Kinkakuji

Kinkakuji
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

The famous Golden Temple in Kyoto. Note the gloden colour of the leaves in the background.

Miyajima no Torii

Miyajima no Torii
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Onomichi Castle in the Springtime

Onomichi Castle
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

The first stop on Ha-sama's great adventure.

Visitation II

At the beginning of April, my father decided to book at flight to Japan from where he was in Bangkok, leaving the following day. I received a phonecall from him as I was preparing breakfast one Sunday morning, and he told me he was in Okayama, fory minutes away by train. That was my advance warning. He had timed it just right for the Sakura, Japan's famous cherry blossoms. Our first stop was a matter of hours after he arrived, in Onomichi for a hanami (flower viewing/drinking party) on top of the hill in Onomichi with Matsuura-san's international society. Children frolicked and adults chatted, drank and passed out on blue tarpaulins, which are apparently a standard requisite accessory for hanami. We were plied with alcohol and left with twice as much as we had arrived with. In my semi-inebriated state I decided it would be a good idea to take my father (hereafter referred to as Ha-sama) to Miyajima, a World Heritage site in Hiroshima Prefecture. It was further than we had thought but at least we had beer and a lax drinking policy on public transport to tide us through the unexpectedly drawn-out train ride.

The famous Torii (sacred temple gate) was the first part of the site to come into view on the ferry ride. Unfortunately it was low tide so it was standing on a bare mudflat instead of rising majestically out of the water. I was surprised to see deer wandering around as if they owned the place. We sauntered inamongst the sacred buildings nestled under a profusion of flowering cherry trees and watched the sun set behind Hiroshima's hills from across the inland sea. We left after dark and headed to Hiroshima station to catch the Shinkansen to Fukuyama. The Shink arrived at Fukuyama at about 300km/h. Safe to say that we did not get off. It bolted just as fast through Shin-Kurashiki, a minor station even closer to my house and finally decided to slow down before stopping at Okayama. Ha-sama was drifting in and out of consciousness and I was feeling like an idiot for choosing the fastest of the most super-express trains for our ride back. More haste less speed, apparently. I chose another shink back to Shin-Kurashiki rather more carefully and we finally got a local home from there.

I phoned in to work the next day to politely inform them that I had more important things to do, like drinking copious amounts of coffee with Ha-sama at breakfast, a long-standing family tradition. We were whisked off in the shink again, this time with Megan, to see what we could see in Kyoto. Our first stop in Kyoto was Kinkakuji, the Golden Temple. We stopped close by for Ha-sama's introduction to tenpura-udon, then made our way to Giyon, the famous Geisha district, where Megan had been wanting to go to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Maiko hurrying between their appointments. We saw a few but they were evidently well practised at evading camera lenses. We wandered between temples and under Sakura, stopping to take some pictures with a group of Japanese people Megan and my age who had decided to be our friends for the hour, next to one of the oldest cherry trees in the area. We waited for about an hour in Giyon as the sun was setting for a bus that didn't even serve that stop. Once we realised this, we headed to the undrground railway instead, which took us to the shink.

With the previous two days having been spent filling Japan Rail's coffers with my hard-earned cash, I decided it would be a good idea not to take another trip across vast stretches of the country. We went to Okayama city instead and visited the Crow Castle and the famous Korakoen garden at its best time of the year. Ha-sama was alerting me to the fact that I was quickly exhausting him with my hastily formulated itineraries, but we had one more thing to see. We rushed to Kojima to get a view of the longest multi-span bridge in the world, the Seto Ohashi, connecting Honshu with Shikoku. It was dark and raining when we arrived and the taxi driver tried to talk us out of it. He shook his head like we were crazy when we insisted and he drove us to the viewing point. We got out, got wet, and saw a few pairs of strobes disappearing off into the darkness. Ha-sama had finally seen this famous bridge with its lights off, at night, in the rain. We felt rather stupid but we were too tired to let it bother us. The incredulous taxi driver took us back to the station; he obviously couldn't wait to go home and tell his wife about us.

I had to go to work at last, but I was smuggled out for a really nice lunch with Ha-Sama and my Saturday Afternoon Eikaiwa students, who are mostly his age, so they all got along like wildfire.
I got a few raised eyebrows when I slipped back into the staffroom an hour late but everyone conveniently forgot about it.

The following day, Ha-sama was allowed out by himself to explore Hiroshima while I was at work. We went to the almost-fancy restaurant in my town that night and I bade him farewell early the next morning as he began the westward stint of his world jaunt, heading home through Bangkok, Dubai and London. It was an interesting visit with the usual father and son stuff, and I alternated between wanting to bash my head against a wall repeatedly and being happily engaged in the uniquely fascinating conversation that we share.