So Much For The Welcoming Hospitality….

Japan has secured the 2020 Olympic Games for Tokyo and people here largely attribute it to the undeniable hospitality of the people, though there are sometimes reasons for doubt.

Here’s hoping it’s going to be a great year, though my doctor dropped a bombshell on me this month when she informed me she would be leaving.

Cop A Gander At These Rippers Too...

  • |

    ‘Single Men Only?’ – Early Japanese Migration to Oz 日本人の豪州への初期移民は「独身男性限定」？

    知られざる日豪関係のルーツ What You Didn’t Know about Australia-Japan Relations Japanese immigration to Australia in the 19th century differed to other parts of the Japanese diaspora. １９世紀、豪州への日本人移民は他の国での日本人移住と比べて少々違っていた。

  • The 1,300-Year-Old Monk

    Kukai is one of the most influential figures in Japanese Buddhism. He founded what is now the mountain town of Koyasan, located atop Mount Koya. Kukai, who was born in the 8th century, also established Shingon Buddhism, one of the main sects of Japanese Buddhism. Shingon followers believe Kukai is still alive. They take meals to him daily.

  • Totoro In My Neighborhood

    I had no idea until yesterday, but for years I have been living quite close to Totoro, a Shinto kami made globally famous through Hayao Miyazaki‘s utterly delightful 1988 animated movie, My Neighbor Totoro. OK, so it’s not the real forest-protecting spirit as depicted by STUDIO GHIBLI, but the topiary sculpture is wonderful. It’s a work that I’m pretty sure is unauthorized by Suzaki, a gardening company in the Tokyo suburb of Kokubunji. A cycling buddy posted photos of Totoro on social media yesterday, and with only a couple of pre-dawn hours available for anything today due to home requirements, I looked up the location and decided to make a…

  • |

    Sending a Message

    Alright, I hadn’t known this before, but when I arrived in Japan in the mid-1980s, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I stayed in Bunkyo-ku, not far from Gokokuji Temple. Unbeknown to me at the time, and not until today, in fact, right around the same time, Australia’s biggest band, and then one of the hottest acts globally, INXS, had also filmed the music video for their hit, I Send a Message, at the same temple. I’d come to Japan with few expectations, but among the images I had were those from a couple of INXS videos from around the time. I had no idea that it had been so close. Gokokuji…

  • Zenshoen, A Story Of Cruel Tragedy

    All sorts of memories flooded back to me during a brief ride through Tama Zenshoen, a gorgeous park in outer western Tokyo, but also home to a tragic and cruel past for Japan’s Hansen’s disease patients. Zenshoen is a leprosarium and for most of its history, the 115-year-old facility was shut off from the rest of the world and its inhabitants quarantined inside, sterilized and forbidden from associating with the outside world, largely based on 1951 testimony to the Diet by Kensuke Mitsuda, a staunch segregationist but also unfortunately Japan’s foremost expert on leprosy at the time. This continued for decades, even after it was known that Hansen’s disease was…

  • Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 10: Nara to Kyoto

    Our tour has reached Kyoto, remarkably with only minor injuries and not a single puncture in the more than 11,000 kilometers the cyclists covered collectively since setting out from Izumi, Kagoshima Prefecture, on the morning of October 1. The group battled a barrage of rain on the most prominent of climbs on Mount Aso and Koyasan, but got through unscathed each time. The tour drew to a close in a journey between the two ancient capitals of Nara, where participants frolicked with the deer roaming freely through the city and saw its lauded Great Buddha at Todaiji, and Kyoto, where the group lunched at Inari Taisha Jinja. Only a farewell…