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Published: April 23rd 2008
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Well time really has been flying!
Over the past month I’ve endured problem after problem with the air shipments of products to the UK. If its not flying because its not finished production, its because the containers didn’t arrive in Beijing. And if that’s not the reason then its because the paper work is wrong or the captain of the plane got ill and didn’t show up!
Are these problems (and a whole host of others I wont even go into) a result of this being a new venture and therefore being prone to teething problems? Or is it because the process involves four countries (Canada, Japan, China, UK), too many companies, too many people and too many variations in business and communication style? Well I think its probably a combination of the two factors. The first should disappear over time and the second should, theoretically, get easier… but I don’t think it will! This is Japan after all and in Japan things very rarely make sense to anyone but the Japanese!
I’ve managed to fit a couple of trips and fun nights out into the last month as well. We spent the last weekend of March doing
a whistle stop tour of Kyoto, Nara and Osaka. We went on the bullet train which was expensive but worth every penny - it turned an 8 hour bus trip into a 2.5 hr train ride!
Kyoto was the capital city of Japan between 794 and 1868 and retains much of its grandeur (unlike a lot of Japan), because it was sparred from both the atomic bomb and air raids during World War II. It is famous for its Geisha girls which you can see wandering the streets, particularly in Gion, a district full of old tea houses and restaurants. It is one of the few places that has managed to preserve so much of this traditional form of Japanese entertainment. Spotting a Geisha dashing down the street in full attire is something quite special. Fascinating in fact. A point made only too clear by the tourists who choose to chase the poor little buggars down side streets with there massive paparazzi style cameras!
Aside from the Geisha district my favorite place in Kyoto had to be the house made of gold, aka Kinkakuji (which translates to golden pavilion). The bottom floor is in the style of a
temple, the second floor is in the style of a Samurai house and the third floor is in the style of Zen! The top two floors are completely covered in gold leaf so it has a lovely radiance to it - much like me!
Next stop was Nara which turned out to be my favorite of the 3 places we visited. It was the capital city of Japan (first one) between 710 and 784 before it was moved to Nagaoka (and then Kyoto) because the government felt threatened by the political ambitions of the Buddhist monasteries in the area! Today it is pretty much a giant deer park full of temples and shrines which can easily be explored on foot in a day. It rained all day but it was OK, I made a new friend!
On the way back to the train station we stumbled upon a quaint little antique shop full of old Japanese artifacts. I bought 3 geisha pillows and Dan bought an old police hat! Now Geisha pillows are very interesting items. They have two main parts, a block about 10cm high and a small cylinder cushion which rests on top. They are basically
a cushioned neck support designed to keep the head off the futon so that the hair (which must take hours to put up) doesn’t get ruined at night! Talk about going through pain to be beautiful!
After our day out in Nara we headed over to Osaka for the evening. Unfortunately we didn’t make it past the second bar in the train station so I have no idea what Osaka is like! I can however recommend the penguin bar which has an interesting G-string shop next door!
Two Fridays ago I had my leaving party at work. We went to a crab restaurant! (Like I haven’t had enough crab already!) It was a great night; we had crab salad, crab cakes, curried crab pizza, crab legs on a mini BBQ, crab sashimi, deep fried crab and bottomless pitchers of beer! I was given a beautiful Japanese jewelry box as a leaving present. It was quite sad, Miura San was crying and my CEO said that he also felt sad, but he was a man so he wouldn’t show it! The best part of the night was when Wata Nabe aka Chanko Nabe (which is Japanese for sumo food)
aka Mr Style declared that he never loses, downed his sake and vomited all over the table and himself! Brilliant!
So just 4 days until we leave Japan and the adventure begins! First stop is Beijing for one week, then its down to Hong Kong where we will be spending 2 weeks with my mum and dad. After that we are headed to the Philippines for 4.5 weeks and then over to South America. In South America we are planning on spending 10 days in Brazil, 2 months in Peru and Bolivia and a month in Ecuador before heading home!
Hopefully I make it back in one piece!
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