Walking around Kawagoe

As I may have mentioned before, Kawagoe is the city in Japan where my Fiance grew up so we took to the streets after I arrived to get a look at her old stomping grounds. I should take a moment right now to mention that I'll probably be updating this blog totally out of order, we did this walking tour of Kawagoe before the trip to Okinawa. So please just... bear with me.

There's a section of the city that's been maintained in the Edo-style which is a period in Japan's history that I seem to be rather enraptured with. I just love the architectural style and all the stuff about Samurai is something I totally geek out over. Check out some of these old shops:

Pretty cool huh? There are also no cables running over the streets in this area because they wanted to try, as much as possible, to recreate a "feel". It's strange, but until I saw the streets with no cables running back and forth over them, I didn't realize how lame they really look. Ah well, whaddayagonnado?

Continuing our travels we came across an old Bell Tower which still rings four times a day although I haven't been in the vicinity during any of the ringings to actually hear it, so I'm just going on hearsay for this one.

Then something really strange happened.

From this point on it was a lot faster getting around town. We walked through some markets and saw lots of shops selling all sorts of different things. In Japan there's a really popular sweet called Anko which is made from red Azuki beans. It has a really subtle sweetness to it that takes some time to get accustomed to after becoming conditioned to North America's rather ham-handed approach of things being so obviously sweet that you can do nothing but notice it. At any rate, I really like it.

Eventually we found our way to a museum and took in some of the history of the area, there was also a section with a set of rather humbling children's toys.

There was more walking and checking out temples and shrines and taking in all the cool sites. The day before we had found a shrine that had a foot path leading to it which presented an array of reflexology goodness and we thought we'd go and hit it a second time.

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Now, I don't mean to brag or anything, but when it comes to reflexology... I hold a black belt:

Check back soon!

~Chris

OKINAWA: Day 1

It was a few days in to my time in Japan that we took our scheduled trip to Okinawa, a fascinating place that's borrowed an aesthetic touch from both Chinese and Japanese cultures. We spent four days there learning some of the history of the place, and I'll get to that but first I'm going to talk about snorkeling and tropical beaches.

We left from Tokyo's Haneda Airport which I'm told is the busiest in the World (followed closely by London's Heathrow Airport) with flights landing and taking off every fifteen minutes. During the drive to the airport I realized that in some situations having a GPS system is absolutely essential. Driving in Tokyo is one such situation. Thankfully I wasn't driving though, that task was left to my Father-in-law. Anyhow, one thing led to another and eventually we were on our plane to Okinawa. The view was as you would expect it to be from 30,000 feet but I never get tired of looking down from my ovular window and daydreaming that I am the Grand Puppeteer!

When we arrived in Okinawa it was already getting rather late into the evening so we did our whole check-in routine and then headed out to try and catch the Sunset. We were too late, however, but I really enjoyed the solitary feeling that came with being one of the only people on the white, sandy beach.

The next day was dedicated to a place affectionately known as Croissant Island, Aptly named as you can see.

This was to be my first real experience of a picturesque, tropical beach and it was the perfect place to set the hypothetical ball rolling. This beach was home to about 40 people, and the nature of its shape makes it an attractive spot to Snorkle about because of the wrap-around coral reef which attracts all kinds of colourful creatures. We got ourselves outfitted with the oh-so-necessary floatation devices and then it was off to discover the Wild Blue Yonder.

Due to Legal reason for the tour company we weren't allowed to dive or anything like that so we basically just skimmed about on the surface and played with whatver strange creatures our guide brought up from the ocean floor. I know that Sea Cucumbers are a delicacy and all, but when you wrap your digits around one that's been freshly removed from its natural habitat and it's just sitting there in your hand being all slimy and gross, I don't really see the appeal.

After we were done snorkeling out around the coral reef we spent some time at the beach and did some more snorkeling in shallower waters. We had some bread with us that we had pilfered from our Hotel's continental breakfast buffet that morning which we used to feed the fish. I tried my damndest to at least touch one of them but they're not all that willing to be touched in the first place. We were able to dive and rummage about this time because the only people we were liable to were ourselves. I had a lot of fun singling out certain fish and just following them around, but for some reason I got tired a lot faster than they did. It's almost like they're built for living in the water.

Once we were tired of that we walked around to check out the island a little bit. Getting away from the tropical forefront you get to see that the island is a really modest little place with quirks all its own.

Everywhere you go in Okinawa you'll see two "Shisaa" , Lion-like creatures guarding the front entrances of buildings from evil forces. One has its mouth open wide to ward off evil spirits and the other has its mouth closed to keep good spirits in. It's also believed that one is male and one is female. Most of the Shisaa look relatively the same but there are some alternating styles and interpretations which I came across.

Anyway, that was day one in Okinawa. I also just realized that I forgot to post anything about Kawagoe, where I'm staying. It's my fiance's hometown and it's been a fun place to check out so I'm going to jump backwards in time with the next post perhaps.

~Chris

Japan #1

Well, I'm in Japan now.

Two aeroplanes and 15 hours of travel time puts me on the other side of the planet. It's funny that just two days ago I spent almost the same amount of time on a bus and managed to cross one province. I guess you had to be there.

In the Vancouver airport I sat and watched all kinds of people coming and going, I bought a new sketchbook for the trip (which is made out of recycled paper and the cover simply has a blank, brownish canvas) and found a great opportunity to draw an image for the cover. There was this one slightly awkward looking girl that walked past and the image of her kind of lasted. I drew her several minutes after she passed, so the sketch is drawing upon my memory for the most part. Pun absolutely intended.

I had quite a lot of time to kill so I just kept my eyes open for more sketching opportunities but I didn't really find anything until I sat down to wait for my boarding call. Looking out across the runway I saw a nice opportunity to practice a Landscape.

Now that I'm actually in Japan I'll be keeping my eyes open and looking for opportunities to commit some images to paper. Failing that, I'll see what I can do in the realm of photography. One more day in Kawagoe, my Fiance's city of birth, and then we head to Okinawa for four days.

Stay tuned!