This is the view we woke up to from our Irago View Hotel window.
These are some things we found in our room.
I read just tiny bit in The Teaching of Buddha. Wish I could have purchased this book. There seemed to be some nice bits of wisdom written in small paragraphs or sentences.
Then we went outside to catch the bus that would carry us around all day. The first picture is a dam holding back a lake. There are Japanese characters in shrubs along the face of the dam. The second picture is the Irago View Hotel.
This day would be our first full day on the Atsumi Peninsula and our first full 'official' day in Tahara. The Atsumi Peninsula has the Pacific Ocean on the side (in the picture from our hotel room window) and the Mikawa Bay (the side in the lake picture above) on the other side of the hotel. At one time there were three cities on this peninsula. Then the government began consolidating some of the smaller cities to be more efficient. The three cities were combined and became Tahara City. This area is a farming area. With the ocean breezes it has a climate suitable for growth all year round. It is absolutely covered with long greenhouses and fields. It was now time for us to get to know, up close and personal, this portion of Japan.
Our first visit of the day would be Seisho High School. Claude and I were so impressed with the school. First, the students stay in the same classroom all day. The teachers move to the different classrooms. We saw no computers on the teachers desk. They seemed to work with a chalkboard and eraser. The kids had workbooks for each of the classes we visited and we visited several. The students dress in uniforms. No baggy jeans that could slip off at any moment. No one was slouched in their chair with an attitude. Teachers seemed to be dressed casually.
You must take your shoes off in the school. They had slippers for each of us to wear. This is my feet in slippers with the school name across each foot. This was always a challenge for Claude. He has big feet and his toes barely fit in their slippers. He was always a bit more sure-footed if he could just wear his socks when we had to take off our shoes.
After a bit of discussion and exchange of gifts in the principal's office, we set out to tour the school.
When we entered the first classroom, the students turned to look at us. The teacher let them peek for just a second or two. Then she said, "Focus" and they immediately went back to work. Amazing.
This is the first classroom we visited. Our group has their heads through sliding screens between the hallway and the classroom. There is no heating or air conditioning in the schools. The temperature is kept comfortable by the use of windows, blinds and the sun. The other side of the classroom had big windows that could be opened or closed and blinds the could be opened or closed to suit the needs of the class. There were large windows on the other side of the hallway that could also be opened to add or remove a breeze.
We could hear what sounded like a huge group of some kind of bird all talking at once. This is what it was. This class was learning English. The students were paired off. They had workbooks with a dialogue written in them in English. They were reading their dialogue in pairs. Everyone at the same time. This class never lost their focus while we watched and took pictures. I loved the uniforms. I believe I confirmed in my mind that I am pro-uniform. The girls always had on a skirt.
This is a view from the hallway across to another wing of the school and, if you look closely, you can see a white windmill turbine on the hill and next to it a white square that is the Mt. Zao Observatory. Every year the students are required to run up to the top of Mt. Zao and back. The elementary age students only go half way but they also run.
This is the library. They still use a card file system to check out books. I found a set of beautiful books and asked what they were. I was told they are dictionaries. As a side note, their books read from back to front. When you pick up even a magazine to read, go to the back cover first and then go through the magazine from there.
We learned that children are to walk to school if they live close enough. If they do not, they ride bicycles. This is the parking sheds for their bicycles. It is assigned parking. Some parents will sneak and drive their kids within a few blocks of the school if they are among the walking children. But never in front of the school.
While in Hiroshima, as Claude and I were sitting on the retaining wall waiting for our group, we watched the people riding their bicycles by us. All ages. Some much older than me riding a bicycle. I noticed and shared with Claude that it didn't seem to matter what kind of bicycle you rode. In the States this would suddenly involve brand and accessories and keeping up with the Jones'. In Japan, it seemed to us in the city or the country, it just mattered that you had wheels to get around and the brand or age of the bicycle was not important. It just needed to be serviceable.
Back to the principal's office. This is a work of art made by students at the school that won an award. It is made of layers of wood pressed together and sanded down into the shape of a tear drop. When you look at it in person, it appears to be made of cloth. I found it beautiful.
