Sometimes you just have to sit down, grab some fresh fried chicken, and watch people be accosted by pigeons outside a Buddhist temple.

Weather is turning colder, not a threat of snow at all. Every day for the past two weeks has been sunny, with only a day or two of clouds.

Xmas is an interesting holiday here. Completely secular and a day to be spent with your loved one – it’s a “lover’s holiday” as was explained to me. Makes sense since most of the country follows Buddhism & Shintoism. Decorations everywhere, especially in the retail areas. Seems a whole lot more inclusive to be honest.

I did hear somewhere that many kids here think its Santa’s Birthday. Hehe.

So fried chicken. Pigeons. Xmas gifts. Buddhist charms and some fun plans coming up. The holiday season is sure interesting!

The posts are a little less frequent but that does not mean the thrill or excitement has diminished at all from living here.

If you spend any time on my Flickr or Twitter I tend to do most of my posting of things happening RIGHT now in 140 characters or less. That works most of the time, but let’s try something different right now.

Phone blogging – admittedly this is a little longer than most of these will be, but a little premise is nice to put things into perspective and answer “why?”. Besides, now I have an excuse if I have more spelling mistakes. Luckily I have a wonderful editor who is quick to point out any mistakes for me.

So here I am, resting on a park bench outside of the Nagoya Harbor. It’s cold, 20mph winds, clouds here an there and I can still see mountains in the distance.

Hello micro blogging. Nice to meet you too!

Let’s start with a something short and sweet I learned the other night about pouring Sake. (酒)

It is impolite to not fill the glass all the way to the top. In fact, if you were at an establishment that serves Sake and the glass did not look like like the photo to the left, it would be expected for you to be upset at the situation presented to you and your drink and ask the pourer to top you up!

To help facilitate this wonderful display of surface tension, the glass is set into a small box. Upon pouring the glass, you fill it to the top and continue to pour.  Without the catch-box, this could get really messy – and wasteful! – as the Sake would then be spilled all over the table.  (I am unsure of the phrase for Party Foul in Japanese, but I am sure it exists.)  The extra Sake then washes over your glass into the box (I won’t say excess here, because I’m pretty sure there isn’t a phrase for “Too much Sake” either.)  This works out all too well.  Not only do you have a glass over-filled past the brim, and no mess to clean up, you ALSO have the chance to refill your glass with all the Sake that fell into the box!  What an amazing idea!  I’m sold. They need this with every drink.

Now I believe this to be wholly accurate as it did come from Japanese friends of ours, but we were all enjoying a night out to welcome another member to the Theoretical Astrophysics group so take everything said with a glass of Sake.  Or Two.

かんぱい！

I’ll leave most of the the sentimental thoughts in my own mind for now, and just leave a picture. There’s a castle in it as well, so that’s even better. I love my wife, and I am truly the happiest guy in the world when I’m with her. Each day brings something new, and I know that as long as I have her with me, things will always be … well …

I’ll keep the mushy stuff down in the future, promise. Maybe.

I love aquariums. Absolutely love them. I used to be an avid fishkeeper myself (looking at setting one up here before the New Year as funds allow, just something small either with a single Betta splendens or some shrimp, live plants, Amano-style all that.) Keeping it under 5 gallons for sure. (Easy to move then!) I’ve been lucky to visit a few back home: Shed Aquarium (of course!), Baltimore Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium(Wow. Just wow.), and the Tampa Aquarium. I won’t go into critique mode, but this is an impressive place – doesn’t have much in the way of Freshwater specices and focuses mainly on Tropical/Subtropical & Japanese ecosystems (which makes sense) but there is, in particular one feature that actually left me nearly speechless.

Jen said the katakana put it with the name of “sardine tornado.”

What we saw was just a massive tank with tuna, a few hammerhead shark species, and … more sardines than I could count. Thousands. Perhaps tens of thousands. It was like watching a scene from Planet Earth – you just see a massive school of fish and are left in wonderment that such a thing could exist. Even with them all chilling in the corner of the tank, I was amazed.

The school would part as sharks swam through, or blazingly-fast tuna slid through the water, but stayed there and hung out. We watched in awe at it, and after a while moved onto the next room, satisfying our combined curiousity for the wonderful world of aquatic nature.

Among the regular sounds of the Aquarium you would expect to hear, some inspiring new-age music streamed in from around tube we had just crossed through (the barrier wall for the two rooms had a 6 foot long aquarium that you walked through to get between the two sections. Small nurse-sharks were the big feature.) My well-known habit of bounding off in any random direction when I see or hear something that might be of interest had placed me back into the tornado room, and after a call back to Jen who was wondering where I was, and probably wondering if I needed a leash, and we both stood in awe at the sight before us.

