Leaving

On the way back to Hekinan from the Toyota factory tour, we came across a tract of farmland in Anjo city. The farmers were out harvesting their rice. To my Saskatchewan eyes, it looks like mini-farming, but it's big business out here. Talking about the price of rice in China, or Japan, it's going up, and the people of Asia rely heavily on rice for food. If too many farmers leave their land, rice production goes down and so does the food stock.

The good news is that there is a small emerging trend of young people moving to small farms and working the land. There's even a hip, young, fashion businesswoman (famous for the 'shibuya gal' look) who has started farming and marketing the brand as "Shibuya Rice". ShibOOya is a super cool district in Tokyo. Here she is with her fashion model labourer. They are sooo roughing it.
I like the trademark white towel on the head that male labourers wear in summer. The towel truly is one of the most spectacularly useful items in the galaxy.
Here's the mini-harvester dumping its mini-load of rice into the mini-dumptruck. It appears to be a family affair.
As the harvester goes around, hacking off the stalks, the cranes gather to hunt in the stubble for frogs, bugs, and maybe missed grains too. I had never seen so many white cranes in one place before.

Seeing harvest in action reminded me of the fall season in Saskatchewan. Now that we're leaving, Mandy and i are feeling a little nostalgic about our time here. We will miss life in Japan, although we both agree that it's the right time to go back home. We're leaving behind ready employment, some good friends, and mild weather. But it's just not home, is it? I don't know that i could feel at home in Japan, no matter how long i would live here.

We have a bye bye party tomorrow, and then we're leaving to visit Kelly on tuesday for a while, and then off to Malta/Italy for a proper honeymoon! There's a lot to look forward to.

"The heartbeat of Japan"

In these final days of our adventure in Japan, we are enjoying some free weekdays, seeing some sights in our area that we have missed so far. Yesterday we took a tour of a Toyota car factory in Toyota City, which is nearby. This plant makes the economy-rescuing Prius, the Camry, plus two models i don't think we have in N.A., the Allion and the Premio.

The factory is amazingly huge, covering acres and acres of land. It was the first Toyota factory to reduce its landfill trips to zero, plus it recycles water, purifying it and sending it back to the river from whence it came, and tons of iron waste from welding are recycled into new material.
Here's Mandy in the IQ, a new model that seems to be Toyota's answer to the smart car, but this one has a back seat, which is almost a waste of effort in such a tiny car. I don't know if this model has come to North America yet.

This is the showroom lobby as seen from the museum gift shop on the second floor. The trumpet playing robot does a show a few times a day, which is pretty cool. The wheeled thing in the background is a car of the future, which stands up tall and is mobile that way, and it also transforms into a low-riding sports mobile on the go. It was really busy earlier in the day, but the robot seems to be performing for two this time. Oh well, robots' feelings can't get hurt, at least not yet. Some day though, i think we'll have to be careful about what we say around vending machines and parking meters.

We couldn't take our cameras into the factory and assembly lines, but of course, someone has, and i found a cool video of the welding robots. This is pretty much exactly as we saw it in the Japanese factory.

Fuji-san

James and the Beast!
Night view. We climbed from 8pm until 4am, and when we looked down on the city it felt like we were looking from an airplane. Compared to the world's tallest peaks, Fuji isn't even on the list, but it's still high enough to feel like you've left the earth.
Here we are, James and I, at the windy, freezing summit, with all the other masses of tourists. The number of tourists who climb this mountain make the accomplishment feel a bit weak.
As we descended, the clouds eventually gave way to sunlight, and we could see the sharp cloud line, as if there was a cap of cloud around the mountain that didn't want to touch it.

A view from just below the summit, looking up at all the people.
We got below the initial cloud and could see another layer of puffies far below.
This is a "tori-i", which is a gateway to a shrine. Fuji has the highest one in Japan.
It finally warmed up on the way down. We were so cold at the top!
One last look at the beast on the drive home.

Two castles, one hot day.

