12/30/2005

関西美術展示 130


関西美術展示 130
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
彼にも僕を書いてもらった??
  四歳のよしゆきさんの作品です。

胸だそうところは胸毛ではないので、ご安心して。ジャケットのカッフのところにファーが着付けているだけ。 (OuO)/  

関西美術展示 128


関西美術展示 128
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
時々、電車を乗りながら、乗っている人の絵を描くのが好き。この前は寝ている人の絵を描きながら、近くに座っていた四歳の子供が私の絵に気に入った。そして、見せて説明して彼は喜んで笑ってた。で、彼の絵も描き始まった。

   髪の毛から誰が描いてているとすぐ解った?。この電車は三時間残っていたので。。。

東京千葉 017-1


東京千葉 017-1
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
このレストランはぺーヨンジュン(ヨン様)や2002年のワールドカップのテーマに中心しているのレストラン。ちょっと観光的な店だったが、メニューはまた美味しそうだった。

  This restaurant rotates around a theme focusing on the 2002 World Cup and likeness of the Winter Sonata star, Bei-Yonjyun (Yon-sama) A little too touristy for my tastes, but the menu selection did look appetizing none the less.

東京千葉 019-1


東京千葉 019-1
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
東京の韓国華街にも行った。新大久保駅の地歩に中心してある。面白いレストランや店はたくさんあった。
  I also went to Tokyo`s own Koreatown. It`s located in the area around the Shin-Okubo station. There were a lot of interesting stores and restaurants.

東京千葉 005-1


東京千葉 005-1
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
事情を聞いて、事故を原因を言うってくれなさそうだったが、運転手は大丈夫だったらしい。しかし、たいほされたみたい。忘年会から自分で帰れると思ってしまったんだろう。

この時期には、道に普通より二倍くらい気をつけて下さいね。運転する方も安全運転を守ってね。(飲んだら、事故巻き込まれるよりタクシーの方が安いよ。)

   I tried inquiring as to what the situation behind the accident was, but the officers said they weren`t allowed to explain since they were still investigating the cause. I happened to overhear that the driver had been temporarily incarcerated. Which might lead one to assume that he may have thought he could drive himself home from a year end`s party.
  
   Around this time of year, we should all be twice as careful around traffic. And those of us who drive should consider calling a cab if we`ve been drinking.

東京千葉 004-1


東京千葉 004-1
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
ああ、なんか大変な事が起こったそう。道の掃除だったより、ガソリンが燃えて爆発しないように用意をしていたんだ。

  Ah, it looks like something awkward occured here. Rather than cleaning the road, it looks like they were applying retardant to stop the gasoline from exploding...

東京千葉 002-1


東京千葉 002-1
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
この前、仕事の中間研修に参加しに千葉へ行って来た。研修行く前に二日間に浅草で泊まってた。二日目の朝にホテルから出かけたとたん、この事にすれ違った。何で朝早く道の掃除をしているんだろうと思ってた??

  A little while back, I went to Chiba to partake in a job-related mid-term conference. I went to Tokyo two days early for the conference and stayed in Asakusa. When leaving the hotel on the second day, I came across this situation. I wondered why they were cleaning the streets so early in the day...

12/01/2005

お遍路(志度)2005年 251

先週末には、財田から徳島へ歩いて行きました。通じた道は昔昔お遍路の道でしたので、こういうものによくすれ違いました。ぶっくりしたのは、ここでのフィギュアーが和風の地蔵様より、イギリスのキング・アーサーと似ています。もしかして、キング・アーサーのキャメロットが四国の八十八ヶ所であった??! :D  

写メールのテスト


写メールのテスト
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
写メールテスト。

うちのノラ猫、おっちゃんです。よろしくぴょん〜 (^0^)/

11/18/2005

お遍路(志度)2005年 062

This was an interesting, if not a little unsettling, assemblage of the heads of local family shrine statues. A fascinating feature of rural Japan is that families have lived in the area, and maintained their family plot of land for dozens of generations. Since Shinto/Buddhist custom requires the cremation of the body after death, most families erect a statue/tombstone/small shrine on their plot of land to protect the ashes/spirit of the dearly departed. With this tradition continued for hundreds of years, some of the statues fall into disrepair and others have histories that have been lost over time. It's interesting to think about what different eras each of these recovered statuary heads had been recovered from.

