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2007 Jul-Sep.news1.0
The latest news from the Riley householdFamily History - 11 Sep 2007
I have added a new section to my website on my family history. This is going to be a work in progress. At the moment it contains 800+ people. The aim is to find out more about my own family and how they have been tied up in the events of the world. So far, there are convicts, gold miners and soldiers in the Boar, the first and the Second World wars.Due to the need for privacy no information on living people will be part of this website. Instead, we have a useful family page on geni.com where everyone can stay in touch.
Seto Pottery Festival 8 Sep 2007
Every year the small town of Seto on the outskirts of Nagoya has a pottery sale. Seto is well known in Japan for pottery and the annual sale brings the hoards. In fact historically, the local area of Aichi is home to a large part of Japan's Pottery industry.(the Yamasa Institute has a good page on this.)It was a hot day but we got a good park right beside the train station and were able to wander around the stalls that lined the main road throughout the town.
There were lots of stuff for sale and some real bargains. Lots of cheap bowls and plates both at the designer level and at the everyday mass production level. Some stalls had figurines and others garden ware. Our favorites were the shops that are in Seto year round. Inside the shops there were some great bargains compared to the usual prices.
The flags for the festival
Stall
More pottey
The crowd at the food stalls
Ise Shrine and Mikimoto 26 aug 2007
Kuragaike Park 19 aug 2007
During the heat of Obon week we decided not to do very much. One of the trips that we had not yet made was to a Toyota Corporate Museum in Toyota City.After a short drive out, we found that the museum was in a large park. There were a number of things to do around this pretty park, but we came especially to see the Toyota Museum. I was the only Toyota Museum that we had not visited, so we had to go and tick it off.
There were paddle boats on the lake, some gardens, a museum on the history of road surfaces (we did not investigate) and a petting zoo. Anyway, a pretty place on the edge of Toyota city with lots of families enjoying themselves.
View of Kuragaike Park from the steps of Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall.
The Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall. is a free museum and really only provides the same material as exists in the other museums. The museum mainly consists of is one big room with the timeline of the company around the walls, a few cars and a company video....you can probably tell that I was not that enthused.
There was actually nothing wrong with it, it was well put together, but after visiting the other Three Toyota corporate museums, I was a bit nonplussed. Maybe if you had not seen the others you would enjoy it.
Kiichiro Toyoda's House (Originally located in Yagoto Nagoya). You cannot go in the house.
Our tourist bus ticket. Well really it just went in a circle between the car parks but it was air conditioned and a silly thing to do.
Tokugawa Family Art Museum - 18 aug 2007
The Owari branch of the Tokugawa family own the most extensive private museum in Japan. Located in Nagoya it contains a number of interesting pieces including 12th Century manuscripts, paintings of famous battles and a beautiful garden only recently completed.
The Obon Week Heat Wave
Thursday the 16th was the hottest day on record in Japan. The new record of 40.9 degrees (105.6 F) was in the city of Tajimi, just a stones throw from where we live. Unlike the weather in Melbourne the humidity has been a real killer. There is no difference in temperature in the shade and hardly a difference when the sun goes down. It is a muggy 35 degrees+ from around 9am , then all through the day and only drops to about 26 degrees sometime after midnight.Obon week is a National holiday, so the heat wave has come at a bad time as we had wanted to get out and do things, but it has just been too hot.
The news services report that 13 people have died in the heat. (Mainly older people) and I can understand why.
On the brighter side, one report says "The heat wave could lift drink sales as much as $491.6 million and electric products by US$1.2 billion" - USA Today
Another Visit to Nagoya Aquarium - 13 aug 2007
At the start of Obon week (and the start of the heat wave) we headed off to Nagoya Port. I had been before (photos here), but it was Pam's first visit.We went early, but it was still crowded. The highlight of the visit is always the animal shows and it did not disappoint. Still recommended,
The dolphin show
The dolphin show
The dolphin show
The Killer Whale Show
The Killer Whale Show
Ishidori Matsuri - 5 aug 2007
Ishidori Matsuri is one of the loudest festivals in Japan with many large floats and loud Taiko drumming. One of my favorite festivals to date.
We had a terrific time and were able to be part of the festival much more than in many others. - Highly recommended
Text added - Osaka Tenjin Matsuri pages
It was a big festival and I have added a lot of text to the festival pages to explain what went on..Okazaki - 4 Aug 2007
It was an awesome display of fireworks and the biggest fireworks event I have ever seen.
Hinomaru Flag/ Nationalism - My view on some Politics
The 'Hinomaru' is the name of the Japanese flag. Officially the flag is a red sun on a white background (Nisshōki ). It is infrequent, but you still see the version with the red rays ( Kyokujitsu-ki ). When we climbed Mount Fuji, many Japanese climbers had one version tied to their climbing poles, many had the other version. I have found, surprisingly, that there is not apparent negative connection to the red rayed flag in Japan [Actually it is linked to the right wing, and seen as a symbol of the right], whereas when I grew up, it was seen with very negative connotations.