After all these months, i still get the photos in the wrong order. This is the interior of Inuyama castle, which is the honourable 'oldest castle in japan'. it is all wood, and the main keep was the only building not destroyed by the big earthquake of 1891. every beam and plank is a national treasure. it was built in the 16th century, which makes this castle not as old as you may have thought the oldest castle in japan would be. many old castles were destroyed by wars and earthquakes. this is the weaponry, where all the spears and swords and things would be stored on the shelves.
Mandy wondered how they got up and down these steps when they were in a hurry to flee or attack. Inuyama castle was built by the guy who, according to what i read, unified feudal Japan. he was a pretty big deal.
Here's the view from the top. we could see for miles in all directions, which is what you want when you build a watchtower. we saw enemies approaching a day's ride away. Ha ha ha!
there's Mandy, deliberating about how to deal with the prisoners we caught from that enemy city.
Here, Mandy is doing a quick repair job of a fallen 1000lb beam. she seems to be handling it quite well. i'll just keep taking photos.
we made the prisoners perform some stunts in the town square. it was all deliciously humiliating for them. Ha ha ha!
Then we visited the hometown Don Jon, Nagoya castle, which is not as old, but is much bigger. This week is the Obon holiday, which is the time when Japanese people remember their ancestors and visit their hometowns. It is also the time, after which, if you swim in the ocean, you are violating the governments stern recommendation to not swim, lest you be dragged into the depths by the departed souls. In Japan, there are some interesting beliefs, but i think only the older generation actually believes them.
Japanese festivals are fun, and you can get a huge variety of foods to snack on. There was dancing and traditional drumming. Fun was had by all. and then we went home.

Japanese is cool

I've been studying Japanese. Don't expect me to know much when i get home though, because it's really a hard language to get a hold of. But in the course of life here, i've come across a few amazing abbreviations that the Japanese people use in everyday talk.

1. Starbucks = "staba!"

2. Personal computer = "pas-con"

3. Digital camera = "digi-ka-me"

4. Remote control = "remo-con" (see a pattern?)

5. Macdonald's = "makk"

6. Kentucky Fried Chicken = "ken-chiki" (that's my favorite one)

7. Apartment = "apato"

8. Convenience store = "combini"

9. Air conditioning = "air-con"

and so on. They are all loan words from english, and i think we could learn a lesson from the Japanese system of abbreves. Think how much less chatter there would be!

Oh the cicadas are noisy! They sound like they're in my head!

Genki Hekinan

It's no wonder people think Japan is a wild place. There was a festival in meek, sleepy Hekinan this weekend that really surprised me. It was called "Genki suu", and basically, it was a song, played repeatedly, blared over the main street (it was recorded, but the brass section was live, and they had to keep up with the recording, over and over and over) and about 90 different groups of people, representing businesses and various organizations, dressed up totally randomly, but doing the same dance, over and over and over, for about four hours!

The song was very energetic and fun, and i didn't want it to stop, really, until the very end. The lyrics promoted Hekinan and how everyone should be really genki. Genki means energetic and full of vigour.

Oh, in the above photo, the tall building isn't a castle or a temple or anything. It's actually a bakery, which some rich local businessman has built up to look just like Nagoya castle, but in miniature.
Hekinan is famous for carrots.
Men dressed like women, women dressed like super heros, this guy dressed like an elementary school student, complete with the ubiquitous "landosel", which every child in Japan carries for around six years. It is designed to withstand all the rigours of an elementary school career, and costs about 300 dollars. Traditionally it's a gift from grandparents.
These guys, as you may have guessed, were my favorite group of genki dancers. They did a great mockery of Japanese schoolgirls. See the video below.
This photo is blurry, but it catches some of the random energy of the festival.

It was crazy to see a parade-type festival, where there were thousands of participants and only hundreds of spectators. Usually it's the other way around. But i guess, although a sleepy town, Hekinan is very genki at heart.

Enjoy the genkiness!

Sumo action

This is a video of the pre-match announcements. During the day, there were about 50 matches or something like that. Each one only takes about 4 minutes, including all the pre and post-match ritual. Before each one, a guy with a fan would come out and chant the names of the wrestlers, beginning with EAST (name), and WEST (name). The ring is divided into east and west.

This match was one of the last ones. I had the impression that it was an upset.

This was the big match of the night! The guy who won has been the champ for the past 7 years. He's Mongolian. The matches are so short, sometimes they seem anti-climactic, like it should be drawn out more, but the tension does build before the match when they are preparing. The crowd really gets into it.