wow...three weeks, apparently...

Today is our last night in Japan - we leave at 6am tomorrow, for the mammoth journey home (longer than the way here, although I'm not sure how or why...). Can't wait to get home, although I will also miss this place a lot -I'm only starting to find the places where I want to be, as always, in the last couple of days..Had one of the most beautiful runs in my life yesterday morning, over the hill and up a river through the proper forest that seems to be everywhere here, although it was a bit sweaty, and also walked along the river from arashiyama, which would have been a lovely paddle if I'd been a bbit more organised - I think you can rent canoes further up the valley. Ross and i made dinner last night, as kosho's mum was away in tokyo for the night -it was a bit of a challenge finding stuff in the supermarket, to fit our needs, but we got by and had a nice chickeny thing before watching the second mtrix on the big projector - sugoi!(great). today I stayed in bed for quite a while, then did a bit of drawing before we wandered down through Toriimoto to an amazing zen garden which was built by some filmstar in the 30s - it was really peaceful, and I could have spent days there, just looking at the trees and wee buildings. I've decided that I'm totally over doors and wall and windows - sliding screens and little vereandahs are definitely the way to go guys..Lets start a revolution and knock down our (non-load bearing) walls and trust each other not to steal things, but feeling free to come in to borrow honey and flour.

maybe not, but i like the air when it's not raining, and even more so when it is raining but still hot.

well, I'll see you soon hopefully - it'll be good, and we can eat things with chopsticks and use lots of little bowls instead of silly big plates.

big love x

tokyo, the proper version...

hello! it's thursday night here - only two days to go till we head home..There's yet another typhoon on at the moment, but it shouldn't delay our flights...... As I said, monday and tuesday nights o the week were spent in the big big city of tokyo.. it was a bit full on, and i didn't find it particularly exciting, so i probably won't write very much (please see ross' blog for a very extensive description). Basically, we caught the shinkansen(bullet train) up (after realising it was half and hour earlier than we thought it was) adn got caught in a typhoon, meaning we had to wait for a while, which was pretty nice, as they're really comfy trains...after ditching our luggage at the hotel, which Kosho's sister had so kindly booked or us (what an AMAZING family) we went and had some lunch in shibuya, one of the apparently endless busy shopping areas, and completed our search for the elusive international ATM. I was geeky and decided to have a nose bleed directly after eating the hottest bowl of noodles on the planet. not cool in any country. we went up a high building and then had dinner in a horrible american bar/restaurant, which confused Kosho's sense of identity even further - DO NOT LISTEN TO LONELY PLANET. ever. Then we got lost near the red light district in the middle of the return of the typhoon...interesting - a nice man rescued us and led us through the lightning to a train station...big bows for him... After deciding not to continue our planned night of frivolity and club going, we went to bed...

and then got up!we headed first to the contemporary art museum for the morning, and were bemused by the fact that an anime artist's show (which was basically a whole load o quite good watercolours) was taking up two floors of the biggest contemporary art museum in japan...and it was PACKED. People were going round in a queue...very bizarre. We then headed to Ginza, another of those shopping places (perhaps the whole of tokyo is like this) in search of smaller galleries, but couldn't find any - again, lonely planet..after that we went up tokyo tower in the dark (another tall building, more good views) then went back to kand for dinner in a sake shop, where we experienced as close to reality as it gets in tokyo. It looked lovely from the outisde but in reality it was an amzingly grotty, greasy, dirty pub. So we started with a glass of sake (strong stuff) then had some 'food' which was all microwaved for us in front of our eyes...even the freezer was acorss the room in the bar area, next to the tv showing the japanese version of the price is right...weird, again. we then set off in search of a manga cafe, and aftfer an hour or so of fruiless walking, found one just up the road from the hotel. Even weirder than the pub - not acfe at all, but a big space full of private booths hih you rent for an hourly rate, each with a recliner a tv and a computer in them. you can read manga from their library or watch dvds, but most people use them as a cheap alternative to a hotel if they miss the last train home. that's about all their good for I think...

