Category Archives: Japan

Japanese Archery (Kyudo)

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Kyudo means “way of the bow” and is the Japanese art of archery. Notice my use of the word “art” there. Unlike the standard types of archery that we see practiced in the UK, Kyudo is much more to do with meditation and seeking a natural release, whilst shooting to hit the target. For that reason, it takes many hours of learning the meditation side of things before you would normally pick up a bow. So, our little attempt at Kyudo would only be a very basic, fun demonstration.

On our final day in Kyoto (day 11 of my trip), Mark and Sayaka took me along to a little place just outside of the Kiyomizu Temple. The lady instructor handed us a bow and we were told to sit down facing the wall, as if on a horse, and hold our bow at 90 degrees to shoot down the tunnel. Continue reading →

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Japan Day 11 – Kyoto And The Wig Of Love

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I received a blog comment this morning from Sue in Bexhill (this is becoming like Points of View), who says: “Alastair, this whole holiday seems to be centred round eating.”

With that being the case, it would surely mean that something like constipation would be very unfortunate and probably quite amusing, right? No, wrong! I’m not a great fan of discussing bowel movements on blogs (do you think there is some kind of cult that does?), but no-one has been this full of crap since Bill Clinton stood in court and explained that Monica was only bending over to pick up a pencil. I haven’t had a number 2 for two and a half days! It must be all the meat we’ve been eating. Continue reading →

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Japanese Spinach Doughnuts

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Well folks, I can excitedly reveal that I have finally tried the spinach doughnuts… *applause*… They were very nice and didn’t really taste of spinach at all; a fact that I actually felt a bit disappointed about. Popeye won’t be doing much heavy lifting after eating this snack pack.

What I’m wondering now is whether a pack of spinach doughnuts constitutes my 5-a-day!?

Spinach Doughnuts

Spinach Doughnuts

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Purikura (Japanese Photo Booth)

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Whilst in Kyoto yesterday, Liz, Sayaka, Mark and I tried out the latest in trendy teenage fads – Purikura. Purikura involves using a series of machines to take photographs (whilst striking up funny poses) and then decorating the photographs with all sorts of horrible, garish, pretty graphics. Liz had tried this ordeal before and had somehow survived. So, she was determined to get us all to try it. Let me take you through what happened:

The shop itself was a bit like an amusement arcade, only it was filled with teenage girls (photograph 2). I felt half like a pervert holding a bag of sweets and half like a granddad (does that give you a good vision?). There were several machines located around the room, so we walked around to try and find one that was free, which we eventually (thankfully) did. Continue reading →

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Japan Day 10 – Journey To Kyoto

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Well, I hope you’ve all been enjoying lovely weekends. Here in Japan, we’ve just come to the end of another event packed day.

We left our hotel early, and headed off in the direction of Coco (not the clown) to meet up with our friend Liz. Before leaving Hikone completely, Mark stumbled across a Starbucks. However, this one was slightly unusual – it was a drive-thru Starbucks (I guess you have to supply the Christmas music yourself). Continue reading →

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Driving My Japanese Train

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Here are a few photographs of me driving a model train (taken in Hikone). There was a massive train track laid out at the top of one of the department stores in Hikone – what I would describe as a train fan’s ultimate dream (I’m not a train fan, by the way). It cost about 300 yen (two pounds) to have a go at driving. So, I had a go for my 3 year old son and his love of trains. I was able to control my train around the track using two leavers – one for the speed and one for the brake. The lady told me to brake when going around the bends, but in actual fact it didn’t make any difference. No matter how badly I got it wrong, I couldn’t de-rail my train (damn it!). It was great fun though. As you can see, the view from the front of the train is beamed back to my monitor screen by a small camera. Clever stuff.

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