District Conference, Geek Stuff, Depaato Sale
Sorry, the format is messed up---enjoy the post anyway. I gotta go test some tires...on ice!

Our karaoke night. If it was Japanese Idol then these two were Simon and Randy.

You can tell from the heading this is my catch-up, catch-all entry. We had a free morning and Heather, Jennifer and I went shopping. We caught the Tobu Depaato (department store) 50th Anniversary sale. If you're old enough to remember the Blondie comic strip, think "sale at Tudbury's." It was a madhouse but we found Jennifer some nice things--even managed to figure out the correct size. (She's a D!)

We also managed to spend our own money on food for the first time in a month. We had Kenta gyoza (the dumplings for which Utsunomiya is famous). One of Dustin's hosts owns the Kenta gyoza company. Having to figure out even a simple menu for ourselves made us appreciate all the help we've received from our Rotarian hosts this past month.

Yesterday we did the opposite of girly stuff as we toured Utsunomiya University's engineering school. We got to see their formula SAE car and lots of other cool stuff--hopefully they will let us know when UU's SAE team returns to Michigan.

Over the weekend we were pretty much consumed with the district conference. They pack a lot into a little time here! Japanese are masters of multi-tasking. Read about that in Heather's entry. They do some pretty neat stuff like calling the roll of all the Rotary Clubs in the district. Each club is seated in a bloc and the all stand up and shout "Hai!" when their club is called. It gets a little competitive.

We really enjoyed the fellowship and entertainment and though I couldn't fully follow the speeches, what I could understand was inspiring and the feeling behind the words certainly came through. I'm really proud of the team. Not just anyone can give a speech to 1000 people and you've got to be pretty special to do it in Japanese. Preya, Jennifer, Heather and Dustin rocked! And we got some nice compliments on our "GSE in 60 Seconds" slide show.

Formal Dinner...singing and some tears....

We were honoured to attend the 2550 Rotary International Formal Dinner that was also attended by the district governor and the representative for the President of Rotary International for Japan. We were seated directed behind the main table and were blown away by the contents of the whole evening. The night began with introductions, followed by dinner and a tenor concert which Lori, Masako and I just adored. The tenor was past foundation scholar that studied in Italy. What talent. We also listened to a well seasoned Rotarian perform on the piano. While all of this was happening, we were mingling and mixing with our host Rotary clubs from our travels over the past 24 days. What great reunions we had! You see....it was a very formal dinner...only returning to your table once in a while to taste the next course that was being served and of course to see who was filling your glass once again. The Presidents representative spoke and stopped and began speaking in amazing English to our team in front of everyone....Well, I was a mess and Jen was on her way. His talk to us was some of the most moving words we have heard yet! We presented our letters of distinction and introduction to the district govenor, followed by me singing the Canadian Anthem and Lori singing the American anthem in front of 1000 people!!! The night ended with all 1000 men and a few women, joining hands around the room and singing O Rotarii!!!! One of the best nights in Japan!!!!

Busy week....

Our week has been full of vocational visits, sightseeing and presentations at Rotary Meetings. I have done a presentation 4 times this week. This is the weekend for the district conference, so we will be presenting again on Sunday. Tonight is the formal dinner with the presidents and governors. Today we are going sake tasting at 10 am...really we do not write these scripts...followed by lunch and shopping!"

I will post more pictures a little later.

Ja Mata!

Bath in a boat!!!!

Well, from the last city we moved on to Nikko a UNESCO world famous heritage site. We enjoyed a welcome party at the Kanaya Hotel. It is here that the Emporer enjoys dining and visiting as well as other famous people such as Einsten and General McArthur. Form here we went to view the archery demonstration on horseback. Wow!!! What a sight! Following this we toured some of the most famous shrines and temples in the Nikko area. The following day was exciting with the processional of Samauris...and we had 2nd row seating for the processional!!! We continue to be treated like Royalty and thank the Japanese Rotarians and their country for their generosity. During these past 2 days we have been treated to a stay at a very famous onsen near Nikko and to our surprise we woke up to a grand view from our windows of a lovely ravine and river. WOW! Again! We have also...are you ready...traveled to Lake Chuenzii, Kegon Falls, Edo Village, Autumn Festival, stood on top of 100 year old floats, traveled downstream in a boat, walked down part of the road of 300 year old Pine Trees and had some of the most beautiful and interesting meals....So as you can see it has been a jam packed couple of days...Back to work tomorrow as we travel to Kanuma and then onto district conference!!! Lori and I are heading to check out the other bath before bed....oyasumi naisi!