after another good night's sleep, we were up bright and early to see some architecture and the science museum down at the port, as well as the toyota museum, which ross loved....Then we headed back into town, and enjoyed a bit of time stiing, and each had a look round this huge bookshop. unfortunately, ross chose to do this about 25 mins before our train, on his own, while me and kosho waited outside, and he got a bit carried away and lost track of time. I had also forgotten that all of my stuff was in a locker in the staion, so wasn't that worried about time. Luckily, I realised this with 15 mins to go, and left kosho to wait for ross, and set off into the station. As soon as i went through the door, I remembered that I didn't have a clue where my locker was....and of course, I'd gone in from a different entrance than we had left from, confusing the matter even more. Luckily, i remembered how to ask where something was in japanese, and started waving my key frantically at various station staff, who were very helpful. However, tokyo station is huge,and I had to get right acorss it. I was running now, very fast, as I had realised that i didn't have any idea where ross and kosho were, having said to kosho 'I'll wait for you at the locker', very confidently... Without a phone, lost in tokyo station, in rush hour...not great, but finally I found the locker, chucked all my stuff in my bag and was just about to run off to the platform, unsure of whther ross and kosho had been to the locker already and were on the train, when I saw two very red young men sprinting towards me! we joined forces, and finally managed to locate the platform, and dived on with about a minute to spare...I'm not too sure how all the business men felt about having three very sweaty, red people pumped up on adrenaline sitting across from them, but it was a very good feeling to be there....
so that was tokyo...I'm still not sure how i feel about it...It's a pretty confusing place, and I don't think i like it, but not for the reasons that thought i wouldn't. anyway, we're back in kyoto, which is lovely, and I was going to go surfing for the last 2 days, but the typhoon's still working it's way down the coast...hope all is well in scotland - I'm really looking forward to being home...we're going to have a japanese barbeque, and evryone's invited...
sorry this writing's so rubbish - i'm a bit tired i think...
much love. x

toh-kee-ohhh

heylo, just to ket you know that we've been in tokyo or the last three days, so that's why I've not posted anything - sorry! We only got back an hour ago, and I'm pretty shattered, so I don't think I'll write anyhting tonight, but tomorrow we are having a lazy day to recover, and there's a typhoon on its way, so it'll probably be raining, gving me a perfect opportunity to rationalise both thoughts and photos of tokyo... Thanks for all the comments - I'm sorry I've not been very good at keeping in touch, but the last couple weeks have just flown by without me really knowing what's going on..it's nice to know that a couple of people are reading though!
much love
x

a very surreal two days, and a bit of swallowed pride...

Wow, what a weird couple of days! Ross and I set of on our wee trip to the pacific on wednesday, bright and early, and everything was good - we managed to buy our express (tuk-kyu) train tickets to Ise-shi with no problems, which was going to be our first hurdle, and scored really good seats on the double height 'vista car' to enjoy the views... It was a pretty boring train right for the first hour and a half, but passing theough the mountains before getting to Ise was pretty stunning - the forests here are pretty amazing... We were met in Ise by Yiroto Matsumura, the wife of a radiologist who is studying under Takaya, who had kindly offered to show us around the two ancient Shinto shrines in Ise. This was slightly awkward at first, as I think Yiroto was pretty nervous, and we kind of rushed round the shrines, where prehaps we might have liked to take our time a bit more - They are amazing places. Shintoism was the original religion of Japan before Buddhism was brought over from China and became the main national religion, with these shrines dating back to at least 690 AD. Shintoism has many similarities with pagan faiths in Europe, with 'kami' (spirit beings) being worshipped in everything from stones to trees, and a great deal of faith placed in the power of nature. The two halls in Ise house kami and provide a place were people can pray for specific blessings. These halls are rebuilt every 20 years, following an ancient tradition, which ensures that carpentry skills are not lost, and that the buildings remain both new and ancient at the same time... For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine.

