Category: Uncategorized

I didn’t have any school commitments this weekend so we took advantage of the opportunity and heading across Honshu (the largest of the 4 major islands that make up the Japan archipelago) and spent some time exploring the north shore, on both sides of the Hyogo-Kyoto prefectural border. It was a relaxing get-away and only a couple hours away.

It was uncrowded, being the middle of winter, except for the onsen (bath) town of Kinosaki. The highlight for me was the visit to the Oriental White Stork reserve near Toyooka. Through stork-friendly farming practices and the efforts of dedicated citizens, the stork has been reintroduced into the wild after becoming extinct in Japan in 1971. See my nature blog for more details. On Saturday evening we had a delicious meal in Kinosaki. We wanted to stay in a ryokan there, but had a hard time finding a place so we stayed in nearby Kumihama. The town was full of tourists (almost all Japanese) walking from onsen to onsen in their robes and clogs.

The next day after watching the Tokyo marathon on television, we headed up to one of the three most scenic spots in Japan. We were laughing at the ranking system, thinking that it was a tourist bureau promotional ploy. Actually, it was the opinion of the historian Hayashi Gayo, who was an advisor to the Tokugawa rulers in the mid-1600s. He was in charge of education and applied Confucian principles to his work. He thought the sandbar, Amanohashidate, was one of the three best views in the country. I would agree that it is a really nice spot! I love the combination of pine trees and big water, as it reminds me of my beloved Lake Superior in Michigan. The kids enjoyed playing among the trees and the beach. We will definitely head back in the summer. Our tour of the Tango peninsula was cut short by rain. Instead we stopped for lunch, enjoying the winter speciality of kino or Sea of Japan crab.

There is so much to explore in this beautiful country and we are only beginning to scratch the surface. I highly recommend a visit to this part of the Sea of Japan coast.

The video above shows Owen scoring on a penalty kick in yesterday’s game at the school.  He was taken down in the box by a Canadian Academy defender. He cooly delivers a hard kick, which the goal keeper guessed correctly on, but it was not enough to prevent it from scoring. The game ended in a 3-3 draw.  Owen came out in the second half with a muscle strain. He is really enjoying soccer this year.

I am so happy the boys got haircuts last weekend, they were looking pretty shaggy. Ollie and I are shown afterwards below.

A good Japan story. Yesterday I was leaving the supermarket on my bike with a basket full of bags. As I just started to cross the street, one of the bags fell out, of course the one with eggs in it. About half the pack broke on the street. Before I could park my bike and start the clean up, one person came over and picked up the bag, another person gave me a new plastic bag, to put the rest of the egg in, and they helped me get out of the street and back on my way. The cars also waited patiently until the mess was cleared, no horns or mean looks. The Japanese are so aware of the plight and feelings of others. It is nice to live in a society that thinks that way.

I am still trying to understand why Japanese homes and apartments do not have insulation. My daily routine in the winter is to go down stairs to turn on the heaters before the kids and Nadia come down. The house gets really cold if the heat is not on. The windows are single-paned and the walls and roof have no insulation. I find this strange in a society that appreciates the finer things in life, like food, clothes, cars, etc. Why not be comfortable in winter without having to close doors, wear warm clothes, etc. Osaka is not terribly cold in the winter, only a couple times it has dipped below freezing (0 C), but it feels a lot colder because in the house, you feel the cold. I Ollie is shown below sitting in front of our gas heater.

Today is a national holiday in Japan and so I took the boys on a hike up to the Katsuo Ji temple. It is a Zen Buddhist temple about 4 kilometers away from our house, by a trail through the Minoh Quasi National Park. It was a special afternoon of father and sons bonding that I can’t express the amount of pleasure and pride I felt walking through the woods with my sons. We talked about movies, music, clash of clans, and whatever came into their minds. They are growing up and it is so cool to be able to have real conversations with them. They love stories so I explained to them the full story of classic movies such as the Planet of the Apes, Terminator, Blair Witch Project, etc. It was one of those afternoons that I would like to live over and over again!

The walk is pretty much straight up from our house. We rode bikes the first kilometer, crossing the busy 171 highway, through the rice fields, to reach the border of the forest. We dumped the bikes at the gates and started the climb up the hills. It is pretty much going up the entire time, with some respites along the flat tops of the ridges. The trail is well-marked, both by the park officials and the temple pilgrims. We took a couple of rest stops and so the walk up took about an hour.

The Katsuo Ji Temple was a beautiful destination. The 1,300 year old temple is known for the daruma (dharma) which are traditional Japanese dolls that bring “winning luck” to visitors to the temple. People come and purchase them to bring them resilance and fortune with many things, such as exams, trials, ill health, etc. If they do bring one luck, they are supposed to be brought back to the temple and placed on the grounds. We saw them all over the place, so lots of people have been helped by the daruma. They are then burned on the day after New Years. Guests can stay on the grounds and there are gardens and pools for quiet meditation.

