Everyone slides through Sigil sooner or later. But plenty of cutters call the Cage home, and it's their shops, trades, and peels that keep the jink flowing - and the bone-boxes flapping. A body's got to know who sells bogus goods, and who'll scrag him (or worse) just for the fun of it. 'Course, the trick is telling friend from foe. In Sigil, a fiery fiend ain't always a serpent, and a shining celestial ain't always a lamb.

10.25.2007

Land of the Rising Sun - Part 3


Something that I forgot to post in my previous entry, but is so iconic that it really does deserve its own spot.

The above picture must be familiar to most - if not all - readers out there. What many people may not know is that this carving of the three wise monkies is part of a series of engravings on a structure located at the resting place of Tokugawa Ieyasu (as noted in my previous entry).
Given that Ieyasu passed away sometime in the 1600's, means that these little troublemakers have been around for quite some time!

There was little English information near where this was taken and my Japanese is not good enough to decipher the entries that were noted - I'll look into the relation between the monkies and the Shogun when I get a chance - but I bet a friend of mine out there will come up with the goods before I next post.

On a completely different note, I have been using this holiday to work on various aspects of my ongoing endeavours for my novel.

I have some names now that I am happy with for some of the major characters - see what you think:

Malthius, Kharas, Talia, Yutenji, Jun, X'ian...



Land of the Rising Sun - Part 2


Well, I've said goodbye to Kansai, spent a brief couple of days with the in-laws in the warmer climes of the South and made the trip North to Tokyo.

Tokyo is not a city that I think that I would ever enjoy living in. The people here are so...busy and often come across being rude as a result. The city itself is wide - the equivelant of their 'city loop' takes about an hour to circumvent by train. The massive rail network has had my beautiful wife's head in a spin on more than one occassion - despite being Japanese herself. On a couple of occassions, when looking for help, she was brushed off by a couple of passers-by which only darkened my thoughts on the place.

I try to balance these negative thoughts with positives to be found - certainly the shopping is great if you are after the more modern items and we have many friends here (though not natural born Tokyoites). Akihabara (with its associated 'Electric Town') has been visited a couple of times and I've ended up buying a PSP which I have found fun (and certainly cheaper than what it would have cost back home).

Coming back to Japan this time, I had promised myself that I would visit places that I had not been to before and in the Kanto region this had equated to going to Yokohama and Nikko. Both of these places I quite enjoyed - Yokohoma was quite relaxing, with its flowing gardens and hills overlooking the sea combined with the Western influences found in the architecture as a result of early foreign contact during Japan's history.

Nikko is the home of the resting place of one of Japan's most famous military and historic figures - the first official shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu. I first studied this man over twelve years ago at university and it was quite eerie to actually be at a place so strongly associated with him after all this time. The place is thoroughly beautiful, set in the foreground of some very majestic hills and the place really shined given the Autumn reds and oranges were approaching full strength.

On a related note, the above picture was taken inside Osaka-Jo (Osaka Castle) which has been blown up, burnt down, invaded and attacked so many times in its long history that it is now almost all a modern remake. The insides - though completely refurbsihed - house much interesting historical information which was great to reaquaint myself with again after so many years.

The model above is from a massive display outlining the final attack of the Tokugawas against the Toyotomi (who really united Japan but never had the chance to proclaim himself Shogun).

I believe this model is of Toyotomi Hideyoshi - their leader at the time.




More to come....

10.13.2007

Land of the Rising Sun - Part 1

I've been back in my other home town of Osaka, Japan for about a week now and as usual a mix of feelings hit me whenever I walk the streets here: lavicious thoughts of the mainly gorgeous women, the inherent humour of the Osakan attitude and the accompanying (and often bewildering for those that don't know it) Osaka-ben that everyone speaks.

My trips back to Japan often descend in a mad rush to see nostalgic places and to catch up with friends and family as efficiently as possible. I've mostly succeeded so far, though there is a particular place on the stairs by the main entrance to the temple of Horyuji (which I used to live quite close to) that I used to pause at, sit and reflect upon life that will have to wait until my next trip.

I lived in Japan for two years - living in an apartment in Horyuji which is a small suburb just outside of Nara and worked in Osaka teaching English. Although travelling times were long, I always found the arrangement to provide a great mix of old and new.

I have a couple of days left here in Osaka before I move on to Miyazaki and then Tokyo. A visit yesterday to Kyoto to see my brother in law reminded me how snobbish the people there can be sometimes (not my brother-in-law!).

I suspect it would be rude to remind them that Nara was the capital of Japan prior to Kyoto - but still the urge takes me when people look down their noses at us Osakans!

Still, they know how to construct an effective stone garden. The above picture was taken at Ryoanji, one of the more famous places dotted around the city. The contrasts of the angular black and straight sandstone tiles provide the perfect border to the garden itself, as does the wall a solid backdrop.

It is the play on the unconscious that really sets these things off.

Time to move - I am sure there will be more to come.