After a quick look round the shrines, and accompanying sacred groves of trees (amazing trees), we headed off for lunch with Yiroto in a really nice, busy Japanese restaurant just down the road. Here we all managed to relax a bit, and it got a bit easier - she has two kids, and her sons about the same age as Ross... She was amazed at some of things that we've done in the last couple of weeks, reinforcing how lucky we have been to have such excellent hosts. We forgot to ask, but we think she may be a teacher of some kind, as she had arranged for us to meet a couple of girls our age so that they could practice their english. we met up with them, and Yiroto made as if to leave us on our own to explore this really touristy part of Ise, which was super awkward, as the girls' english wasn't great and to be honest, it felt like a double date! Luckily, they felt the same, and managed to persuade Yiroto to stay, and ross had the very good idea of sitting down somewhere... So it was that we found ourselves (sweaty and tired from carrying rucksacks around in 35 degrees all day) sitting, eating crushed ice with orange juice poured over it, trying to talk to these girls, who weren't very confident at all speaking english! It was surreal to say the least...but it was fine, and it was good to meet some people, and they were unbelievably nice, even giving us a lift to the station (although they were very worried about our 'flexible' approach to travelling/itineraries, like the rest of Japan...) So a big thanks to the women of Ise!the ladies!

So, from Ise we hopped on a train heading south towards a youth hostel reccommended by Lonely Planet, and stopped off in a place called Toba....it was very strange - everything around this area seemed to have been really over-developed in the 80s, and then abandoned since then - think old school aviemore, but on a much larger scale! There was even a huge sightseeing boat made out of fibreglass to look like a giant dolphin....weird. Toba

Safe to say, we jumped straight back on the train and headed for Anagawa, where the hostel was. Again, we managed train tickets fine, and got off no worries in a tiny wee one street town. After a fair bit of wandering around and compass waving by Ross, we managed to find the hostel, which was pretty big and reasonably new, perched on the top of a hill, looking out over a beautiful bay. Well, it would have been beautiful had there not been a huge concrete block hotel, and 'parc espagna', a SPANISH THEM PARK, just across the water.... Seriously - this place was huge, complete with fake spanish castle, huge hotel with towers,a dn rollercoatsers everywhere. However, it looked completely deserted - there were about 5 lights on in the hotel! not surprising really...

So, it was a nice hostel, and we managed to check in fine - nice tatami room with a wee table and futons and a balcony - then set out to find some food... Bad move! we turned right out of the hostel, and walked along the shore road, which looked like it would lead to some sort of built up area... 40 minutes later, we had walked along main roads, past HUGE insects, through a weird wee village (with no shop), past men sleeping on walls, and petrol stations with lights bright enough to be seen from space, until we finally found a FamilyMart, right by the side of this busy main road.... we stocked up on sushi and rice balls and other rubbish, then started to walk back towards the hostel, now in full dark! it was a much quicker walk on the way back (possibly fuelled by the soggy chips we had managed to buy in the supermarket), and we were even treated to a full on 5 minute firework display from Little Spain, although it was a wednesday night, and there didn't seem to be anyone apart from us watching...

Safe back at the hostel, the very first thing we saw as we walked in the door, was the big glass cabinet of instant meals, complete with free hot water to cook them with. Typical... anyway, with full bellies and after enjoying a huge japanese bath which was the size of a small swimming pool, we were both asleep by 9.30, planning to be out of there asap in the morning!

And we were - on the train by 7.35, heading to Kashijimoto, right at the head of the ise-shima peninsula. After a bit of wandering aroun Kashijimoto, we managed to find the ticket office for the ferry to Goza, what Lonely Planet described as 'a sleepy fishing village', across the ago-san water. After buying our tickets we were directed to a big cruiser boat, which was very, very pink! it was great - Ross and I the only two people sitting on top of this huge pink boat, at 8.30am, waving at all these fishermen!we felt like very rich lovers enjoying the sun at Monte Carlo!