お遍路(志度)2005年 026

このお寺が86番だった。お遍路がここで始まった。
  This is the 86th temple,
where todays Ohenro pilgrammage begins.

お遍路(志度)2005年 022

先週はお遍路に参加しに行った。今住んでいる場所が四国。四国の有名な事は八十八箇所のお遍路だ。今回は残念ながら、すべてを走ってないんだが、86番のお寺から88番まで行くのが26キロかかった。朝の八時頃は86番から出発して(財田からの出発は朝の六時半だったが、志度までは車で行った)ずっと歩いて、88に着くのが夕方の五時半くらいだった。

    今は写真は途中で、海の前でこの木に作られた人形を見つけた。 

11/02/2005

山の会1愛媛3

頂上二つ目:石土山
三つ目の頂上の名前が面白かったと思う。
隣に「男山」と「女山」がありました。
どういう風に山の性別が決めれるか解らないが、
誰かが知ってたら教えてね。
(なんとかの部分みたいな形で決める事ではないっすよね?) 
The second peak: `earth stone mountain`
I thought the name of the 3rd peak was interesting. It was simply `male mountain,` and had a neighboring `female mountain` to accompany it. I'm not sure exactly how they determine the gender of mountains, but if you have any ideas feel free to let me know. (It doesn`t have anything to do with the mountain's shape resembling anatomical features I trust...)

日本2005年山の会1愛媛 052

これが一つ目の頂上だった。1861メートル高さの西黒森山だった。曇ってたが、雲の上で登るのが結構好きになれてきた。

山の会-愛媛2

Just continuing the previous entry~

This is a shot of the Zentsuji mountain climbing club that I've joined. There wasn't technically a path the follow, but we did find a pin-point trail from some previous travellers and followed that through the mountains. Since it was a several kilometer range that we covered, We managed to hit three distinct mountain peaks over the course of... 4:45am left Saita, 5:30am arrived in Zentsuji, 9:00 arrived in Kochi and started climbing (a road took us halfway up the first mountain) roughly noonish - hit the first peak and had lunch, 5:00 made it out to another parking spot on the other side of the range. 7:00 made it back to Zentsuji. :D

10/22/2005

日本2005年山の会1愛媛 138

二週間前に善通寺山の会と一緒に高知県にある山、カマガ森を登る事になりました。木・金曜日ちょうさ祭りを二日間をしとて、サッカー試合が土曜にあって、その日曜日は山を登って。。。
   当然に月曜日は風邪に捕まった。:b

About 2 weekends ago, I climbed up a mountain known as Kamegamori in Kochi prefecture. That week, I carried/pushed the 1500 kilo portable shrine around the town on Thursday and Friday, partook in a Soccer game on Saturday, and then climbed the mountain on Sunday...

It was only natural that I ended up catching a nasty cold by the next Morning. (It was a good think that monday was a national holiday!!)

10/14/2005

日本2005年財田秋祭り2 083

祭りのちょうさに乗せてあるの顔。
面白いと思ったのは、祭りでのちょうさにこんなデザインがよく出ています。しかし、デザインが面白いことでは無く、絶対に触っちゃダメという事が面白いと思います。そして、祭りが終わって空気だけで、何人くらいが頑張ってちょうさの顔を洗う事になります。

財田秋祭り

Last weekend I partook in the local Autumn Festival. One of charming elements is that the men in each locality (I live in a town, which will soon become part of a city, but for the time being the town is divided up into 7 `neighborhoods`) get to spend two days in a row pushing a 1500 kilogram float around the town. Throughout the day, we make stops in at various festival locations. At each stop, the `pushers` of all seven floats get together, and follow a ritual of actually lifting up each float, removing the wheel base, rotating it around, and running it around the camp. At which point, the float is blessed by Shinto priests. Most of the festival injuries occur during this point. Lifting a 1500kg float with a random assembly of people is not a particularly smooth process, and for the first couple attempts, one of the corners will be dropped, sometimes throwing the `flag carriers` and the `watchman` from the float.
But... despite x-many years of seeing, and riding on motorized Oktoberfest and Christmas parade floats, having to actually lift something of that size off of the ground has given me a newfound appreciation for the `significance` of these floats/portable shrines. :D

