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Wednesday morning began a tad cooler...and it was raining! What a bummer! But of course a bit of rain can't stop two seasoned travellers. First we headed off to Ueno where we visited the Tokyo Museum of Western Art followed by a visit to the Tokyo National Museum. From there we caught the subway to Ginza to meet up with Yui who was one of our homestay students. Yui spent a year living in Melbourne staying with us when she joined the tennis camp for a week at the courts where I play. She is now looking for a full time job here in Tokyo and was explaining to us how you have to attend about seven interviews before you are offered a job; she has already been for four with one of the banks so is hopeful that it will end up with her getting the job. In the meantime she is coaching tennis twice a week. It was very nice catching up with Yui and we'll probably be having dinner with her and her family on Friday night.
There are some very inovative things in Japan as well as some very stupid things (that's in my opinion of
course) On the plus score take Ross' bathroom; it contains two sections, one section houses the washbasin and the washing machine while the other section (with a door seperating the two areas) has a bath and shower. Over the bath are two rails for hanging your wet clothes on; you then shut the door, press a switch and the area turns into your dryer which automatically closes down once the clothes are dry. Magic! But on the downside scale there is huge wastage. For examples bananas are each wrapped seperatly in cellophane bags, indeed all fruit is wrapped in such a way. What a waste!
Then again one of the bonuses in Japan are the trains. On Tuesday as we sped along on the Shinkansen at some amazing speed (which no train in Australia could even begin to match) there were numerous rice paddies along the way. The rice paddies are oblong in shape with raised beds around the edges some of which have shrines placed along the raised edge. With around 95% of Japanese being cremated, presumably these shrines are to commemorate dead relatives who, during their lifetime, had worked on those rice paddies.
Talking of the
Shinkansen made me ponder on Australian railways. I hope that the NSW government are planning to build a really fast train from Badgerys Creek Airport to the city which of course needs to be in place before the airport is operational. What's the betting that such a train will be nothing like the system here!
Having visited, and stayed in Kyoto on a couple of previous occasions, we decided we'd like to go back there to see what progress had been made on the restoration of the Higashi Honganji which is the biggest wooden building in the world. The Higashi Honganji is the headquarters of the two factions of the Jodo-Shin sect, one of Japan's largest Buddist sects. Surprising there is still a lot of work to be done with an expected completion date by the end of 2015. What we both find so fascinated about it is that the buildings being restored have temporary buildings built around them enabling work to take place no matter what the weather.
Our inspection over we then made a stop in Nagoya, visiting the Noritake Gardens which, in the short time we had there was the only place we managed to
explore. But there was lots to see. In the Craft Centre we saw original mold production to glaze firing, clay production process through to poured molding. The centre also features demonstrations on many types of decoration processes including freehand sketching (hand painting) which must takes ages for those whose job it is to perfect. It was fascinating to watch. The museum details the history of the company and features some Old Noritake products created from the Meiji era to early Showa era, to design illustrations and with a wide collection of tableware on display. The company offers ceramic painting workshops for both adults and children. Of course there is also a huge showroom where you can see just what you want and then dip you hand into your pocket to be able to walk out with your goodies! Naturally we resisted that temptation. Nevertheless the 'My Dining' area had some gorgeous table settings which gave me some brilliant ideas to implement when we get home.
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seb
non-member comment
Wrapping
Japanese wrapping and packaging is a very specific cultural trait (see http://moodle.artun.ee/pluginfile.php/11130/mod_resource/content/2/packaging.pdf) that relates to long held customs and traditions. When merged with mass consumerism (and mass production), you end up with this fascinating hybrid. It isn't 'just shopping' and the reasons aren't as simple as they might be in the US ('of course everything is shrink wrapped for hygiene'), but caught up in these traditions.