The temple has a long history as described in the English guide to the temple. In 727, two priests, Zenchu and Zensan constructed a hut on the mountain. The son of the Emperor Konin established Mirokuji Temple on the spot in 765, in “his quest to reach the spiritual realm of Buddha.” The Emperor Seiwa regained his health miraculously due to the prayers offered by a priest at the temple, and thus changed the name of the temple to Katsuo (win over the Imperial Highness) Ji (temple). In 1184 the temple burned down in a civil war but it was reconstructed in by the first Minamoto Shogun a few years later.

I highly recommend the hike up to the temple. You can get their by road as well, but the best way is through the forest. It makes for a perfect afternoon. Thanks to Owen and Oliver for giving me a precious day.

One of the nice things about living in different countries is the opportunity to learn about the local traditional customs and folkloric celebrations. In many Asian countries, February 3 is celebrated as the end of winter and the start of spring. Here in Japan it is known as setsubun, and it is the day before the first day of spring. I always try to understand the local customs by experiencing them first hand and respect the local beliefs and traditions. I didn’t know that besides dividing the year up into the two solstices (Dec 21 / June 21) and two equinoxes (Sept 21 / March 21), the ancient Chinese further divided the calendar into smaller sections. This helped farmers know when cold or hot temperatures were expected and to predict the levels of precipitation. February 3 is the end of one of those smaller divisions. As with much of Chinese ideas, neighboring countries adopted and adapted them to their cultures, hence, setsubun.

Tuesday evening our family each ate the roasted beans, the number of beans depending on our age. I had a tough time after dinner consuming 47 of them. This is supposed to give us a year of good health. Since 2015 is my Japanese zodiac birth year, the year of the sheep, I put on the oni, which represents evil spirits. Nadia put on the good fortune mask, although we didn’t know until the next day that it was good fortune. The kids throw the beans at the oni, saying out with the bad spirits of winter and in with the good spirits of spring. Oliver of course, got carried away with banishing the oni and threw the beans a bit too enthusiastically (see video below).

Next year we hope to go to a temple to see the official ceremony and to eat the famous Osakan “lucky direction” sushi rolls which we did not do this year. Supermarkets conveniently had kits with roasted beans and masks for people to take home.

We had a really nice weekend with family. Owen plays for the school’s middle school boys’ soccer team and they hosted Marist Brothers International School of Kobe on Saturday. Owen enjoys playing soccer and his athleticism helps him be a good player. He is also starting to feel more comfortable at the school and Japan and it shows with more relaxed performances. His team won 7-1 and he scored two goals and assisted on another two. You can see in the videos above and below. There is a good core of athletes in grade 6 at the school with Eun and Rhen. I hope to see years of athletic success as they mature and play together more.

The weather was nice, with temperatures getting up to 11C and sunny, so I joined the kids at a local park to play. It is so nice to feel safe enough to let them go to the park on their own and play. It brings back memories of my childhood in the 1970s, when we did a lot by ourselves without the modern helicopter parenting of today.

On Sunday we met our old friends from Belgrade, a former classmate of Ocean, Wakana. Her father Tsutsuru is on a business trip, but Miyuki brought the girls to Umeda and we met them for lunch and skating. The rink was in the plaza of the Grand Front Osaka . It is nice that city officials are taking what used to be a huge train freight yard and converting it to parks, apartments, restaurants, etc. There was no ice but instead a plywood rink with a white, wax-like covering. One could skate relatively well, but it was not as smooth as real ice. I felt like a cool dude because most of the people on the rink were not very good skaters. I don’t know if that is true of all Japanese and how popular skating and hockey are here. On the way home we stopped at H&M to buy some long-sleeved shirts for the kids.

I am reading Japanese authors whose works have been translated into English. I just completed Kawabata’s “Beauty and Sadness'”. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1968. He was born in Osaka, where I currently live in 1899 and committed suicide in 1972. He is most famous for his books Snow Country (1956) and Thousand Cranes (1959).

Beauty and Sadness is his last novel, which came out in  1961. It is the story of author Oki Toshio. When he was newly married, he had an affair with a 16-year old girl, which ended with her getting pregnant, having a miscarriage, and spending a short time in a mental institution. Today, this would be considered a criminal offense. In the book, he keeps his marriage and gets fame for the book he wrote inspired by the affair. The story mostly takes place 25 years later when the girl is an artist in Kyoto. I won’t give more of the plot away, but it involves a possible murder. I thought it was a good story and the descriptions of Kyoto’s temples were vivid. The women are wearing kimonos often, which I find today in Japan, very rare.

