Another Geek Dinner (ALREADY!!)

Gad what happened to the month(s)?

Must be the pressure of work. Such a lot has happened including an incredible outing to a very inspirational Digital Divide crossing ceremony at Shongweni, where the DST minister and the people from the Meraka institute, and Ethekwini Municipal library showcased the implementation of “Digital Doorway Phase Two”. This is literally a doorway to a better future, personified for the young people in rural areas – I hold it high as a sign of hope for the future.

And last night I was privileged to hear two presentations – One by Angela Spencer, webmaster / mistress of eThekwini and one by Ramon Thomas, high priest of Blogging! You really need to hear what Ramon has got to say… more later.

A winner at the Geek Dinner!

What do you know? I won a lovely T-shirt from esquared fashion – http://esquaredfashion.co.za/ - at the Geek’s Dinner in Durban on Friday. They really do lovely work (and some edgy, some provocative, and some rude stuff too , and the pure cotton fabric is a treat to wear. My T-shirt is part of a natural range – birds hiding in the grass, and if you look on my right shoulder you’ll see a hummingbird. So here is a delighted customer planning to go back for more. Apparently the blogsphere is a big part of their success. Fascinating.

Been a while…

Been on dial-up, what can I say? Now have ADSL so stand by…

30th – Saturday Again! Ferries and Seaside Parks

We’ve been in Japan a week already – hard to believe. Today we started with a Birthday tea for David in the wonderful tea shop on the ground floor of the hotel, called Lupicia. We have been eyeing the cake collection for a week now, and the gracious interior, so decided to treat ourselves.

 

This was his birthday cake and much more elegant than anything I’ve ever presented!

Then we set off on foot from the hotel toward Momochi where there is a man-made beach / seaside park; with the objective of catching the ferry to a nearby island called Shikanoshima – where there is another seaside park called Uminonakamichi Seaside Park. The wind was blowing hard, but we were surprised to see no bathing costumes being worn, everyone was fully dressed.

 

En route to the ferry we bumped into a bridal party, and saw all the guests releasing lots of white balloons and two red heart balloons, followed by the throwing of the bouquet.

It looked very Western, only quite uniform in terms of the men’s clothing (“you can wear any colour suit as long as it’s black….”)

Then at 13h00 it was time for the ferry to depart, so we boarded for the 20 min trip to Uminonakamichi Seaside Park – on the hovercraft. It was a wild and windy trip but quite fun.

When we arrived we were lucky enough to find a map in English which helped a huge amount, as this is a BIG place. The second thing we did was hire a bicycle each. I must tell you I was last on a bicycle at about age 12, so was a little apprehensive, and glad that there seemed to be plenty of space to wobble around in, on the designated cycle tracks. After handing over y400 each, we chose our bicycles (Dave was a bit too big for any there!), each with a basket to carry our stuff. The deal was that we could return the bikes at any of the Bicycle stations dotted around the park.

There were lots of families whizzing around on bikes, the place was a kid’s paradise, and everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun.

29th – Friday: Nagasaki

What can I say? I felt tremendously sad at the museum there today. Such suffering. If anyone else intends to use the atom bomb, a tour of that museum must be compulsory first. I’ll write more and post pictures tomorrow when I’ve recovered from the experience….

28th – Thursday: Washing machines and Canal City

Domestic adventures today. Have you ever tried to use a washing machine when the only instructions (and all the button labels) are in Japanese? It is not easy. Thinking all was done I firmly pressed the button that I had finally figured out, opened the door. Out came half of Niagra falls. When I had picked my jaw up off the floor, I shut the door again. Luckily they provide VERY absorbent bath towels here, and the floors are spotless. Even cleaner now.

I gave up and went to the desk to plead for English instructions. The staff were delighted to help and handed over not only english instructions for the washing machine AND the microwave (that should move me off the one button repetoire I had stuck on with the microwave!) Instructions were very clear. However I still ended up with dripping clothes so I hand wrung them in the basin and hung them out on the string that I tie my yoga mat up with.

Finally out shopping to Tenjin. Very expensive so mostly confined myself to window shopping. An interesting experience when in many cases it is hard to know what is being sold unless you can see inside the packaging.

 

Later I met Dave at the conference centre and we went to see the port area nearby

 

 and from there to the amazing Canal City, a new shopping centre and area for nightlife. What a place. They have a whole (LARGE) shop just dedicated to Pokemons! And a “monument” to the baseball team.

 

(sorry shots below are sideways due to lack of image processing time – just twist your neck for me….)

 

The locals come in droves mostly on their bikes,

and enjoy entertainment, good food and shopping. Late home (about 10pm, the city was still buzzing!) and we have to be up early because we are going to Nagasaki tomorrow. Our hotel has florescent modern art as part of the decoration, shows up really well at night…

27th – Wednesday – Ohori Park, Art and Zen Gardens

What a wonderful day, today…alone and wandering through beautiful places, no one expecting me, no rush to get from A to B. Just doing what I want to. I took the subway four stops down to Ohori Park, a green oasis and lake in the city madness, well loved by joggers and dog-walkers. And cyclists, of course.

The park has a lake in the centre, and there is a running track about 2km long around the lake. Lots and lots of people enjoying the outdoors. There is a series of bridges and islands which allow you to cross the lake if you don’t want to go round. Some places you can even fish.

