretty much just covered the same ground that I had, just in better formed sentences. Eventually, he gave up, and looked up the Japanese word for compassion. He tried asking for the fee to be lowered, considering the circumstances (ie, nobody had bothered to explain that rule to us). The guy behind the counter insisted that business rules were business rules, and we'd better pay soon, or he'd call the police. We gave in, and handed over the money in pretty bad grace. Dave also made a point of getting an explanation of how to terminate our monthly subscription, and mimed that when he returned his bike, he would cut his card up to indicate that the contract was finished. (We had to pay the money whether or not we took the bikes, so we took the bikes). The whole episode took nearly an hour.

Jess also got slammed with financial penalties for not bringing her bikes back regularly within the calendar month that she had them hired for (a rule that we knew about because of her experience, but one that was not explained to her either). Thus we are very unimpressed with the local bike rental service, and will strongly advise any other Westerners not to utilise their services, as they are very happy to not explain rules, and then charge you for not following rules you could not possible have known about.

Ok, one more vent: AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!

Done.

Fushimi Inari

Fushimi Inari is a little gem very close to us that somehow we missed until yesterday. Usually, a Shinto shrine has a gate or torii, to mark the entrance to the shrine. Sometimes, there are two or three. However, this place has taken the gates to the point where they are far more exciting than the rather small and insignificant shrines.

There are over 4km of walking tracks, with about half covered in gates, which have been donated by businesses to help ensure prosperity. We didn't explore all of it yesterday, but I intend to go back.