We were impressed with Seisho High School. The kids were allowed to wave and say "hello". Such pretty faces and pleasant smiles. Nice experience.
They also have the high school students grouped according to their focus in education in three areas. If the student planned to go to college, they were in classes that prepared them for that. If their plan was to work in a service type field, their were in classes that prepared them for that. The third group of classes prepared you for running and managing your home. There is not a belief that all children will go to college. It is not looked down upon if your chosen vocation in life is in a service related field to to managed your home.
Next official stop for the day was the Tahara City Museum.
Tahara was once a 'Castle Town'. In the feudal system certain cities had this designation and they had a castle (made of wood) and at minimum a feudal lord lived there. The castle in Tahara has some buildings that have been saved and preserved. These have been turned into a museum and the feature exhibit is the 'Legacy of Watanabe Kazan'. I read about him in a history of Japan book I read before coming.
As a young man he was publicly humiliated by a person of higher class than himself. His reaction was to determine to make himself a person who could and did converse face-to-face with these people. He created a plan that required him to arise very early to study before doing the things he needed to do to help his family exist. Then he studied again in the evening. He functioned for years on a few hours sleep each night. The result was his becoming a man of literary knowledge with an ability to write wonderful things. He became an artist of renown. He also became the adviser to the capital for the Aichii Prefecture. He achieved his goal but the story of the hard work and discipline it took to get there is amazing. At some point he said something that would cause the leaders to lose face. He took his life to save their face.
As I did my reading about Japan before our trip, I found this was often the answer to maintaining one's honor and the honor of the family. It was more important to have honor so that taking one's life was the honorable thing to do. This is a hard concept for me to wrap my mind around. But you can see the influence it has on the importance of proper behavior and a certain manner of doing things to this very day.
Here are a few pictures of our entry into the museum (restored castle).
These chains are the rain gutter system. These pictures are a full chain and a close-up of a section of the chain to drain water from the roof.
Me and Claude in Watanabe Kazan paintings!!
Watanabe Kazan
We loved the art exhibit. Claude favored the geisha's in their beautiful kimonos. I was taken with the one's of everyday life and some of the men. Watanabe did a fantastic job with the eyes and it was as if the painting and I were really looking at each other. We were given a beautiful book of color prints of his paintings.
Now, time for a fun lunch. We were taken to Happy Valley. This is a restaurant owned by the Director of Tahara International Association (TIA), Okamoto Yoshihiro. He sells Pizza & Pasta!
The first picture is Claude exchanging business cards with Mr. Yoshihiro.
The exchange of business cards is an important gesture in Japan. We were told each delegate needed their own business card with our information in English on one side. The back side of the card had our important information in Japanese. This was not a big deal for all the other delegates as they all work and have business cards at the ready. However, I even had to have cards made for me. I don't have a paying job so I don't have a business card. I asked Claude, "What in the world do I put on a business card? Papa's caregiver, Gramma extraordinaire?" We laughed and then Claude suggested I put Chair for the Friends of Sadieville. I did create a business card for me using that idea. We paid for everything on our trip except for two items. The Kentucky League of Cities paid for the printing of business cards for Claude with the Japanese on them. They also donated Kentucky quarters in a nice folder explaining the images on the coins and some history of Kentucky.
There is an order to this business card exchange. You hold your card facing the person to whom you are giving it with both hands on the top corners and had it so it is readable to the person receiving the card. When you receive their card, you are to bow and accept it. Then you look at it carefully and digest what is on it. You smile and bow again and possibly again and you discuss the card. The card received is to be kept out in the open for them to see that you respect it (and by inference them). You never carry or put the business cards in your hip pocket. That would be like you sitting on it and you would never give someone something that you sat on. All very proper.
This welcome sign was up for our visit to Happy Valley for lunch.