Tucked away in one corner is the most wonderful Japanese Garden, round every corner pure poetry in the trees, water, stones. OK, I know you all think I’m mad, but there’s a lot to be said for the timeless silence of these things. I had the garden all to myself, or else the other visitors there were amazingly discreet. The cool shade was wonderfully contrasted with another blisteringly hot day.

Of all the trees in the garden only one was going into Autumn colours…I would love to see this garden when they all change to brilliant red.

I’m beginning to realise this sun is worse than the African sun! No wonder all the Japanese women carry umbrellas and wear hats everywhere they go. They have lovely skin and have learned how to keep it that way.

Finally to the Art Gallery right next door to the Japanese Garden. Some ancient and some modern. I went quickly past most of the modern. Why does it make me feel rather despairing? Whereas the ancient works are inspiring. Maybe I’m just really old fashioned.

I discovered a whole new school of artists I had never heard of, Japanese artists who parallel the impressionists of the West. Their work is amazing.  Many of them paint on silk using very difficult natural materials; also on gold leaf. Tomita Keisen, Imanaka Soyu, Mizukami Taisei. No photos allowed obviously but I found some of their works afterwards on the internet:

 This is by Ikegami Shuho.

This by Tomita Keisen. Gotta go now Dave downstairs ringing to come in…

26th – Tuesday, New museums and the God of Learning

Another day trip out of Fukuoka today (must remember to say Foo-coke-ah rather than Foo-kay-oh-ka!), nice to zoom out on the expressway. Blisteringly hot, apparently this summer every day has been over 30 degrees, and the leaves are not changing colour because the temperatures are too high. We had a little earth-tremor about 7am which was a bizarre experience. All the buildings here are built to withstand some earth movement, but the higher up you are the more you feel it, and we are on the seventh floor.

We went to see the new Prefecture (like a Province) museum at Kyushu, to have lunch, and then to visit Dazaifu Shrine, followed by Koumyouji Temple.

The museum is huge, devoted to historical artifacts specifically illustrating the connections between Asia and Japan (appropriate, because Korea is very close to this part of Japan.) It is very new, we were told open for less than a year, and the architecture is amazing! It is gentle on the environment in terms of energy and water use; it blends in to the environment amazingly well considering the size; and it has up to the minute engineering for earthquake tolerance.

It was a fascinating experience, very well put together, with English tapes you could carry around with you to listen to the explanations of the items, and most items were labelled in English too. Lighting was very dim, obviously to preserve the artifacts – and no photography allowed once you entered the halls.

Lunch, very nice. Chopsticks a matter of great humour (we are all mostly unused to sitting on the floor with chopsticks – Christine the German lady ended up winding her noodles around her chopsticks in order to get them into her mouth! And I resorted to fingers. Our Japanese hosts must think we are rather rude.) The group was again a polyglot mixture, joined by some new people from Taiwan. Everybody was quite hard to control for the poor tourguides, disappearing in all directions to take photographs.

Then two shrines – the Dazaifu Shrine immensely popular with students. Crowds of them there making prayers for good results. We even saw a blessing being done on a new born baby (hoping for a well-educated child?). There were some statues there representing, I think, the deity of learning. All around the shrine little mini wooden houses where I saw scholars making representations.

Then we walked down the hill to my favourite place of the day, the Koumyouji Temple. Of interest to me because it contains a Sansui (Rock and gravel) garden. A really beautiful place, very serene.

Then back on the bus (our little tour guide sang to us beautifully on the way back to make the journey go faster – she really should be a performer).

25th – Monday, Getting lost among the Shrines

Well Monday was a “do your own thing” day – so long since I had one of those, I’ve forgotten how! What I did end up doing was an unscheduled 4 hour walk, having got lost trying to find  Sumiyoshi Shrine near Hakata Station. I’m obviously worse than I thought at reading maps…but these shrines are tucked away around corners in the middle of a bustling city-scape, very unexpected. And if you get lost you’re on  your own because it is rare to find anyone who can understand you. People find time in their day to bring flowers and make representations – Sumiyoshi Shrine is the dwelling of the guardian of sea travels and traffic safety.

Sunday 24th – Ceramics, Zen Gardens and Baseball

Today an organised tour, to the centre of Japanese Ceramics, a town called Arita. It took quite a time (more than two hours on the bus) to get there, but once there we saw amazing pottery in the Ceramics Museum, followed by a Japanese Lunch, and then a shopping tour of the pottery factory shops. There were 10 of us on the tour (“accompanying persons” of the conference delegates) so quite a mixture of langages. I’m sure the Japanese bus driver and tour guide thought their clients quite mad on this occasion because some of the wives have obviously been infected by a serious interest in entomology, and went chasing after each bug, butterfly and fly that they saw, to photograph them! The Japanese managed to hide their astonishment behind poker faces most of the time.

I’m really enjoying the serenity of Japanese places, you find little zen gardens tucked away everywhere, such a love of nature is evident. In fact a love of beauty and order also. The pottery is exquisite, perfection in the details.

Another thing is the strong bonds you sense within families. Yesterday on the way to the subway everyone was off to baseball matches. Mum and Dad on a bike each and little one (four?) in the basket of the bike, all decked out in baseball colours. Little one is playing and Mom and Dad (after a very busy week!) are there to cheer him on.

How’s this for saving space? Park your cars literally on top of each other. How you arrange to get the top one down I don’t know….hopefully it costs less than parking at the bottom!

I was amazed to see my name (check photo showing the bus and sign - top right hand corner). I hope it isn’t a brand name for disposable nappies or something. The weather here has been very hot but lovely sun.