In my opinion however, it had rather weak character development and there were many holes in the plot. Kawabata wanted to be a painter and the book has a lot of references to visual arts. The book has been made into a movie twice, one Japanese and one French. The ending allows for much reader speculation and it would make a good book club selection, as there would be lots to discuss.

I don’t think I will read any more of his works but it was good to be introduced to such an important literary figure in Japan.

On the way back from our family holiday in Byron Bay Australia, we had an overnight stop in Guangzhou, China. This was our first visit to China and after reading so much about the growing economy of China and their takeover of the world, I was very curious to see it. We flew Southern China Airlines, which has excellent service, and in legroom, my most important factor, they scored extremely high, and they provided a free hotel for an overnight stay. The hotel was located about 20 minutes from the airport. Guangzhou is a huge city, about the size of Chicago, but I had never heard of it before moving to Asia. China is so big with a number of massive metropolises that most people in the world know little about. I know that it was one night in one city, but according to my initial impressions, China has a long way to go before being a world leader in culture and society, like the US, Europe, and Japan. The number of construction projects were impressive and it was a massive hotel, but the infrastructure of the roads and buildings, etc. reminded me more of Latin American and Eastern Europe than more developed countries.

We had a nice stay however, and found some high quality, cheap fruit in a market nearby. We were certainly stared at and I assumed not many American families with blond children go through there. The pollution was really bad, with a chemical odor in the air and a hazy morning. I know China will get it under control eventually, but they really need to take drastic measures to improve air quality. Many expats who teach there complain of this and it is a shame when children have to have an indoor recess because of pollution. I am intrigued to see more of the “middle kingdom” one of the oldest civilizations on earth to understand the country better.

I also spent a weekend in Bangkok, Thailand for a job fair. Most of the time was spent working, but I did get to go out for a couple of dinners and a walk to the night markets. Bangkok is a huge city set in the tropics and it reminded me of other tropical cities I have visited. The big impression it left on me was the influence of a colorful form of Buddhism. There were ornate shrines, big and small everywhere. This is much different than the more sedate form of Buddhism in Japan. I was also surprised to see so many transgender men/women. It is totally acceptable in Thailand, in part due to the tolerance of Buddhism. I also noticed the king is venerated with photos and books. I didn’t know it was a kingdom. The food as always, was delicious and I hope to come back to visit this tourist mecca.

Owen made his middle school soccer (football) debut yesterday. The Senri & Osaka International Schools Sabers travelled to Kobe to play the Canadian Academy Falcons (CA). CA is located on Rokko Island, an artificial island in the Bay of Osaka, which is home to a large shipping port. Yesterday, January 17th was a special day in Kobe, as it was the 20th anniversary of the Great Hanshin earthquake in which over 6,000 died. The game started with a moment of silence for the victims of the tragedy.

In the SOIS middle school, there is about 150 boys, so the team has a lot of players. Six grader Owen plays on the “B” team which is reserved for the younger players. They won their game 5-4 and Owen scored two goals and assisted on another. The team was up 3-0 at halftime, but their positioning broke down in the second half, combined with more aggressive play from CA, made the game close. Owen is not passionate about soccer, but is enjoying the sport. I like it because it makes them run around and is outdoors. Owen played midfield and is learning a lot about the sport. I hope he continues to play.

In between games, I went for a run around Rokko Island. There is a nice 5 kilometer loop set in a park like setting which hides the warehouses and stacks of shipping containers that make up most of the island. The earthquake really hurt the port economically. Before the quake, they were much busier, but with the destroyed facilities, Singapore and Hong Kong took over much of the business and Kobe never recovered. Today the island is much quieter with a less busy port and businesses also moved out of Kobe as well. It is nice being on the water however, but the environment is a bit sterile on the island and it feels like one is not in Japan.

The MS boys’ soccer Sabers are in action next week as they host Kyoto International Academy. The grade 8 students are on a science field trip so the younger students will get a chance to play against older students.

Our family had a wonderful week in the resort town of Byron Bay. It is located in northern New South Wales, near the border with Queensland, just 45 minutes from the Gold Coast airport. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited.

The town is known for its hippy values and promotes alternative lifestyles. As you can see on the entrance sign, the peace and love movement of the seventies is alive and well in Byron Bay. Most of the restaurants and shops promoted vegan, organic, all-natural, gluten-free products. There were signs advertising yoga classes, new age spirituality conferences, etc. There is a very liberal feel to the town.