We were all missing some of our favorite American foods. What a treat to have pizza. And, a salad!!! From a salad bar!!! This is my pizza. It is cheese and honey. No tomato sauce at all. The honey is very light and just an accent to the cheese. It was totally delicious. I must comment again that the Japanese do not consume and don't have the palate for the heavy sugar that American's consume. If you want to be aware of the amount of sugar we consume, even if we think we don't consume much, go to Japan. Claude and I have cut out so much sugar in our diet and I could still tell a huge difference.
And, here is our group with the TIA Director in front of Happy Valley restaurant.
Now for our 'Official Duties' for the afternoon. We would spend the afternoon at City Hall. First a visit with the Mayor and the exchange of official gifts.
Mayor Claude J. Christensen and Mayor Masayoshi Yamashita.
Mayor Claude J. Christensen and Superintendent Takashi Hanai.
Mayor Claude J. Christensen and City Council Chairman Yokio Ota.
Mayor Masayoshi Yamashita and Mayor Claude J. Christensen exchange business cards.
Then in front of City Hall to plant two trees. Left to right of the planting is Mayor Yamashita, Mayor Prather, City Councilman Chuck Bradley and City Council Chairman Ota. If you look at the row behind them you will find me with my camera and Claude to the right of me (just look for the gray haired lady on the end).
As we toured City Hall, I got this picture that I really wanted. I took several of cemeteries but they were while in a moving vehicle. This one is much clearer. After commenting to Kelly that there could not be bodies as there was no room between markers, Kelly explained that everyone is cremated. You then get a marker and ashes are placed on top of each other inside the marker.
As we walked down a hall with lots of windows, I loved this view of Tahara City looking over a roof that has been turned into a Zen rock garden.
In Mayor Yamashita's office was the gorgeous plant and a map of the Atsumi Peninsula.
This is a kite with the Tahara City logo on it.
The chamber for the City Council meetings is huge. Seated in the highest chair is Georgetown City Councilman Chuck Bradley. This is the chair City Council Chairman Ota would sit in for the meetings. Seated in the chair below him is Scott County Magistrate David Livingston. This is totally tongue-in-cheek photo for everyone back in Georgetown/Scott County. The next photo I took has these two guys laughing at each other.
Here is Mayor Claude J. Christensen ringing the bell to start the session.
We had a grand time at City Hall. Then we boarded our bus to go back to the Irago View Hotel with a little time to freshen up for the Official Dinner at the Irago View Hotel.
After a brief break, we found our group on the roof top of the Irago View Hotel taking pictures of the sunset and the 360 degree views of the area. These pictures are all the Pacific Ocean views.
Then we all went to the 2nd Floor room for the Official Dinner of sushi.
This would be my first time having sushi. Some was great. Other items I simply could not eat, like the snail. I did try to eat some white meat that was wrapped around something but I could not chew through it. It turns out that was the eel!! These are a few pictures of some of the courses. There were many other courses. The third picture is turnip soup.
It was a good and interesting meal. Lots of conversation with the other officials. And, I tried something very new to me. I still was awful with the chopsticks. I had learned by now that holding the bowl up to my lips and slurping was acceptable behavior.
After the dinner it was back to our rooms for some rest. But, Claude and I had to try out the kimonos in our room. These were for use in the hotel only. If you went to the basement for a Japanese bath, you could wear them there. We did not try this. I did see many guests in them and the slippers provided in the room when we walked through the game room. To get all of us in the picture, I tried using my Kindle and our reflection in the full length mirror. I can't even number the tries we made to even get this picture. We were in stitches at the pictures and would just keep trying.
First official day was complete and a success. Now to rest so we would be ready for Official Day 2 but more casual in dress. Thank heavens we only had one day to wear Sunday clothes.
Today would turn out to be a very interesting day. This is what the day was supposed to be like:
- Motorcoach drive from Kyoto to Nara
- Tour the Todaiji Temple to see the Great Buddha
- Motorcoach drive from Nara back to Kyoto Station
- Ride the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Nagoya
- Tour Toyota Nagoya Headquarters, Lexus Exhibit, Midland Square Visit
- Ride the Shinkansen from Nagoya to Toyohashi
- Tahara City Staff to pick us up and take us by buse across the Atsumi Peninsula
- Dinner at a Tempura Restaurant
- Check into the Irago View Hotel
This is what happened...