A crowd had formed in front of the giant tank. To the music, a rope containing a measurement of fish feed for the sardines would drop into the water, resulting with the ENTIRE school following the bag through the water in a rather tornado-like fashion. It was unlike anything I had ever seen in person. I half expected to hear David Attenburough narrating the scene next to me, translating what my eyes were seeing to properly allow for the full intake to my cereberium. The video really cannot do it justice. I stood there, amazed for longer than I can remember. I had to blink back tears – tears of sheer joy and amazement of what lies out there in nature. The music was pretty emotional too, so that had a bit to do with it as well. Not to go all soft or anything – you all know me, and I would imagine expect nothing less.

The rest of the aquarium brought a few more surprises with a very well-done Deep-sea section, Mangrove area, indoor sea turtle exhibit and beach, and Dolphin/Beluga tanks. Nothing, though, could top the tornado. Some photos below, the rest can be found here!

Not surprising, there wasn’t a shortage of Whale skeletons in the aquarium. Facinating, but it did remind me of the current situation with Whaling in Japan. I’m not a fan, and I’ll leave my thoughts with that particular practice at that.

All in all, we shall be back. I need to find out about an annual membership. It’s 5000Y – a bargain especially with our close proximity to it! No sense getting one now if it’s just calendar year though.

The port really is quite beautiful. There remain two separate museums we need to explore – one of the Antarctic variety, and the other a Maritime museum. In the habor actually sits an antarctic exploration ship – WITH an on-board Helicoptor. I cannot wait to check that out.

Sending our love back to our homes – thanks for reading!

National Cultural Day was on the 3rd of November, and Jen was given the day off. That’s a full on excuse to go see cool stuff, so after a quick scan of the handy English-version of the Sights of Nagoya City Map we had our route, and were off.

We did stop the Toganji Temple & the Atsuta Shrine on our way to the Shirotori Gardens (白鳥庭園 – Swan Gardens) However, I’ll refrain from commenting too much on the Shrines, Temples and Buddhist / Shinto religions here till I know more about them.  Besides, keeping things short and sweet sound like a good idea, and I’d rather not go too into depth about everything and it gives me an excuse to write later on too. ;D

The Gardens are in a traditional Japanese Style, lots of water, lots of carefully pruned plants, very serene feel to it all. From the official English map that we were handed, here’s what was written in it:

“The Shirotori Garden is a Japanese-style garden with a path running along the banks of streams and ponds.  The area of the garden is approximately 3.7 hectares.

The mound at the southwestern corner of the garden represents Mt. Ontake and the stream originating from the mound, the Kiso River.

In the center of the garden lies the Seiu-tei, a couple of tea ceremony rooms.

Seiu-tei was designed after the image of a swan, or “shirotori”, flying down to rest its wings.

Seiu-tei was designed after the depiction of the flow of the tides, one of the traditional aspects of Japanese gardens.  The ebb and flow effect is achieved by the use of modern technology.”

Fantastic … so what does it all mean?

Oh. That’s pretty darn cool.

The garden starts at the top of Mt. Ontake and a waterfall, and then flows down in a very beautiful fashion towards the ponds. Flowing water, sounds, plants everywhere, if we had more than just an hour I could’ve just sat and listened – the gardens close at 4:30pm and we didn’t arrive till 3:30!

As the water flows down stream it bends, twists, turns. Losing altitude, but never flowing so fast to cause too much of a ruckus. If you were to accidentally fall in, perhaps become a little unbalanced while stepping over the gapped-stones as you cross the river a couple times, you would have no danger in being whisked down stream. Which is a good thing, especially when you consider the guardians of the water here.

Jen looks at ease here, but that’s because she knows she is safe from the dangers that lay ahead.

As you continue down stream, you get to the ponds and the tea rooms. The photos do not really do it justice, but hopefully these can convey some of the scale, and beauty of the gardens.

As we crossed one of the bridges, it appeared that the waters were inhabited. Very few ducks were present, which considering how pristine the water is, seemed rather odd. A long ibis waded in the shallows, as if it knew something, knew not to get too close to the deeper water. As we approached the waters’ edge, it was then that the guardians of the ponds, the fabled Koi of Shirotori first appeared.

They look harmless, don’t they? No teeth in their mouths, just a few of them gently swimming around. They do this on purpose. As if they know our own tendencies, and how we let down our guard when it comes to small numbers of normally-docile animals. They had us both fooled. Jen wasn’t yet aware of the danger she was in.

Not heeding that foreboding ambiance in the air (if life had a soundtrack, it would have been very fast, very soft playing violins followed by periods of silence.  You know how it sounds.) we left the bank where we saw the “friendly” koi, and continued on across a bridge.  We looked across the water, and saw that for 50¥ you could buy a cup of food just like the locals were doing. Not a bad idea, it looked like they were having fun!