Karasuyama: Crow Mountain

Preya and I have been staying in Karasuyama, which means `Crow Mountain.` And there are lots of crows here. They must speak Japanese because they sound different from the crows at home. I dont know how to rearrange the photos on the blog so you can scroll down to see a photo of a Karasuyama crow.

The photo on the left is me with our hostess, Nobuko. We received yukata (cotton kimono) as a parting gift from our last Rotary Club in Oyama. Lucky for us Nobuko is a kimono teacher so we are looking spiffy now.

The big straw man below was put up for a harvest festival next weekend. It is made of rice straw, of course. It reminded me of the straw bale mazes and other creations back in Dexter this time of year.

Ayu, sweetfish, is a local delicacy here. You get it right at the river and it is roasted over hot coals right at your table. (Really more of an indoor fire pit.) You can tell it is fresh because it looks like it is still swimming! Preya and I got invited to an ayu party yesterday. It was fun! They also warm up the bottle of sake by the coals.
Elsewhere in this blog you can see a picture of the big `yane` or fish trap where they catch ayu.

People love to give gifts in Japan. One of the guests at the ayu party gave us a live crab for our breakfast miso soup. Here I am making friends with the crab.

Today Nobuko made the crab into miso soup and I ate it for breakfast. Oishii! Delicious! Preya may give up eating seafood as well as meat. `Nuff said.

Yesterday we took a walk over the mountain and saw Ryumon Falls. It was really pretty even if we did get a little wet. On the way there we walked over the `hebihime` bridge. That means the `snake princess` bridge. The legend is that the snake saved the princess from capture by killing her attacker. I am sure it is a little more involved than that but the details got lost in translation. Anyhow, the snake is the hero in this story.

Finally, here is my really cool picture of a crow. It kind of has me thinking about Halloween.

Well, I have figured out how to get photos uploaded so maybe I can do more posts soon.

Genk Up Village!

We enjoyed a very early morning Kirin Beer Tour and the #1 beer company in Japan....following our tour we were encouraged...key word here...encouraged to partake in the Kirin Beer experience...at 11 am!!! Kampaii!!!!Really these tours were arranged for us and does look like we have been drinking all week....Our fearless leader lead the way to the bar!!!

Following our beer tasting we moved on to the Genk-Up Village where we enjoyed some tofu tasting, and a chinese lunch in a private dining area. Wow what a view!!! The ladies pleaded for time to enjoy the hotsprings ( we are withholding those pics for obvious reasons). The hotsprings here were gorgeous and we had a great time trying to make the most out of our teeny weeny pink towels!!!

Onto Nikko tomorrow!!! You can see it in the background of the last shot!!!

Fore!!!

My free day...which is really supposed to be a day of rest, was anything but...

I The thought that playing 18 holes of golf didnt seem like a bad idea...however the golf courses in Japan are built on the side of small mountains...so in fact it was a day of hiking!

The morning started after I realized that I wasnt seeing things and that the golf cart was actually moving down the path on its own (obviously I dont get out much ). They have remote control golf carts!

I need to stop here and let you know that I havent forgotten to add the apostrophes to words...I just have yet to find it on these Japanese keyboards. The letters are all in the same place, however there is alot that is misplaced.

I played golf with my host father, Semba-san who owns the onsen and golf course and I believe 30 more throughout Japan, another Rotarian, Kato-san and his son Takatoshi. We had a blast. I played not so badly and bogeyed 3 holes....You see, in Japan the women are very small and thus they move their tees a whole lot farther up than in North America. So it pays to play golf in Japan!!!

Yesterday I was outfitted as a gift from the Rotary Club with a Callaway golf shirt, gloves and hat. I guess they were thinking if I couldnt play, at least the pictures would look good!!!

After 9 holes, I attended a Rotary meeting and presented in Japanese by myself...extra samari points!!!

I am starting to feel a little like Royalty staying here. I mentioned that I loved the goiza ( dough filled with pork mixture, boiled and fried) and low and behold when I got off of the golf course this afternoon I was told the manager had gone into town and tha they would be prepared for our dinner!!!

Holy Sake Batman!!!!

Another beautiful morning in Japan...the weather is like our early September...warm, sunny and 70 degrees today!!!