Nationalism and the flag are still big issues in Japan and a few newspaper stories recently reminded me of the issue.
Firstly, Sunday's Daily Yomiuri (5-Aug-07) included an article titled "Japanese Sports fans taunted in China", reporting that 100+ Chinese fans threw paper cups and screamed abuse at nine Japanese fans. The paper reported that this was not the first time, and that crowd problems in China were nothing new. The paper noted that all the Japanese fans were doing was waving the 'Hinomaru' flag and chanting for their team. (The paper does not specify which version of the flag). I have found that you often need to read between the lines in Japanese reporting, especially those regarding China. In this case, why would a100+ fans get so upset at an under 22's international soccer match? BTW the fact that the Japanese fans were waving a flag has been removed from the online version of the story.
Secondly, In late June, Japan's then defense minister Fumio Kyuma (who is from Nagasaki) said that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was" an inevitable way to end the war". and which had stopped the USSR gaining more territory. By early July, Kyuma had to resign due to the overwhelming negative criticism his remarks received. On Sunday (5 Aug 2007), Prime Minister Abe apologied to survivors. To me, it seems that in Japan, any acceptance that the bombings were less than a war crime is not acceptable. The recent issues with Japan's government backing away from acknowledgement of the use of Comfort women in WW2 is another example of how what happened WW2 is seen very differently here in Japan from how it is seen in Australia.
Finally, a group of Japanese teachers lost a large court case recently, "The focal point of the trial was whether the retraining program, which was intended to encourage program participants to stand up and sing at the next school event, infringed upon the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of thought and creed." - Yahoo News
Surprisingly to me, the teachers lost. Forcing teachers to salute the flag, and making them attend retraining courses if they do not salute and sing looks to me like it goes against the constitutions freedom of thought clause. There are many articles on this issue.Read more detail here from a protest group called Refuse and Resist, but it is pretty even and worth reading.
Osaka with Friends - 28/29 July 2007
I will start with the photos and put the text in later when I have time.
So excuse the pages at the moment
We are back
OK, lots going on. Lots of things happening so I have not done an update for a while.Osaka Tenjin Matsuri (Festival)- 25 July 2007
Day and Night Festival Photos
The festival was BIG, and we enjoyed it. There was lots to see but by the end we were a bit" peopled out".
Nagoya Sumo Tournament - 22 July 2007
Did I enjoy it, do I want to go again... well, there were things I did enjoy and it was an interesting experience. But as usual click on the picture to read the whole story.
White Water Rafting - 21 July 2007
With Natural Action. Shizuoka prefecture. near Mt Fuji.
After a long drive from Nagoya to the base of Mt Fuji, we had a bit of trouble finding the actual starting point for the rafting. Natural Action's phone number was not in our Navi and their sheds were not obvious. Luckily as we were looking around a van carrying a trailer full of rafts drove by us. After a quick "Follow that car", we followed the van out of town, over a bridge, through a tunnel and ended up at the right spot! phew. If you intend to go rafting. Get good directions first.
OK, the rafting. Well we had a lot of fun. There were 10 boats in our group with six customers and a guide on each. We had Aziz, and he was a lot of fun. Our boat must have seemed to others to be the crazy boat as we splashed other boats, intentionally tumbled our boat into the water, dunked ourselves under a waterfall and paddled into the roughest of the rapids.
The river was quite picturesque. There was the occasional concrete and factories, but that is inescapable. It was some of the best scenery we have seen. The river moved quickly with rapids followed by quiet bits where you could just muck around.
The rapids were probably around the right level for me. It was not a difficult course, I am not sure what the ranking was but it was enough to enjoy some thrills but feel pretty safe. I enjoyed being out there with the other boats and we had a good two hours on the water. Organizing as a group of six made a big difference as well, as we then had our own boat. I would definitely recommend it, and we want to do it again.
Tips: You will get very wet, we all went in the water. There are lockers at the base where you can leave your stuff , there are also change rooms, but no showers. The cost was around 6500 yen each and we thought it was well worth it..
Typhoons and Earthquakes - 16 July 2007
We had a typhoon which lasted for 4-5 days, but the worst rain was around the weekend of the 14-15 July. We cancelled our intended trip to see the huge Gion festival in Kyoto but I was just amazed at how much rain came down. The photo above is of the neighbours house as it was pounded by rain.
A 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit the other side of Japan on July 16th. (It was a good week). Pam felt it at work and so did I at home. We often get small shakes and swaying, but this one was bigger than usual. There was a lot of damage caused by the quake and a number of people were killed and hundreds were injured. The biggest story though was the damage to Japan's biggest Nuclear power plant.
I have a separate page on the power plant story as I believe the way it was reported was pretty outrageous. If you are interested. Have a look here.
Sue's Birthday - 14 July 2007
With Sue still in Australia, We all went out to celebrate on her behalf.
Back in Australia - 18 June 2007 - 10 July 2007
Yes I went back to Australia again for work. As usual I came home with lots of food and books. Luckily I picked to go home to the worst weather Melbourne has had in years.Goto Previous Index Page