Sunday, May 15, 2005

Back home with a bang

So I have to say that this has been the worst jetlag I've had after a trip. It must be something to do with crossing the international date line. Anyway the other night I'm walking round the house at 4am like a zombie out of the "Night of the Living Dead" when all of sudden the room starts shaking. At first I thought it was a minor earthquake but then the shaking continued. It was a very loud and insistent base beat. I looked out of the front window and there was a very large truck-limo parked outside our house. There were two occupants in the front who were definitely not playing a game of chess, and to be honest, I'd never seen a couple of those positions before.

This was ridiculous. It was after four in the morning and the stereo was going full blast. I turned on some lights to see if that would have any impact. No deal. They were so self absorbed - as it were - that they did not even notice, or if they did, they did not care. I shut off the lights and went back to bed. The music was so loud it was shaking the room. Gregoire woke up and the two of us went downstairs. We put more lights on. After a few minutes I couldn't stand it any longer, donned my dressing gown, flung open the door and strode towards the truck. Immediately the driver gunned it and sped at high speed down the street, luckily missing some parked cars. Peace at last. I was a little concerned that we would have a brick through the window as a result, but so far so good.

A couple of days later, the next door neighbour approached me over the laurel hedge and said they had seen me go near the vehicle and decided I must be nuts. They had already called the police to report the noise violation. The whole street had been woken up by the Truck From Hell. "Never go out on the street." she said, "They might have had a gun." I was so exhausted from the jetlag, I was oblivious to the danger. Next time, I'll think twice about taking people on myself. Still, I think having a powerful hose handy might be a darn good idea, to dampen some people's enthusiasm at four in the morning.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Fukuoka : from bathrooms to bicycles...


Here are some pictures from my recent trip to southern Japan. Well let's start with the basics : the washroom. When I first got to see this I wondered what the heck you're supposed to do but then memories of a camping trip to France came back and I was away to the races.

Here's a pachinko parlour. Row upon row of slot machines. They were noisy places, smoky. I was actively discouraged from taking pictures. One visit was enough for me.

Here's the view from our apartment. No great fancy place, but it was great to live in a real place as opposed to a hotel. We could cook for ourselves, try and get the vaccuum contraption working and very easily get lost in the endless alleyways surrounding the apartment.

These are the green tea fields above Saga City. When we first arrived here, everything was concealed by swirling mist but then it cleared and we had a great view of the fields.

This was a slightly decrepit, but very interesting old temple outside of Saga City a couple of hours away from Fukuoka. Someone said there are at least 100,000 temples and shrines in Japan and I can believe it. They were absolutely everywhere, some of the ones we saw were very much off the beaten track and I suspect not visited very often by tourists.

I can't read the sign but notice the dead umbrella at the base....

A view from a bridge in downtown Fukuoka. Lovely hot weather over there.

Bicycles were everywhere in Fukuoka, many were left unlocked. I understand there was a very high chance that your bike would be there when you returned from work eight hours later. In this town I live, you'd be lucky if you left it unlocked for eight minutes.

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Narita Airport

We're at Narita airport in Tokyo waiting for our flight and Yahoo are kindly providing free internet service so here I an for a few minutes.

We`ve had a great trip and seen many sights and met so many friendly people. We had a rather terrifying hour or so the other day when we failed to find a meeting point. There we were と他llyぉst うぃth

We were totally lost, not knowing where to go next.

And the keyboard has gone up the creek without any sign of a paddle so I'll have to stop here.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Ye bonny bonny boat in Yanagawa

Yesterday we went along the canals in Yanagawa, in the safe hands of our punt captain. There's a proper term for his title but I haven't a prayer of spelling it here. Beautiful irises grew beside the canal. A lot of older houses had their garden on the other side of the water, so I guess they could observe their pride and joy from the verandah, whilst sipping some very refreshing green tea. We passed by the house once lived in by Yoko Ono's grandfather. A snake swam by the boat - a good size, about three feet long and scared the bejesus out of me. We also saw turtles sunning themselves by the side of the canal. Yanagawa is famous for eel dishes, and we could smell it everywhere. Punt Captain sang some songs to us as he eased us along the waters, very restful. We were very glad of the bamboo hats they provided because I tell you the sun was beating down on us in the mid afternoon.

Today there is a festival in Fukuoka - many paper fish blowing in the breeze. Its beautiful weather again, but I'm careful not to get burned. We`re going for a special lunch with a friend followed by a trip to a sacred temple, then off in search of art and wall hangings.

The buses are fun. You pay when you get off and how much depends on how many stops travelled. There is something akin to a scoreboard next to the driver indicating how much to pay. You can only get change for 1000 or 500 yen, and from that you need to pony up the right amount. So far so good except its tense when you are holding up the whole line whilst trying to determine what coins to put in the slot.

I haven:t time to write much about pachenko (slot machines) but they strike me as very sad places. People gamble a lot there, some for a living. We met a friend who spends 200 bucks three times a week. He seemed very happy about it. The places are very noise and smokey. I took a photograph but was quickly told to desist by our good friend as she said there are likely gangsters in there who dont want their picture taken.

Tomorrow off to Saga city, so probably will be offline for a couple of days. Really enjoying my stay, there is so much to see and learn. Sayona.

Monday, May 02, 2005

Fukuoka again

Today we went to some hotsprings near the mountains on the edge of the city. Men and women go to separate pools and there are no bathing suits required. I had a very enjoyable dip in the 40 degree springs; it felt very relaxing and I wanted to go straight to sleep afterwards.

Litter in Fukuoka - well hardly seen any at all. Its a very clean city.

As for homeless, there have been a couple so far. Today there was a demonstration in support of the homeless outside one of the main train stations. As we passed, the person with the mike switched momentarily to English to let us know what was going on.

There have been moments where I have felt a little isolated due to lack of understanding of the language and being of different colour. Its a good thing. Makes me understand what a lot of foreigners feel like in my home city.

We visited a friend`s garden today - he had very healthy looking cabbages, onions and beans, and we came away loaded down with vegetables for supper.

that's all for now.