We started out our morning with a tour of a local small hospital. There is universal health care in Japan and like Canada they are going through a doctor shortage. We met with the chief of staff who is also a Rotarian with the local Rotary Club.

We then moved onto a museum in Sukarasuyama. The museum housed their "floats" used in their main parade which occurs in the summer. WOW!!! They are some floats... We also saw a little play depicting the parade、 as well as a movie showing real footage of how they put on the parade every year.

We presented at the lunch meeting of the Karasyama Rotary Club....This club is quite small, but did an awesome job hosting us today. Our presentation in Japanese also went over quite well. Its interesting to see the looks on their faces when we start talking Japanese. They say that they can understand everything we are saying. This boosts our egos a tad! This is a picture of Dustin (otherwise known as Handsome Baby ) in action!!!

After lunch we made our way to a cave carved out in a mountain. Its origins date back to WW2 but thats really all we got from the Japanese. This is where Sake is stored and aged. It was actually beautiful until we spotted bats flying around....

So picture if you will...5 GSE members checking out the bats and taking pictures....bats maybe not liking the flash of the cameras too much...2 bats flying at the members....and 5 members running, screaming down the cave tunnel, and many Rotarians laughing more than their face off!!! Oh, I am sure they told stories about us when they got home to their families!!!

We learned that when Babies are born in Japan, usually parents buy a large bottle of Sake for their children, the year the child was born. It is aged for 20 years and then the bottle is opened on the 20th birthday of the child!!! If you look at the top left hand side of the picture you can see a picture of a child attached to the bottle of sake.

After being scared out of the tunnels by the bats we made our way to taste the sake! Some we liked and some not so much...

Kampaii!!!

Fish, Soba and Friends!!!

Yesterday we started our day at a very modern museum. The museum foccussed alot on the fashion culture in the edo period.... This is a team photo on a bridge behind the museum.

We then visited Soba restaurant to make soba noodles. ( they are supposed to make the body strong ) We cooked them and ate them right away. We also had some great tempura to eat with the noodles.

Watch those fingers Jen!!!!

We headed to an aquapark/aquarium that also had some great archectecture....and some beatiful fish of course.....

My evening ended with a great dinner of Nikkoyaki...which consists of cooking your own meat and veggies at your leisure on a personal grill....yummy!!! I have been enjoying my meals at the onsen with my new friend Maki who works at the golf course....she has been a great interpreter as my host does not speak English.

We are in a beautiful area now. We are surrounded by rolling mountains with lots of little rivers running through the villages. There are also lots of tunnels that run through the mountains that are really neat to drive through.

Everyone is very healthy and well well except for the odd morning aftermath of too much Sake and we are enjoying our time here very much. Alot of our experiences have been very overwhelming as we are privy to many experiences that the average vacationing Joe would never see!!! Thanks Rotary for this experience!!!

Catch up....

The last few days have been extremely busy and we apologize for not posting...so here is catch up...we survived our first Typhoon, which in our area consisted of heavy wind and rain but not too far away it did spawn 3 tornadoes and some damage.

On Friday we awakened to the sun shining bright and very warm weather thanks to the southerly flow from the typhoon!!! Preya and I had a great vocational day. We visited a fairly new Children`s hospital and was lead on a tour by the head of pediatrics...quite a well known pediatrician in the Tokyo area. She spoke very good English and had spent some time in the US doing research some years ago. We were able to spend some time in the pediatric outpatient rehab unit which functioned very closely to the centre that I work at in Chatham. We had an "aha" moment when really trying to make sense of the AFO s (these are support devices that fit into a shoe) that the kids were wearing. They have their AFO s made with build in slippers (like a soft shoe) due to the cultural cutsom of removing their shoes and putting on slippers everywhere....

Tea ceremony

Kimonos at the shrine

Childrens Hospital

We were able to also tour an elementary school where we were met by the kids like rock stars....

On Saturday morning, we were hosted by Dustins host family at their kimono shop...we were allowed to try on kimonos, had our pictures professionally taken abd even visit the shrine in our kimonos to tak outdoor pictures. The Rotarians presented us with pictures at our send off party that are absolutley beautiful!

We also witnessed a traditional tea ceremony that was accompanied by the trickles of rain on the roof!!!! Very beautiful and sureal!!!

We have moved on to a new city. I am staying at a traditional onsen complete with hot springs at my disposal...this will be a different experience!!!! I am playing golf on Wednesday with the owner ( my host ) and 3 Rotarians ...please pray for rain!!!!