We checked out of the New Hankyu Hotel in Kyoto and boarded the bus to Nara. All is okay so far. Along the way I was able to get this photo of a 7/11 store sign.
We arrived at Nara and found school children galore!!
And, we found the Nara deer. These are like the deer we saw at Miyajima. Nara is noted for these little deers!!
Through this gate we would get a little closer to the Todaiji Temple and the Great Buddha.
We would walk past a lake with a Torii Gate on it and then to the next gate before entering the area with the Todaiji Temple.
And...we finally saw the Todaiji Temple. This was the world's largest wooden structure and it was built to house the Great Buddha. Kelly told us he thinks China has built a larger wooden building now. Nonetheless, it was massive.
Claude and I, as well as others in our group, purchased incense sticks, lit them and posted them in the sand. The money is used to maintain Todaiji Temple and the Great Buddha.
These are a couple of the things of interest as we walked across the courtyard to the Todaiji Temple.
Then, there he was, the Great Buddha.
The position of the hands means something. There are several positions each hand may be placed in. The position and the hand forming the position mean something different. The hand position is called 'mudra'. The Great Buddha's left hand is in the varada mudra. This means compassion, sincerity, wish granting, and offering of acceptance. The right hand of the Great Buddha is in the abhaya mudra. Abhaya is a sanskrit word meaning fearlessness, energy of protection, peace, a sense of strong inner peace. So happy for the Internet to add to our understanding. Grateful for a Sudoku book in which to record this information for my Blog when I got home. Such is the nature of Sandi's travel manner.
In the Todaiji Temple are also housed two huge golden gods on either side of the Great Buddha.
Also housed there are two huge wooden figures of some kind of deity or something. Their expressions were enough to put fear in you.
Along the back wall were reproductions of the various versions of the Todaiji Temple. It has burned and been rebuilt. There were three version. This is the current temple buildings.
I caught this picture of some of our group standing along the back of the Great Buddha. Gives you a feel for how huge he really is.
The Great Buddha sits on a lotus blossom. The base of the huge pillars that support the building also have lotus blossoms on them. This is not unlike the temples in Egypt except their columns and lotus blossoms are made of stone, not wood.
There is one column with an opening cut in it that is the size of the Great Buddha's nostril. The school kids were having great fun going through it.
This is a window in Todaiji Temple.
Claude and I finished and went outside. There was something along the front of the Todaiji Temple I wanted to get a picture of. This is Pindola. He is one of 16 arahats who were disciples of Buddha. The common belief in Japan is, if someone rubs a part of the image of Pindola and then rubs the part of his body that ails him, he will be healed. He is one scary looking dude!
These are scenes outside Todaiji Temple as we waited for our group to gather.
These are things seen from our walk back to the bus.
Todaiji is another World Heritage Site.
Now, for the bus ride back to Kyoto Station. That part went correctly. This was a rainy day and we were fortunate the rain came heavily while we were in the bus or in the train.
At Kyoto Station, we boarded the Shinkansen and made it safely to Nagoya Station. So far, so good.
Kelly suggested we find lockers in which to put our luggage so we didn't have drag it to Toyota Headquarters. Made good sense. We located lockers and shared yen coins to open and store everyone's luggage. Then we road the elevator to the top floor and found a nice restaurant that could seat all of us on their patio. It was rainy but we we were not in the rain. It was a little cool but we were all actually enjoying the fresh air. And, the tower that is Toyota Headquarters was our view for lunch. So far, we are doing okay.
As we finished lunch, Kelly realized we had to be on a certain train to get to Toyohashi at the right time to meet our bus ride to the Irago Hotel. Suddenly there was no time to tour the Toyota Headquarters. We all hurriedly paid for our meal and then quickly made our way to the lockers to retrieve our luggage. Things were beginning to unravel a bit.
