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"Attending the 2004 Rotary International Conference in Osaka
gave me a chance to explore Japan. A fabulous two week adventure of site
seeing, making many friends, getting lost a million times and attempt to use my
six words of Japanese (Hello, Good bye, Good Morning, Yes, and Thank you, both
formally and casually). Getting there and back was the hardest part: 5½
hours to Vancouver, 3 hour layover, 10½ to Osaka and then a 3 hour bus ride to
Tokushima. Having learned from my backpacking trip in Ireland,
and the fact it was a warmer climate, the weight of my backpack had been reduced
to a mere 50lbs from the 72lbs in was on my trip to Ireland.
Tokushima was a blast, I stayed with a friend of a friend. He taught me a few Japanese words and
where to get great Japanese meals for $4 or less. The best part was bombing around the sidewalks in downtown Tokushima on a
borrowed mountain bike.
Don't know if it was the strange food or the jet lag but my stomach was not in the best of shape.
During the first of two typhoons I saw the
thirty metre whirlpools of Naruto.
Toured a huge Japanese Zen garden in Takamatsu,
and was taken out for a
Okonomiyaki, a cross between a pizza, an omelette and a pancake
that you make yourself right at the table. I got the recipe so my family
is in for a real treat.
Rode the famous bullet train to Hiroshima.
During the second typhoon I took a tour of the Atomic Bomb Museum and monument. You can't experience
the exhibits and not be a totally different person at the end of the tour.
Took the bullet train to Kyoto, my favourite
city in Japan. Met many geisha girls and slept that night in a Buddhist temple.
Went up the mountain to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, they let me ring the gong and drink the
sacred healing spring waters. My stomach felt much better, a
coincidence?
Visited the Temple of the 1001 Buddha's, one huge Buddha and 1000 life sized golden Buddha's. Unfortunately photographs were not permitted, but
I was allowed to light candles for my late father and father in law.
Spent the next 6 days in Osaka at the Rotary Conference
(World's largest humanitarian organization with 1.2 million members). Well we had a record of
46,000 members show up. We were updated on the many humanitarian projects
including literacy, wheelchairs to 3rd world countries, fighting blindness, and
of course their plan to eradicate the the world of Polio by 2005.
In Osaka I attended a Japanese tea ceremony led by a 15th generation tea master and his
geishas. I stayed in a "businessman's hotel", the room was about 8x10 feet, including the bathroom. The bathroom was so small that you had to stand in the shower, lean over the toilet to the sink to brush your teeth. But I was grateful it was a "western toilet" and not the
traditional squat toilet. Don't ask.... just pray you never have to use one.
For the last 3 days of my trip I visited Nara and
stayed in a ryokan, traditional Japanese inn with straw tatami mat floors and a futon with buckwheat pillow. I liked it.
Explored the 1300 acre Nara Park, home to more temples and shrines than I could
count. I feed some of the 1200 small deer that roam freely there.
I lit incense at the 7th century Todai-ji Buddhist
Temple, home of the world's largest Buddha, housed in the world's largest wooden building (all made without nails).
All in all a great trip. Only managed one international incident, it involved the Director General of Japan's Ministry of Transportation. But Hey, I can't be responsible for the stuff I do if some big shot is not wearing a name
tag and appears to be "just one of the boys". But I think I convinced him and his staff that I was an American so at least we're in the clear for now."
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