The ferry ride was beautiful, lots of little pacific looking islands forming the archipelago, but unfortunately, plagued by the same affliction of giant 80s resort hotels... We pulled into Goza and were greeted by a lot of pretty derelict buildings, and a cool looking fishmarket, so we headed straight for the beach... the beach was lovely - really clear, warm water and white sand...we set up shop, bought a snorkel and spent the morning sitting around and swimming out the pontoons moored offshore. It got gradually busier, but nowhere near as busy,as the guidebook had led us to believe it would be. The water was amazing - htis was my first experience of snorkelling somewhere with real fish - and it was amazing to see them close up, and to explore out between the rocks that sheltered the bay. It also got gradually hotter, and although we both had lots of suncream on, we ended up looking like proper little cooked gaijin (foreign people), compared to the bronzed bodies of the locals! we dcided to head back up to the mainland, planning to make it bck to Ise and get on train to take us south to the proper pacific and a youth hostel. However, we had neglected to notice that the next ferry wasn't until 2.30...which would have meant abother two hours of being grilled...

So we decided to hop on a bus which, although slow, would take us back up to a railway town. However, after about 15 minutes on the bus, I realised that i couldnt feel my wallet in my pocket....hmm. After much frantic and fruitless searching, we decided that we'd have to get off the bus and head back to Goza, and hope that it was sitting at the bus stop... Luckily, ross had enough change to pay for both of our fares, and we jumped off. We were outside this superstore, kind of like homebase, blasting awful muzak out of loudspeakers, and after checking the timetable, resigned ourselves to the fact that we'd have to wait an hour for the bus in the midday sun, listening to music from Mario... Sorry Ross!

We managed to find a bit of shade across the road, much to the bemusement of the locals, and were soon assailed by the local bored old man on a power scooter, who spent at least 5 minutes trying to speak to us in Japanese, thinking we were American, then gave up and spent another five sitting in awkward silence, trying to work out if he had something more interesting to do than speak to two 'americans' whose only useful japanese word was 'HOT'... After he left however, the locals went up in our regard, as some guy pulled up in his wee car (we thought he was going to ask us to move) gave Ross two bottles of ice cold juice, and drove off! Nice guy!

Eventually, the bus came and we made it back to Goza pretty quickly, as this driver was a bit more awake than the first. Thankfully, sitting right at the bus stop, well camoflagued, was my wallet! it's a good thing Goza's such a ghost town! As i was trying to explain to the bus driver why we were so happy, he was fiddling with something in the bus, which turned out to be his fishing rod - he parked up the bus, jumped off, and with in seconds had put out a really nice long cast into the harbour... we reckon that this was why he was driving so fast - a most excellent work ethic.

After all that, we were back just in time to catch the ferry, back to kashijimoto, and once again cruised back in style and got on a train back to Ise hoping to change lines and head further south... Once we got back to Ise we had a few decisions to make, which when sunburnt, tired and hungry, was not much fun... we couldn't get in touch with the youth hostel that we wanted to stay at in Kushimoto, and didn't really feel like sleeping rough if we couldn't get a room, so we decided to try to get to Shirahama, a big beach town quite far round the Kii-hanto peninsula. However, here our ticket buying luck ran out... When trying to explain to the man what we wanted, a business man who was behind us in the queue, very kindly offered to help us out, as he spoke English. so there was lots of inbetweening and backwardforwarding, and we handed over our money (£35 each!) and got given tickets. However, when he explained what they were for, we were a it confused/disheartened... Basically, we couldn't get Shirahama that night, and the solution that they thought best for us was to wait four hours until 9pm, then get a train to a tiny station, from where we could get on the main line to Shingu, which is a transport hub sort of town, with only business hotels and expensive b+bs, before carrying on to shirahama the next day. We wouldn't have got there until 11pm though, so would have really struggled to find anywhere to stay, and we might have well have stayed in Ise, making everything a waste of money! So after a bit of thinking, we went up and apologised profusely to the ticket man, who, amazingly, gave us a full refund!

Now we had to make a pretty tough decision (Ross did most of the decision making, as he was the most sunburnt) - we could have stayed in Ise, forking out for an expensive minsuku and carrying on the next day (which was a bit of a waste of time/money, as we didn't really want to stay in Ise), or we could swallow our pride and catch a train back to Kyoto and stay at kosho's, and do day trips from there over the next couple of days. Ross really wanted a shower and some food, and I didn't really want to spend lots of money, so the sensible thing was to head homewards.