10/08/2005

日本2005年財田秋祭り 023

今週が財田祭りだった。カナダでの祭りとは結構違いがあった。カナダでのパレードは、ディスプレイを自動に動けるように車の上に置きます。日本では、車を使わずに、三十人男性が太鼓だいを運ばなければならない。体中が今日疲れているが、本当に楽しかった二日間が過ごせました。
  This week we had the local Saita (town's name) Festival. Japanese and Canadian parades are quite different. The parade floats in Canada are usually placed onto a motorized truck base, and people walk around or ride on them. Floats in Japan are instead carried/pushed (alternatively) by large teams of 30 people. I'm completely exhausted from carrying one around for 2 full days, but I had a really fun time at the festival.

9/30/2005

日本2005年琴平金毘羅三3 034

先週末は香川での金毘羅山を登って来た。山と言うより世界中の一番長い階段だよ。今の写真は登り途中での神社の前で撮った。

9/28/2005

日本2005年琴平金毘羅三3 144

先週末は香川県三豊郡仁尾町での人形祭りを見に行きました。普段は伝統的な大変お金かかったそうの人形だった。急に目にかかったのはこのディスプレイだった。小学生が使ったそうですが、面白い色をつけて、良く出来たと思った。
   I drove through Nio last weekend, where they were having their annual Doll Festival. The majority of them consisted of ridiculously expensive animatronic adventure scenes, but this particlar display caught my eye. It was made by early-elementary school students, but I think they did a great job.

9/24/2005

日本2005年財田町町民運動会 056


I don't remember having to have had to do this while I was in junior highschool~ All of the 78 males of the Jr. HS that I teach part-time at had to partake in human pyramids. Lots of fun... (Except for the two students who injured themselves a week earlier during this exact same stunt... )

日本2005年財田町町民運動会 064

Here's a photo with my new Kendo team. Let's see how my progress goes. I'd already developed three blisters just from the first practice. It's intense, but a great sport to learn.

日本2005年琴平金毘羅三4 051

This is one of the huuuuuuuuge freaky spiders that reside in the neighboring bamboo forest, and like to come for a stroll across the rice patties and somehow find their way into my house... (I still can't figure out how/where they can get in... being so freakin' huuuge.) Anyways, this little fellow accidentally super-speed crawled (they're fast....) under my wooden clogs... which I accidentally dropped on the spider, after carelessly (whoops!) slowing it down with a whole ton of bug spray... Anyways, if anyone has any giant spider deterrent advice, I'm all ears. :D

日本2005年琴平金毘羅三3 128

This is a giant bronze lantern at the Konpira-san (Kompira mountain) temple complex. It was a nice bright day today, which led to some interesting effects for photography.

9/20/2005

日本2005年財田町町民運動会 010

The neighborhood cat.
This is technically my `new cat.`
She`s a stray cat that has decided to
set up shop on my front porch.
The constant supply of fresh milk,
and cat food (with meat AND fish flakes) probably helped influenced that decision. But, since she helps fend off the beetles, frogs, and giant spiders, I shall continue putting out the food.

9/19/2005

日本2005年姫路旅 017

A boat speeds by the gate of the Great Seto-Ohashi bridge,
connecting my island to the mainland of Japan.

Star Gate SG-2 Fukuoka

I still don't know exactly what this is...
But I made it out to Fukuoka for a live concert a couple weeks ago.
I ran across this at one of the large Buddhist temple complexes in
Hakata, Fukuoka. I figured if I ring the bells in the proper order,
it might turn into a Star Gate of some sort.

Update: Nope... unless I messed up the
ringing order, it doesn't seem to have the ability to turn
into a giant star gate. *sigh* ...

Deka (Immigration Control) Rangers

...and I thought I was the ONLY foreigner
in my new town. It looks like the power rangers
have stopped in for a visit.

