Jonas in September

見ざる、聞かざる、言わざる

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

Hello, Jonas here.

First of all, sorry for the delay of my first blog post!

It has been almost a month since I came to Saitama now, and it's been really busy ever since I arrived. Not having trained karate for around 14 years, you can pretty much say I am a total beginner. Right now I have just barely memorized Pinan Nidan and Shodan. So trying to catch up with all the black belts in the dojo is quite tough.

On top of that teaching English to small kids in Japan for the first time in my life is not the easiest task I have undertaken I must say. Definitely a learning experience!

Just the other week Shiramizu dojo had a visit from Paul who lives in Thailand. It was a lot of fun to meet him, and learn about what living in Thailand is like. A great guy!

Before leaving for Thailand Arakawa Sensei took Paul to Nikko, and I was lucky enough to be able to go with them.

Nikko is a really beautiful place and I hope I can go there again sometime.

Unfortunately we were not very lucky with the weather there though. It was pouring down to say the least! But in my opinion this actually added to the atmosphere of the place. Arakawa Sensei said that normally Nikko is crowded with tourists, but because of the weather, we were pretty much alone there, which was very cool.

Shiramizu Summer Camp!

The kids working harding during sparring drills.

Erica here!

The weekend of July 25th & 26th was the Shiramizu summer camp. There were about 120 kids ranging from 3 to 17 years old and a handful of adults that attended. We went to Kinugawa City (near the famous Nikko resort town in Tochigi Prefecture north west of the Saitama prefecture) and stayed at Manyoutei, a beautiful, traditional hotel complete with pull out futon mats and shared baths.

We arrived at the hotel around 1pm on Saturday, had lunch then proceeded to a school gym where the training was going to occur only to find the gates locked. After 20 minutes or so of phone calls and kids getting restless on the buses, we managed to gain access.

Once inside, we all did laps around the gym then had a group warm-up. We bowed in and then proceeded to do ido kihon (moving basics). After about 40 minutes of that, we split up into our different ranks and we worked on kata. The group I was in did Chinto and after another 40 minutes there was a water break after which we then moved on to sparring drills lead by Kazuhisa Fujimoto Sensei and Toya Sensei (from Takagi Sensei's Guseikai Dojoo in Tokyo). Somehow, by the end of that, 3 hours had gone by and it was time to finish up and head back to the hotel for dinner. Dinner was a delicious meal of all you can eat hot pot. Some of the guys had quite a bit of meat.

After dinner, there was some free time and then (from what I could tell with my seriously limited Japanese) there was a mini lesson on how points are awarded for sparring. This was followed by games and the losing team of each round had to get up on stage and act out a word. Everyone had a great time and went to bed tired, but with smiles on their face.

The next morning, we woke up at 6:30am, had breakfast at 7am and commenced training at 9am. The structure and content of what we did was almost identical to the previous days except there were more instructors who participated, including Toshiki Fujimoto Sensei (of Tokyo Guseikai), because they couldn’t make the day before.

On the way home, we stopped at Tobu World Square which is an outdoor museum of miniature models of famous building and places around the world. It was very entertaining and the detail in which these models had were amazing. There were little people, moving boats, cars and trains! It was a hot and sunny day, so naturally the kids were running around with ice cream cones.

Overall, it was a great weekend and everyone had tons of fun =)

Everyone waiting to board the bus.

Warm-up run.

Yamazaki Sensei having fun with the kids.

Yay!! Water break!!

Tobu World Square. Looks real doesn't it?

Shiramizu summer camp 2009!!

Nikko

Carl here... (The English one!)

I believe that Lawrence has already posted on this blog about Nikko, but I thought I'd give my 'take' on it since it is a 'must-see' sight if you're staying in Tokyo for more than a few days...

To Nikko
Last Sunday, Amy and I decided to do a bit more sightseeing. It was 50 / 50 whether we would go to Yokohama or to Nikko. In the end, the ideas of mountains and temples won out against the metropolis that is Yokohama.