This does seem like a bit of a cop out, as we did have lots of plans, and we could have kept on going without any major problems, but it probably would have cost alot of moey, and we would have been pretty tired/miserable for at least one night, so we feel we made the right decision. I would have like to explore Kii-hanto, and Ross would have like to have seen the proper pacific (i think he's too sunburnt to be going anywhere near a beach for a while anyway), but these are things we can do another time, and anyway, what we did see was very strange, and didn't exactly make us hopeful for the rest! Also, travelling in japan is very, very hard without quite a good standard of Japanese - don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The majority of people don't understand any english (or bad japanese), and it's not even like you can work things out from writing, as the characters are a whole other world...We're going to practice our japanese and come back in a couple of years with Grace and Polly, and explore Okinawa, the southern island, which sounds a lot more like the kind of place we're looking for - lots of tropical wee beaches, surfing, kayaking and all sorts, before coming up here to see Kosho!

So we came home and had a huge dinner and slept well. tody we are heading into Osaka to soak up a bit of the city vibe and look at some crazy teenagers... Hope all is well at home - it's only a week and two days till we're back! it's gone so quickly, and I think this week, with 4 days in Tokyo, will go even quicker...

speak soon x

a night in the temple and preparations for an hexpedition.

hello!

sorry for being a bit lax with the posting - it's now tuesday night here... We've had quite a mellow couple of days... on sunday (which I thought was saturday, and wrote on the last post) after cleaning the temple a bit, we caught the train into town and did a bit of wandering around and shopping!some very nice shops, which was pretty dangerous... Then yesterday, we caught the train through to Nara, a very old city, which was the capital of Japan before Kyoto, a really long time ago! there are some big temples there - quite a different vibe from the smaller kyoto ones we've visited so far. these include Todai-ji, whose main hall is the largest wooden building in the world, built to house the largest bronze statue in the world, logically enough...

This was pretty awe-inspiring, with a full height ceiling to accomodate the statue ofthe Daibutsu (great buddha) which must be about 4 stories high, and supporting pillars which are at least 1.5m in diameter. One of the pillars had a hole taken out of it that is exactly the same size as the great buddha's nostril, and those who can squeeze through are said to be sure of enlightenment. As you can imagine, there was a fair bit of amusement , but we all managed to get through, so we're sorted!

After Todai-ji we wondered around, trying to avoid the crazy deer that inhabit the Nara park, chasing kids for the deer biscuits that you can buy for 150 yen, and ended up in a really nice wee cafe/juice bar called Drink Drank (great name), where we stocked up on carbs (I had foccaccia, and ross had a panini and a BLT) and smoothie... We were there for ages, because they seem to have much better design/travel magazines in Japan, although we couldn't really understand them, only look at the pictures, which is the norm anyway! So in an hour we had already started to set up a nice cafe and a magazine, but decided to settle for being Lonely Planet/National Geographic writers/photographers based in Japan!

We got home about 7pm, and had another big dinner and had a lot of fun trying to explain why I wanted to buy a hammock (hah-moh-kuh)...Ross and I are heading off on a wee trip over the next few days to give kosho a break from speaking english, and do a bit of exploring (so there probably won't be much happening on this blog). We're planning to get the train to Ise, where we are meeting the wife of a man who knows Takaya, who's going to show us around some shinto shrines. (the japanese sense of hospitality can be pretty extreme sometimes, and although it's wonderful, it can sometimes put you in some potentially awkward situations!We've never met her, and don't know what she looks like!) from Ise we are planning to work our way down the east coast of Kansei over the next 4 days, staying at a youth hostel tomorrow night, and hopefully sleeping out on a beach one of the other nights to soak up some pacific views! (hence the hah-moh-kuh) We were going to stay at a temple complex called koya-san one night, where you sleep in pilgrim's accomodation at one of the 50 sendo temples in town and take part in a ceremony in the morning, but we've decided not to, as last night we spent the night in the temple here, and have decided that nothing is going to be much better or authentic than that, especially a mecca for tourists like koya-san. It was pretty amazing - we didn't go up to sleep until about 1 am, but after laying down some cushions and a sheet next to the shrine in the main hall, we were asleep within minutes. I didn't wake up once the whole way through until 7 this morning, when we were woken by a hot sun in a cloudless sky. Surely there is no better way to start your day than sitting on your own on the decking of an 800 year old temple with a the sun shining directly on you. We are definitely the first westerners to sleep in the temple, and I don't think many other people have done - Kosho was worried about ghosts, but we certainly weren't disturbed...