Jen went first, they started swimming up to her as we kneeled and sat along the steps. Laughter filled the air as the koi began to swim towards their new source of food. Just a few at first, trickling in, a steady stream if you pardon the pun.

It was at that moment, when your guard was down, when you were least expecting it that something happened. You could see it in their eyes. I pulled Jen back as they massed to critical levels, we heard a child scream. The following picture might or might not churn your stomach – a child might, or might not have JUST been devoured by Koi right before this photo was taken.

I couldn’t believe it, neither could Jen. Such harmless creatures – they don’t even have teeth! The water ran clear where the child might-or-might-not-have fallen in, obviously a testament to their bloodthirsty nature. Not a drop was spared.

I decided to take it upon myself to subdue these creatures. No more children would be swallowed up, not on my watch.

Oh … the humanity of it all.

Just look at their voraciousness! Their clear determination to consume everything around them! Like vegetarian pirhana – not a single food pellet survived!!!  The sheer chaos of ferocity was enough to make any Bond villain clench his hands and mutter, “Good … good.”

They amassed in such numbers, nary a care for their fellow fish, swimming on top of each other, just waiting for a finger to come too close. That’s when they would get you. I can’t read the signs, but I’m sure each one around the area warned of the imminent danger I was in. I would defy them, I would show them that I am not afraid of these whiskered ichthyoids!  (It wasn’t until after I saw the above picture that I realized how close I was to losing my toes.  I must be more careful!)

Having admitted defeat, having met their match and been rendered as the lesser of beasts, and myself having been rendered free of any remaining fish food, the Koi retreated back into the murky depths of the 2 foot deep clear water. Jen continued to throw out food to the odd one here or there, even attempting to lure ducks into a watery grave, but the Koi almost seemed distracted – wondering perhaps, what menace of a man did they just themselves survive.

It’s a good thing I didn’t have a net.

The garden tour continued, and even with the fear of a hydrologically induced death nearby, spirits were high at the sheer wonder of this garden.

The time we had there expired, and it was off to some night-time walking of the city. We will be back,. though The koi must be tamed. That, and we really really liked it here.

Sending love from Japan -

A visit to the bay is not complete without a glass-bottomed boat trip though! Our wonderful taxi driver even got us setup with a tour company for one of them (I wonder if he got a comission …) and within a few minutes of walking along the soft, white, sandy beach we were off to see what sorts of reefs lie just tens of meters off the shoreline.

The Black Pearl Farms here on Kabira are were the first in the world. Sadly, I did not get a chance to photograph any, nor take the time to buy any. Didn’t quite have that much dough on me at the time … $_$!!! Beautiful works of art they turn into though. Amazing that all that comes from a grain of sand.

There was another beach just a kilometer walk west of us (turned out to be a couple, but hey, walking on an Island in beautiful weather, who can complain?) and we made the trek. Kabira had an amazing look to it, but this beach had something else. It faced west, so there was beautiful sunshine. The water was calm, almost glassy, clear, golden. Shoes off, waded in, walking hand-in-hand with my wife … life definitely has its serene and wonderful moments. Those feelings that you will forever treasure because of not what they are, but who you spend them with … yeah, those feelings.

We walked back to Kabira for some final photographs as the day had cleared up. On the road we saw nature’s creatures struggling in the life/death scenario of well … giant spider being taken out by a humongous wasp.

The wasp was 4″ long. Not joking.

An absolutely beautiful sunset started to take over, and it was time to head back to the hotel and out to dinner. Our taxi driver told us as we passed through the western part of the Island that on a clear day, you can sometimes see Taiwan from that particular road. Wow.

We ventured into town for dinner, and after walking around trying to decide we found a place in an alley that looked like fun, had pictures in the menu, and went in to check it out. This ALMOST didn’t happen, I will add, as we walked by it a first time. Got halfway past, then decided to take a second look just because a little “something” pulled me back. Turns out, the intuition turned out to be perfect. Now, without being able to read or speak the language too much, having a picture menu is extremely helpful. Point at what ya want – works very well. We sat down at the food bar area, and had a cook come out to help us with the menu (he spoke English!) and while we were getting all set to this suddenly one of our friends, Yuri pops up and says “Hi!” We turn around and see half of Jen’s workgroup from Nagoya sitting in another part of the restaurant! Instantly invited to join them we happily accepted and joined in for a total of 14 and started having food served “family style.” What I’ve come to learn and expect here is with bigger groups, the bill all stays together. You order whatever you want, or whatever you want to share and everyone has some, this happens till everyone is full and at the end, everyone splits the bill evenly. No fussing about, no advanced degree in Bistrmathics – oh, and EVERYONE has cash. Japan is largely a cash-based society, so you always have enough cash on you. The food was great, the company fantastic, there was restaurant-wide songs and music going on with one of the employees playing a sansing and singing Okinawan music (In case you were wondering, this is how you rock out with like the Shisa)

It wasn’t a large place by any means, the owner came around and made sure everyone was enjoying his catches (Yes, he’s a fisherman and caught everything we were eating!) and just had an amazingly warm and fun personality that made this place special. Add all this with a no-hassle-everything-is-fair-bill – and you get another wonderful end to an amazing day.