Update: The big baddy was eventually
'vanguished' by the 'Deka Rangers' (Huge Rangers)
So it was back to just me afterwards. Uh oh..
I hope the Deka Rangers aren't part of immigration control.
I'm going to make double sure that I PROPERLY
divide my garbage into 7 separate varieties,
and distribute them on the proper days...
...just in case the Deka Rangers come back into town.

Bamboo Crab

This is one of the bamboo crabs I made following VERY SPECIFIC directions. Essentially 'cut a piece shaped like this, and stick it in here' and then 'glue it in'
Yup... I'm a semi-pro pre-cut bamboo crab, dragonfly and frog maker.

Homemade Dragonflies~

Making little bamboo frogs, crabs and dragonflies at the local festival. One of the kids decided to do a comparison by catching a real dragonfly and comparing it to a bamboo one. I personally think the bamboo one would win in a fight if A) it were alive, and B) if it could breath fire. Were these conditions not met, the real one would win. :D

Samurai style neighbors...

This is one of the neighboring houses. I always imagined Ken Watanabe in his full 'Last Samurai' wardrobe would walk out the front door one of these days...

Turns out it was a middle aged couple who lives here. They offered me a ride home once, when it was pretty obvious that I was wandering around lost.. :D

My HOUSE!

On the left...

That's my HOUSE. :D
I'll do a full introduction of the house in a later entry. :D
I've inherited what I thought was going to being 3 roaming neighborhood cats, but...

My pred asked if I'd mind putting out catfood and milk for some of the stray cats that like to visit the house. Foolishly thinking cats wouldn't go 'bat-crazy' over catfood with little meat and vegetable chunks in it, I bought the 'good stuff' from a local supermarket. Next thing you know, I've now got 7!!! cats visiting my house for grub. One of them even climbs up to the second floor of the house, and purrs until I let her in. (At which point it takes 10 minutes to chase her down the steps and out of the house.)

日本2005年国際交流経験 202

Here's a cooler shot of the previous mountain lilies. Hmm.. Anyone know what they're actually called?

日本2005年国際交流経験 172

This is the aforementioned 'Nagashi Soumen.'
Cut down wild bamboo, establish a waterflow, and
drop cold soumen noodles in at the top of the flow.
People then wait along the path of water,
try to grab the Soumen with chopsticks, and then
dip them into a serving dish (Also carved from wild bamboo!)
full of a vinegrette/soya type sauce. yum!

日本2005年国際交流経験 196

I figure this is some type of mountain lily. I ran across this when being escorted up a local mountain range to try out 'Nagashi Soumen' at the peak.

Yosui Dragon


DSC07609
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
This bamboo/twine dragon is hanging in the entryway to the Kagawa Yosui Waterpark museum.

Yosui Water Park


DSC07647
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
This is a semi-aerial shot from the local summer festival. The little pond in the background is the entry way to a huge regional water reservoir. Living next to it allowed us to escape the prefectural wide water shortage throughout July and August.

Neighboring Bamboo Forest


DSC07567
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
This is my neighboring Bamboo forest. There're some very interesting bugs that like to make housecalls to my doorstep from time to time. Thanks to converstations with the neighborhood kids who collect the giant beetles, I can now distinguish between male and female beetles. Let's not mention the spiders that can grow as big as my hand.. *gulp*

The Kagawan Mountains

This is my new neighborhood. :D
I've really grown attached to the majestic mountain ranges that surround my new home. I've taken close to ten roles of 35mm film since I've been here. (Including trips to Fukuoka, Osaka, and Himeji, though.)

7/23/2005

Kosovo_clowns_guns


Kosovo_clowns_guns
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
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kingkong_with_dad


kingkong_with_dad
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
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Scuba_Mike
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7/11/2005

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縲�縲�縲�Coffee and Beer anyone?

蠎�蟲カ繝代Ν繧エ繝ウ繧ー螻ア 091

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繧ス繧ヲ繝ォ 070


繧ス繧ヲ繝ォ 070
Originally uploaded by Ryuugakusei.
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