Our lockers were right across from a Krispy Kreme donut shop. Claude and I got our luggage and he ran in and purchased a dozen glazed donuts to share on the train. At this point we were all craving a little taste from home. We were happy with Japanese cuisine but one always realizes how much they like and miss things from home.
We hurried up and found the platform to board the Shinkansen to Toyohashi. We were cutting our connection very, very close. Suddenly Kelly left our group and walked down the platform. The Shinkansen arrived and we didn't want to board without Kelly. However, those trains keep a tight schedule and that door was not going to remain open for long and there were 10 of us to board with our luggage. Then, Kelly was inside the train telling us to get on quickly. We all hurried on just as the door was getting ready to close.
We went into the green car and there were not 10 seats all close together. We could all find 10 seats, just not close together. So, we found seat throughout the same car and took them. That was when I noticed the look of Kelly's face. Not sure how to describe it but it was very clear something was not right. It turns out we boarded the wrong Shinkansen. The one we were on was the highest level and it only stopped at really major cities. It's next stop was in Yokohama...not Toyohasi. To further complicate matters, our Shinkansen tickets were not good on this type of Shinkansen. The good news is that once in Yokohama we could catch a train using our passes that would take us directly to Toyohashi. The bad news was we would be several hours late for the people picking us up with the nice bus. Yep, things were starting to unravel.
Kelly asked us to stay seated and he would talk with the conductor. He left and we all waited to see what would happen. The conductor was not happy. This would be the only experience we would have with unhappy Japanese people. He said he would accept our tickets as passage but we would have to sit in a lower priced car. Kelly accepted that gratefully as the increase in cost would have been hundreds of dollars. Kelly came back and told us to wait where we were and he would go back and find a car with enough seats for the 10 of us. We waited for Kelly.
However, a lady who worked with the conductor came into the car where we were sitting and told us we had to move now. She only spoke Japanese and Kelly was the only one of us who spoke English. Kelly was not there. Some of our group tried to communicate to her that Kelly was looking for seats and had talked with the conductor. She was having none of that. She left and returned quickly with an Japanese to English dictionary to make her point further. In order to not start an international incident, we all gathered our things and started in the direction that Kelly had gone. Through the cars marched nine Americans with their luggage. We must have been a sight. Through a couple of cars filled with school children on their way to Tokyo we marched. They looked, smiled and said, "Hello". Eventually Kelly came back and met up with us moving back in the train cars. He told us to go to car one and he would come back. We went to car one and found seats. Claude passed out the donuts. Nothing like a good donut to soothe your bruised feelings. I realized why I was told that we should pay extra for the green car. They are located in the middle of the train which is clearly the smoothest ride. They also have seats that are larger with more leg room. The seats in car one were okay but it was more like sitting in coach on the plane. We settled in for a few extra hours of train travel.
Kelly finally joined us and explained the conductor was not happy with how the lady treated us. The reality was that there were seats enough for us in the green car and there were no stops between Nagoya and Yokohama. We were getting off in Yokohama so any seats we took would have been available for all passengers boarding in Yokohama. We were quite willing to go to the lesser priced cars and ride there. Kelly contacted our bus pick up in Toyohashi and alerted them to our situation. And we all settled down for a nice train ride to Yokohama with the possibility of seeing Mt. Fuji now and gratitude for not being in the rain. Mt. Fuji ended up being covered in clouds and not visible. But it was a nice ride anyway. The top picture is how casual Claude and I travel. Those are our JR Passes in his shoe. The bottom picture is NOT Mt. Fuji. It is just how low the clouds were on the mountains as we passed by.
We did make it to Toyohashi. It was dark, very dark. We boarded our bus and were driven to somewhere in the Atsumi Peninsula for a tempura dinner.
The food was really good and we learned how to really enjoy tempura. Then we were taken to the Irago View Hotel and given our room keys and instructions for the next morning. We were told the view in the morning would be amazing.
So this day was an adventure. Kelly will never live down this run to Yokohama. But it is the kind of story that will get better and better with age. All is good.
