A Rainy Day of History

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010, 7:15p.m.

Disclaimer: This post is going to be mainly pictures.

It turns out that I was the only student to sign up for today's tour. However, Yamasa decided to still give it because we were visiting one place that my guides had never been before. I biked to the school at 8:15a.m. this morning and meet Declan and Collin, who were my guides for the day. Declan looks like he is about 55 or 60 years old and has lived in Japan for the last 14 years. He is one of the main people in charge at Yamasa. He is also rather blunt or, as Collin said, "undiplomatic." Collin will turn 35 years old next week and has lived in Japan for six years. He was actually a student at Yamasa for the first two of them. He had come to Japan planning on staying for three months, but ended up liking it so much that he stayed. Now he's married to a woman that teaches English at Yamasa and is probably never going to leave. He was quite personable and clearly adores Japanese history.
Our first stop was Matsudaira-go, an area up in the hills. We looked around a Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine. Even though it was lightly raining the entire time, it was still absolutely beautiful.

         

We waited for this Japanese man to finish praying at the statue before we approached. All of the sudden he picked up a container of water and splashed it all around into the air. As we walked closer to the statue, the man started speaking to us in Japanese. Declan and Collin just kind of ignored him, even though they speak Japanese fluently, which I thought was strange. However, as soon as the man had walked away, Declan announced that he was a nutcase and Collin explained to me that he had been saying that he was the reincarnation of the God depicted in the statue.

Turns out that Collin is actually a storehouse of knowledge about Japanese history. Ultimately, he taught me Japanese history starting with their creation myths and ending with the nineteenth century. It was hard for me to keep a lot of it straight because the names are quite complicated and all seem to sound alike, but I'll definitely remember the gist of most of the stories. It was all fascinating, and when you have a guide who is passionate about what he's explaining (and mine definitely was!) it makes it that much more interesting.

If you look closely, you can see Buddah's footprints on the stone.

I learned how to cleanse myself before entering a shrine and received a fortune outside the temple...if only I could read it.

The next stop on our adventure was a place where a B-29 plane had crashed during an air raid in WWII. There wasn't anything left from the crash, but there's a small memorial sign, and it was a good chance for Collin to pull out some modern day history. I know quite a bit about the ways that Boeing aircrafts during WWII worked now, if anyone would care to ask me. Walking back to the van we ran into a Japanese man walking a black lab puppy. It was almost as cute as an Asian child.

Then we headed back to Okazaki and Declan left us to catch a train to Nagoya. Collin took me to his favorite restaurant in Okazaki. It's actually an Indian food place, and it was unbelievably good. Better than any Indian food that I've had in America, even Swagot. During lunch we talked a lot about his experiences in Japan, why he never wants to live anywhere else, and how he meet/married his wife. They were married two years ago and had started dating after he had only been in Japan for a year. They only speak Japanese to each other. It's crazy to think that in such a short time he was able to learn a second language well enough to be married to someone who only spoke it. During lunch he taught me a lot about modern Japanese culture and politics as well. He explained some of the reasons that change comes about so slowly in Japan and difficulties living in Japan as a foreigner. It was fascinating to get to hear his perspective on things.

After lunch we went to Okazaki Castle. It was absolutely beautiful. Not only the castle itself, but the statues and shrines, and fountains that surround it were clearly very carefully crafted. And it's surround by trees and steams, even though it's in the heart of a city.

This is a Shrine at Okazaki Castle. Collin and his wife were married here. The dragon on the ceiling roars.

Clearly I was just kidding when I said this post was going to be mainly photos and not a lot of description. It seems that I'm incredibly wordy even when I'm exhausted.