Russ and Sue's Japanese Diary

One of the best parts about living in Fukui is that we're so close to the Echizen coast. There's a stretch of about 50km of coastline which is great for cycling. We went cruising down the coast one afternoon and we came across tons of great little islands and rock formations and such. I thought it was great fun just climbing over and exploring these little peninsulas.

While we were on our way to the coast, we discovered a tiny little park with a man-made waterfall.

Further north along the coast is Tojinbo, Fukui's most famous tourist attraction. Tojinbo is a large rock formation jutting out into the sea of Japan. Unfortunately, it's been overly commercialized, so the crowds are huge. And the buildings and parking lots really draw away from the natural beauty. But it's still very cool.

Ever been to Kanazawa? Kanazawa is a bustling city in the prefecture of Ishikawa. It's less than 2 hours away from us by train, so we took a day trip in November. There were several cool things to see. Our first stop was at a huge "farmer's market". Omicho market was jammed into a couple alleys and absolutely filled with booths overflowing with seafood and vegtables. Unfortunately, we didn't get a photo of this - personally, I think that's Sue's fault. :)

We did take out our camera when we stumbled across a cool shrine. Here's Sue at the temple entrance. Inside the temple grounds, there was a little park with a small creek and fountain. It was surprisingly peaceful, considering we were only a couple hundred meters away from skyscrapers and a major roadway clogged with traffic.

The temple also had a statue that was strange enough that we considered it photo-worthy. If anyone knows the explanation for this one, we'd love to hear it.

Up next was the Nomura Samurai house. The Nomura family lived in this house for about 300 years, although it has been reconstructed and transplanted. From the outside, it doesn't look all that different than many of the surrounding buildings. And the fact that there's a parking lot in front also detracts from the view.

The inside of the house was very cool. Just inside the door was a suit of armor once worn by the Nomura samurais. I believe that this was just ceremonial armor though. If you look closely, you can see that the armor even includes a metal mask. The mask has some kind of bristles attached to look like a moustache.

One of the most famous things about Japan are the rock gardens. It is considered a sign of wealth and power to have a nice rock garden in your yard. The one outside the samurai house was very cool. Check it out.

The garden also had a small pond. Swimming around it were dozens of cerimonial carp. These fish are everywhere in this country! Every temple, shrine or remotely important building has a small pond filled with carp. They're pretty big - some can be 2 or 3 feet long. Somewhere near each of these ponds, there's a little fountain with a couple big wooden utensils that almost look like soup ladles. For some reason, japanese people use these to scoop up some water and pour it over the heads of these fish. We don't know why.

During the Spring of 99, Sue's parents came to Japan for a vacation. Here's the photographic proof. This photo was taken in a park in Kanazawa. I can't remember the name right now. But according to the Japanese, it is the 3rd most scenic location in the country. But we had the misfortune of arriving while there was a great deal of construction going on. So overall, it didn't really leave that much of an impression on us. That's probably why I can't remember the name.

For about 3 months, I took Aikido classes twice per week. Aikido is one of the martial arts. It has become fairly well known in North America ever since the emergence of Stephen Seagal several years ago. I find this form of martial art to be very interesting. Violent movies excepted, it is purely defensive - there are no attacks in Aikido. The defense is primarily based on using the attacker's momentum to your advantage - to keep him off balance enough that you can control his movements and disable him. Of course, that's a far too simplistic description, but that's OK. Just picture Stephen Seagal with less hair, a more peaceful attitude and only a tiny fraction of the skill - that's me.

A few of the more advanced students were being tested so that they could be raised to the next level. This is similar to the colored belts (yellow, brown, black, etc) used to describe the level of skill of someone in Karate. However, Aikido doesn't use belts. All students wear a solid white gi (pronounced 'gee') until they reach the 'shodan' level. I think this would be roughly equivalent to a black belt in karate. Here are a couple pictures from the testing day.

In the first 2 pictures, the guys in solid white are the ones who're being tested. The guys with the black bottoms are more advanced students who've volunteered to play the attacking role for the test. In the 3rd picture, it is the student on the left who is testing. He has already reached the first shodan level and is testing to reach the 2nd level. There are many levels. As you get to the higher levels, many of the skills include the use of swords.
There is one instuctor sitting at each of the four corners of the testing area. They are watching carefully to make sure that all the correct steps are being followed. Everything from hand placement to foot positioning is very important.

But I wasn't the only Couprie kicking ass in japan. Sue was also doing her share. During a visit to her school, Sue and some American high school students took a class in Judo. She made them pay. One of her Japanese students was bruised for a week.

There's a small city called Takefu that's fairly near to Fukui. This town (and in fact the entire region of the country) is well known for producing high quility knives and blades. In the Takefu train station, they created a real work of art. It is a dragon made from nothing but knife blades. Each scale on the dragon's body is a seperate blade. The sculpture is probably about 10 feet long.

And you thought it would only take a few mintues to get through all this? Hah!

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rcouprie@bigfoot.com

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