The town became popular with tourists due to Paul Hogan of Crocodile Dundee fame. He had a vacation home there and opened up a hotel in 1991. Every year, more tourists came and the town developed many hotels and vacation homes for rent and sale. It has managed to keep its hippy vibe, despite the development and is much different than the coastal and inland towns around it. The sub-tropical flora and fauna give the place a Hawaiian look. We were there during the peak summer tourist season and there were long traffic lines into and out of town, but it still felt relaxed. Most of the tourists were Australians with some younger international tourists, backpacking or working their way around Australia.

Byron Bay is also famous for surfing due to the breaking waves on several points in the area. We all took a surfing lesson which gave me a new appreciation for the sport. I learned that rip currents are helpful as escalators to surfers and are not to be feared. Some other fundamentals given to us by our instructor Gaz, were look up at the beach, not at the fish, banana and then build up on the board, and to relax and bend the knees once one is up. The best of us was Ocean and she loved it so much that I bought her a surfboard. We hope to find some surfing spots in Japan. My only complaint about surfing is when there are lots of people waiting for waves. It is better than waiting in lines for downhill skiing however, and there are no costs to use the ocean. I am glad to give our children many different experiences and the chance to surf was one I didn’t have growing up. I think back to scuba diving, skiing, etc. I feel it is important to give our children a good breadth of experiences so they can find what they are passionate about and be aware of what is out there. It will hopefully give them richer, fuller, lives as adults.

We stayed in a luxurious villa ($7 million Aussie dollar list price) near the beach in the Cape Byron Headland Reserve, just outside of town. There was a walking trail through the forest preserve and it allowed me to see lots of different birds, trees, flying foxes, and even wallabies. I did several posts on my nature blog of observations I made on hikes in the local area. There is a scenic lighthouse located on the high cliffs of the peninsula and below lies the eastern most point of the Australian mainland. We walked into town in the evenings for dinner in the local restaurants and were surprised by the huge flying foxes (fruit eating bats) of tropical Australia. I saw these many years ago on a trip to Cairns in the far north of Queensland. I will not likely stay in a nicer place for quite awhile and I would like to thank Jim and Ale for their hospitality and kindness. It was wonderful to share the New Year celebration with family and friends!

We even took a morning to drive inland to see a small preserve of rainforest in the Night Cap National Park. Like almost all places in the developed world, including my home of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it is sad think that 95% of the forests were lost from the time of the early settlers until today. I am quite radical in believing that acreages or small hobby farms should be banned so more land can be devoted to virgin forests.

As I always say however, it is not important where we are for holidays. As long as I am with my family and can devote most of my energies to my wife and children, I am going to have a wonderful time. I was tempted to work more than I did, but in reflecting on my life, spending time with my family will be more important than getting more done for my job. Finding this balance between my career and family is something that is always challenging for me. The quiet time during the break also got me to reflect on my life. One of my new year’s resolutions will be to focus on my health. One of my enemies is stress and through meditation, exercise, and eating less and more healthy, I want to live better. We will see if I can keep the momentum up as my schedule gets more hectic.

Yesterday we went to the beachside suburb of Manly. The boys loved the big waves and were safe thanks to one Manly lifeguards. They are one of the oldest lifeguard teams in the world, having been formed in 1903 after 17 people drowned in the first official bathing season the year previous. He has a passing resemblance to comedian Jason Sudeikis. The founder of Sydney, Captain Arthur Phillip named the area “manly” because of the masculine characteristics of the aboriginal people of the area. He was speared in the shoulder there, which is quite a masculine thing to have happen to someone. We took the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly and had some great views of the Sydney harbor (below). The only bad part of the day was the rain in the afternoon, which drove everyone home and made for a crowded ferry ride back home.

We had Christmas dinner and Skyped with a many family members as we could reach. We spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day mostly around the apartment in Chatswood. Some locals nicknamed it “Chatswoo” due to its high Chinese and other Asian immigration population. We did notice many Asians and at times it felt like we are still in Japan. Owen showed an interest in the Aussie sports of cricket and football so I took the kids to a nearby oval to play.

Tonight we leave Sydney for Byron Bay. I can see why Sydney is one of the world’s great cities! The massive harbor and weather are magnificent. The city is relatively safe, organized with a high quality of life. The one bad thing is the high cost of living which surprised me coming from Japan. I found it more expensive here than in Osaka. This trip also reminded me of the unique flora and fauna of Australia, which is one of the biggest attractions for me to the country.  Sydney is a little too big for me and I prefer life on the west coast. I am looking forward to watching the Boxing Day Test Cricket Match today from the MCG between Australia and India.

Our family has a close relationship to the wonderful country of Australia. Nadia grew up in Melbourne and we lived in Perth while she was going to Murdoch University. She would like to move back someday here and we are considering sending our children to university here.

It didn’t feel like our usual Christmas this year as we are traveling. It will be nice to be reunited with family this weekend. I’ll be posting from Byron Bay later.