We had an early start, setting off at precisely 7:41am and we arrived in Nikko at 9:15am. We are quite lucky living in Sugito, because we can take the train direct to Tobu-Nikko station from Tobudobutsu-koen station (4 minutes train from Wado). If we lived in central Tokyo, you could easily put another 2 hours onto the journey!

Most people travel to Nikko for one or two reasons (or both). The huge 17th century Tosho-gu shrine to Ieyasu Tokugawa (a world heritage sight) and the Nikko national park (Nikko Kokuritsu Koen) which is on the heights above Nikko. The centre piece of the national park is Chuzenji-ko, a large lake which feeds Japan’s most famous waterfall, Kegon-no-taki which falls a dramatic 318ft.

We went with fool’s logic and bypassed the very convenient tourist information centre, which is actually in the Tobu-Nikko station. We’d even forgotten to pick up a tourist map of the area! We therefore just winged it! We strolled out of the station and up the 1 mile long main Nikko high street to the temples, taking in the sights along the way. We made a note of some of the more interesting tourist shops which weren’t open yet (it was still early!). The best shop specialised in ‘dragon art scrolls’ visit www.kousyuuya.com for more details. We decided to have a look on the way back to the station.

Shinkyo Bridge (Sacred Bridge)



The bridge crosses the river at a crossroads just before the temple complexes. The original bridge was built in 1636 for shoguns and imperial messengers on their visits to the shrines; this was destroyed in a flood. The current bridge dates to 1907. This was our first glimpse of the crystal clear water of the Daiya-gawa.

Tosho-gu
Without a map, we followed a small group of Japanese tourists up some stone steps which led to the Rinno-ji and Tosho-gu complex.



There were hundreds of people visiting Tosho-gu, which somewhat spoilt the experience. You had to force your way through crowds at some points, there was even a TV crew filming two well known Japanese TV presenters there!



I thought the buildings were very interesting, the level of detail is incredible. Though I do think they went overboard with the gold leaf, the effect of it is that, whilst some of the buildings, such as the five story pagoda (below) are fantastic, others simply look tacky.



We spent hours looking around the various temples, and then we headed back down the high street to pick some souvenirs. Amy bought a really cool, hand painted painting of a dragon. Then we strolled down to the bus station, and took a ride up the mountain road (with great views of the valley) to chuzenji (Lake Chuzen).



After wondering around the lake for a while, avoiding the wild monkeys, we headed to a viewing platform to see the Kegon-no-taki, the Kegon waterfall.



The waterfall was pretty cool, though again you had to fight through the crowds to get a good view.

All in all, it was another good day of sightseeing and I would recommend a visit to Nikko. Next time we come back, we'll probably come mid-week to avoid the crowds and I'll definitely be bringing my hiking boots, those mountains are just asking be climbed!

Neato Nikko

I do realise this post is dated within minutes of the Japan Cup post, but it's not all serious karate here all the time. The day after the Japan Cup, Dec 10th, Arakawa Sensei took myself and Mr. Mike Spain to one of the most famous sightseeing towns in Japan - Nikko.

About a 2 hour drive from Sugito, the mountain town of Nikko has multiple temples and shrines. Ensconced within a myriad of greenery, the different religious grounds all combined are a peaceful and beautiful site that justifies its place as an official UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Arakawa Sensei and Mike in front of the Toshogu Shrine entrance.

Although known for many things, the first major shrine to see is Toshogu, where the famous "Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil" monkeys who are carved on the side of one of the buildings. Heading up to the temple behind Arakawa Sensei and Mike in the above picture enters the garden of the main building.

On the right side of the garden is a very steep 200-step staircase that leads to a grave site of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the founding Shogun of the Tokugawa feudal period. His site is in stark contrast to the rest of the decorated shrine as it is surprisingly simple.

To the left of the picture is a special building with a dragon painted on the ceiling. The acoustics are such that standing right beneath the dragon's mouth (which is just to the right of centre) is a spot that causes sound to echo throughout the symmetrical rectangular room. Anywhere else only gives a dull thud which, for a symmetrical room to be able to do this, was astonishing to me.

Our morning there ended off with a quick lunch before heading back home to get ready to train some more at night. But what a day it was.......

Lawrence