Today has mainly been spent wandering around shops in kyoto getting stuff for this week and spending lots of money! Ross found his perfect shop, called Roger's, which sells vintage clothes and furniture, and stocked up on new old clothes and watches...even I bought something. The idea was to have an early night, but I'm not sure that's still going to happen. we leave arashiyama at 8.13 tomorrow, and plan to be back by saturday evening so we can have a day to recover before taking the exhibition down on sunday and getting on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo on monday! busy busy....

Hope you're not too fed up with the weather (today it was 38 degrees realfeel and SUNNY! Guess who forgot his sun cream this morning....)

much love. x

stress over, exhibition up, opening done!

hello!

It's Saturday here... I can't actually believe we've been away for a whole week! It's actually gone really fast, and thanks to our amazing hosts we've managed to cram a whole lot of stuff in...

some shots of my work...

Yesterday was the first day of the show - we were in there at 10am finishing stuff off and getting the final seal of approval from Takaya, and then we hung around for most of the day, enjoying the novelty of not having anything to do! Ross and I marched off with a map to find some other galleries to drop fliers at, but could only find one, and it definitely wasn't the kind of place that would take them, so we did't bother..We did however end up in a gay district which dates back to the 1600s, and had a look up a very dodgy looking stairwell, thinking there was an art cafe somewhere around, but the fact that the lights didn't work past the first floor put us off...

We did however spot some arty types sitting around by the river, and armed with a note from Kosho, written in Japanese, we attempted to mutely explain ourselves and force fliers upon them... It worked though, and ten minutes later about 8 people came up to the gallery... I think this must be quite an abnormal occurrence, as Massa, the guy who works at Weissraum, came downstairs and stopped in his tracks when he saw actual people looking at the work!

people!

I think the japanese have quite a lot to learn about promotion, although we decided it is very much a cultural thing, as everyone is in their own private space when they are in the street - no one really smiles at you, but when you make an effort it sometimes pays off, so Ross and I spent a bit of time standing outside the gallery handing out fliers, and although not many people took them, all of those that did seemed interested, and nearly all came in for a look...

cheap japanese lager - ick.

opening

It's just a shame that not many more people know about the place, because it's actually a really nice space when it's cleaned up a bit! However, thanks to Kosho, we did have quite a lot of people there, and once everyone had a couple of beers and relaxed a bit we all started trying out our Japanese and English skills! These guys can handle their beer a lot better than Ross and I, but it was good to let loose a bit... Takaya seemed happy, and he's really keen for Ross and I to come back before we graduate, and wants to explore the possibilties of doing more in conjunction with Edinburgh artists, which is great!

So we allowed ourselves a bit of a lie in today - Kosho especially needed it, as he's knackered from translating all our statements and speaking english all the time... we couldn't have done this without him though, so he deserves a lot of love! Today we have just been helping clean the temple and prepare for a big ceremony that is happening here on Tuesday to celebrate the life of the monk who re-established the temple in 918 AD. We are the first foreign people ever to have helped clean the temple, which is a pretty special thing to be able to say, considering that the main hall was built in the 12th Century. This really is a special place, and we are both so lucky to have such generous hosts and so many opportunities to enjoy the real culture of this country with so much history.

