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| Shimenawa hangs in preparation for the New Year |
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| Some of my relatives in Kumamoto |
I was staying at my mom`s brother`s house in the rural area where my mom grew up. The house was rebuilt a couple of years ago. The old one was a traditional style that I still remember well. My uncle, aunt, their son, who`s my age, his wife and three year-old son all live there. Like other Japanese families, welcoming overseas, they tend to spoil me by taking me on overnight trips on past visits before so I told them beforehand that I was just there to relax, catch up and stay where I was. After the past month, I wasn`t too interested in sightseeing at the time.
I didn`t get there until 1:30 in the afternoon which gave me time for a late lunch while being entertained by the three-year-old and his Mega (Power) Ranger videos, a walk, and dinner. It was surprisingly cool in Kumamoto even though it`s much further south. The travel south and west did give me an extra hour of daylight, though.
The day was much better on Sunday which made for a nice run by the river where I encountered some glider enthusiasts who, I was told, were doing their last flights of the season. I never heard of a set up like this. The glider club had a small airstrip beside the river and used a half-kilometer long tether wire pulled by a winch on a truck at the other end to launch the planes. I felt like I was in a Miyazaki movie.
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| Glider club operations by the river | Glider waits to take off | Glider takes off | Glider winch and modified car for transporting tether |
The other end of my run went to the local `Aquadome` which is a huge complex for a swimming pool. They apparently hold some important meets here regularly befitting of a swimming stadium but they also have a public pool and a skate rink inside.
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| Kumamoto Aquadome | Modern Mochitsuki by Machine |
Being close to New Year`s my hosts were doing their family mochitsuki which I helped where I could. Their daughter came by to help with a couple of her own kids. After lunch, my mom`s sister and her husband came by to visit as well as did one of their daughters and her family after dinner. Their other daughter is the one I visited in Tokyo the week before. Turns out that one of my nephews is learning English so his parents were urging him to practice with me, both there and by e-mail. It was nice to see them all again.
I left back for Okazaki early Monday. Since I had to change trains at Shin-Osaka station, I decided to walk through the shopping areas. I ended up at Osaka Station and was directed to an area with a shopping center with a ferris wheel on the roof and an arcade with lots of shops and entertainment. I found a lot of cheap manga at a large store called Mandarake that took care of a lot of the gaps in my Meitantei Conan collection. I also decided to give the Akira series a try. It`s supposed to be the classic modern manga.
The Hanshin Department Store was also in the neighbourhood so I stopped by to check out their Hanshin Tiger Yakyu club sports shop. I was surprised reading the paper this morning that this team, winning the Central division pennant this year, was considered one of the top ten stories of the year in Japan. They, like the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, are stricken with a curse, the Colonel Sanders one, where a statue of the Colonel was thrown in a nearby river the last time the club won a pennant. They didn`t win the Japan Series though.
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| Hanshin Train Station, Osaka | Hanshin Tiger Shop, Osaka | Hanshin Tiger daruma, Osaka |
Got back to the village later than expected to find things pretty quiet, as expected. The holiday season is in full swing but I`m taking it nice and slow to start it.