Our last day was spent swimming in the ocean, relaxing, buying small souvineers, and packing up. Tomorrow at, around half nine, we left for Okinawa.

I only wish I had my camera within easy access at the aiport. Never have I seen so many orchids in bloom in my life, all of the same time, everyone so perfect I had to wonder if they were fake. Thousands of phalenopsis orchids in bloom, white, purple, pink all over the airport. I was already liking this.

With only a single day on the Island, we had to make good use of our time here! It cost us an extra 3Y to fly to Okinawa so that’s why we decided to make such a quick stop. Luckily, Okinawa also has efficient and reliable public transport – MONORAIL!!! *queue up the song*

A quick and smooooooooooth monorail ride from the Airport to a 2 minute walk from our Hotel, an early check-in, and we were off to see some old stuff. Awesome old stuff. Ryuukin Castle old stuff. Hello Shuri Castle! I’ll let some of the pictures do the talking, it’s an amazing sight. Wikipedia can do a better job than I can of explaining the history, and check out the rest of the photos on Flickr

Castle left us hungry, and a desire to check out the wonderful “International Street” (Kokusai Street) that we heard and read about. Back to the Monorail!

Just so happened we were visiting on the same day as a big festival. The parade and performances did not disappoint.

We did visit Heiwa dori – an amazing indoor market that’s covered and has a plethora of goods and food. Whether you need designer goods, street food, a fresh fish market or dried snakes for traditional medicine – this place has it all. I’ve never seen anything like it before, I could spend a whole day here just looking at everything. However, Jen would flat out leave me if I did, so I decided against it while were were looking for food, and continued on.

One thing that I’m getting used to here is all the restaurants have people outside of them with menus, or coupons, or just people trying to get you to come in and eat there, and not anywhere else. Annoying when you aren’t used to it – especially when you walk by and they automatically change to “English menu! Sashimi! Sushi! Yes, you like?” … … … >_<.

I decided to let my intuition lead us again. We came across a small sign, the food looked good. There was no one advertising for it. In fact, it was on the second story of this building, behind the building, friendly little words on the steps told us to keep going and we were almost there. A small screen door opened and there we were. “Komban wa! Hai, 2. Hai! Eigo? Ahh, thank you!” We sat down and looked at the menu. The owners didn’t know much english, but they had an English menu. We had struck again! A group of local men all were sitting at one of the tables (there was a small bar we were at, and then two giant tables behind us. That’s it!) and another man at the bar eating some wonderful looking grilled fish. Nothing of tourist, no flagrant overzealous courting of outsiders, we had found a local place, frequented by locals, I knew we were in for something special – I just didn’t know how right I would be. (A rule I’ve come to live by: if you see locals there, and it doesn’t look like all that much, it’s probably something special.) I didn’t take out my camera as I did not wish to offend, or spoil what we were treated to. Amazingly cut fresh sashimi from half a dozen various fish. Glorious octopus. Thinly shaved fruits. Green tea soup. Conversation with the owners and again, a place we will strive to visit again. The man’s mastery of a knife was a sight. I was able to watch him preparing our dishes through the glass case that held all the fish. More locals streamed in, beer flowing, food being cooked up in a quick-I’ve-done-this-for-years-watch-me-for-I-am-a-master way. Two chefs (father and son) and the wife and son served and took care of the gusts as well.

One of the best meals of my life. Upon completion of everything, we learned that the man was from Nagoya originally as well! We told them were we were from, and that we were now living there – fun coincidence! Maybe I’ll find out the name of this place eventually, but here’s the sign that drew me in – again, perfect for the night.

City lights and some shopping ended our time on the Islands of Southern Japan. To the hotel for a good night’s sleep and then it was back to Nagoya on smooth (and friendly!) airlines to hunker down and really start preparing for day-to-day life in the city.

Now you might have noticed that there were, in fact, no Okinawan girls at all in this post.  That’s true.  I already have a Scot.  However Girls rhyme with Pearls so I thought it’s use was pertinent to the title of the post.  Sorry if there were any letdowns.

Thanks for reading!!!  This should be the last über-long post for a while. Check out the photos on More updates on the way!

じゃ、また！