Ross and I are just despairing about how silly we sound writing on this thing - I feel like a very bad travel writer or something, so sorry if it sounds silly - it's pretty hard to try and , and it's even harder trying to do it in japanese...express how lucky and grateful to Kosho and his family we are without sounding stupid.

Lots of love to everyone. x

an amazing yesterday, a slightly stressful today

hello!

I'm tired!we were setting up the show at the gallery today, but I'd better update you on yesterday first...

Ross eating some sort of green tea and soy flour jelly which Kosho thought was delicious. Ross didn't. We had ice cream.
we started off by getting the train into Kyoto station again, and we caught the bus up to Kyomisu temple, which is the biggest and most famous (and therefore the busiest) temple in Kyoto. It is a beautiful place, halfway up the mountain nestled in verdant forest, with a great view of the city. Unfortunately, and unavoidably, it was really busy, and lots of noisy tourists contradicted the intended nature and function of the space... After drinking from the holy spring (for eternal life) we headed down to the gion district, which used to be where all the geisha's hung out, but now is mainly restaurants. The buildings are beautiful - we could have spent all day wandering around taking photos, but we had to be back early for dinner.

Kyomisu temple

Gion District

Dinner involved Kosho's family treating us again! This time to an amazing meal in a traditional Kyoto restaurant. We were ushered in by a nice lady in full traditional dress, and seated on the floor in our own private room laid with tatami matting and looking out onto the river.then followed at least five courses (i lost count) of impecably prepared and presented food, including baked aubergine, tofu, rainbow trout, green tea ice cream , and literally a whole fish (see pics)

sliced rainbow trout served with radish and wasabi- tasty!

A whole fish...I ate it all!it didn't look too happy about it though..

This was a bit of a challennge, and was only the second thing's head that I have ever eaten (the first being the night before...). You just started at the head and ate till there was nothing left - bones, fins and everything! I'm getting the hang of this food thing... It was all (including the bones) really really tasty, and I was nice and full when we were led out of the restaurant and across the road to the river where we were shown onto a lovely old river boat.

Poled by a fatastic looking old man, the boat took us and six others upstream to a bend in the river where we could enjoy the view, before drifting downstream and rafting up with several other boat. Here we were treated to a reenactment of an ancient method of fishing that has been used on the river for hundreds of years.

Basically the fishermen pole quickly upstream with one man at the stern of the boat, who has in his hands lots of strings which are attached to a group of birds (cormorants I think) swimming alongside the boat. By this time it was dark, and to light the water over the birds the men swing a large brught brazier, spitting sparks and giving off a lot of heat. The birds dive constantly, and whenever one catches a fish, the rear man pulls it on board and forces the catch out of its crop before it can swallow it.

It all creates a pretty good show, especially seen close up form the middle of the river! Although this may sound inefficient and cruel, they have been fishing like this for hundreds of years, and used to catch 30,000 fish a year, mainly for the emperor's table... After all this we were pretty shattered and full, so crashed out in front of star wars (episode 1, much to Ross' disappointment) before heading to bed.

Today has been slightly less relaxing! I was up and 6.30 to collect earth for my piece , as usual leaving things to the very last minute, and was rushing around until we left for the gallery at 9. After a fair bit of hanging around, we realised that Takaya ( the gallery owner) probably wasn't going to turn up for a while, and cracked on with setting up the work. i had a lot to do,, and struggled with silly things like buying the wrong wood for my shelves (it's like thick balsa, and has already started to bend!) and having to apply three coats of paint, but no excuses!

After a lot of sweating, a salmon rice ball, and spending about a tenner in the juice machine outside, we finally got done at about seven. Just in time to get caught in a downpour with no brollies! but the shelves are up, the projector is perched on a beam (safely and securely) and the prints are up. Ross' work looks amazing, as always and Kosho has got his bit done too...Now we just have to have the opening tomorrow and the stress is over!

Unfortunately it doesn't sound like a Hula opening - We start at 2 in the afternoon, and I'm doubtful about the prospect of a rum and apple juice... Who knows though!

Hope you're all well..

O-es-me (good night)love chris