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Japanese Kite Flying

The Japanese New Year period usually sees a return to the more traditional Japanese games including the flying of traditional Japanese kites. This year we headed down to the nearby Ube beach armed with several paper kites to join small groups of other kite flyer’s. This year we also had the somewhat odd site of a group teenagers holding a barbecue while they all lounged in a heated inflatable pool. It was a bizarre site since early January is not a warm or sunny time in this part of Japan plus it was quite a cold breezy day: great for flying kites but not good for running your own portable hot tub on a public beach. Maybe I am not ‘down with the kids’ these days because it looked far from a fun activity to me but the group of teenagers looked like they were having a great time.

Japan has gone through a noticeable period of change in the 12 plus years that we have been making regular visits. I remember the first time that we saw homeless people asking for money or food in a train terminal based in one of the largest cities. It stood out for me since I had never seen any sign of homeless people at any point previously, although of course that did not meant that people were not homeless before, but seeing such an overt example of begging in a high profile location shocked Mrs danyul.

During our latest visit we saw real signs of the economic downturn in Japan;. Firstly, the number of people attending the shrines in a bid to win favour and blessing was astronomical compared to our previous visits. The area where we stay is quite rural and we would normally visit the local shrine on New Years Day and we might have seen 5-10 other people paying their respects. However, on this visit there was a long queue of families waiting to pay their respect at the shrine and additionally a large number of families donating extra to the shrine so that they could receive individual blessings.

During this visit we also attended second hand and antique fair for the first time, which very much resembled an English car boot sale but with the goods on sale from little stalls setup either by small businesses or families selling off unwanted goods. Again, this was not previously a common occurrence in the area of Japan where we stayed and it was a reflection of the economic situation in the country.

Japanese Second Hand Good Fair

Our final family trip this time around was to spend 1 night in Shimonoseki, which like Ube is also based in Yamaguchi Prefecture. We drove across to Shimonoseki with a brief stop at a motorway style service station / dining location for lunch. I had never stopped at any Japanese motorway style services before and it made a distinct change to the expensive food provided in British motorway stops. The food area was run as a small local business and provided excellent Japanese food at very affordable prices. MiniMe tucked into his favourite Japanese curry while I had some fantastic pork ramen that would put any English motorway food to shame. We were soon in Shimonoseki and settled into our hotel ready to spend some relaxing time in the hotel onsen (hot spring baths). Visiting onsen is big business in Japan and there are travel style TV shows that just show various bath locations around Japan with reviews of the facilities and the food on offer.

The hotel is located on the hillside overlooking the Kanmon Straits, which forms an important shipping line that runs between the main Japanese islands of Honshū and Kyūshū. The hotel makes good use of the outstanding view with the baths, with baths both inside and outside, looking directly over the river and the city while the hotel restaurant also utilises full window style walls looking over the city. The city itself is very well known for its fugu (puffer-fish) haul, which is the largest yearly haul in Japan, and all the restaurants specialise in fugu dishes. On this visit we took a local taxi to the Sea Mall Shimonoseki (largest shopping center in West Japan when it was built) and the driver told us that the visitor numbers were substantially down over the past year, especially during the fugu season when people traditionally flock to Shimonoseki, so much so that all the taxi drivers are now all members of the ‘silver fox’ generation. The younger taxi drivers are no longer able to make a full-time wage from their fares so only those that are retired and have other incomes available (i.e. a pension of some sort) can afford to remain as taxi drivers.

Shimonoseki: Hotel Balcony View

I enjoyed wandering around the shopping mall and trying to pick out some gifts for my family while Mrs danyul raided the huge book shop. We are fortunate to live in an age where Mrs danyul can order Japanese books from Amazon and get them delivered to the UK but it is much cheaper to haul some back in our suitcases compared to the shipping charges. I picked out the latest Pokemon movie DVD for MiniMe so he could have something to watch back in the UK when he would no doubt be wide awake with jet lag at an unreasonable hour. I found some nice gifts for my family and made good use of the gift wrapping services from all the shops, which put the UK firmly in the shade. All Japanese department stores will gift wrap something to a ‘basic level’ for free and their definition of a ‘basic level’ is what a UK based store would charge for as their ‘premium service’. Although Japanese stores do offer a chargeable gift wrapping service, I have never had to take up the additional services although I have wondered just how much better they could actually be compared to the fantastic free service.

Our last activity in Shimonoseki was to visit one of the large shrines based in the city. Again, the shrine was full of people and had some fantastic food stalls at the entrance to help warm everyone up in the cold weather. On this visit we decided to ‘donate’ an extra amount of money and receive a blessing from the priest. Neither of us has any strong religious views but we were interested in what happens so after making our donations we were shown into a private room within the temple where the priest discussed our goals and aspirations with the coming year (well… he discussed with Mrs danyul anyway) and then he began to recite various Japanese chants before waving a staff adorned with what looked like white paper chains above our heads. We both thought the blessing was over but were told to stay while the priest then started to play on a flute like instrument while a girl dressed in traditional robes performed a dance around the room. We did not (and still do not) understand whether the dance had any significance but it was certainly an interesting experience and a small view of traditional Japanese activities.

Shimonoseki Shrine

Our latest visit to Japan soon drew to an end  as the remaining time flew by with various family visits and MiniMe playing with his grandparents. We all had a fantastic time, as always, and I had a relaxing time of catching up on some reading while not being drawn into any work. As usual our family were extremely hospitable to us and I am sure MiniMe will have some more treasured memories of spending time in Japan.

The shrine visit is a fundamental part of Japanese culture and a lot of people will celebrate the New Year by being at a shrine as the clock hits midnight; some of the large city shrines heave with crowds at midnight and form the location for live television across the entire New Year period. We went to visit the local shrine on New Year’s day and this time around it was packed with people and for the first time ever we had to queue to pay our respects. It seems that during a time of economic decline more and more people are returning to their local shrine to ask for good luck through the coming year.

We then took a day trip to the Yamaguchi Safari Land, which is just over an hours drive away. MiniMe loves to visit Safari Land every time we come to Japan and I must admit that I really enjoy visiting as well. Safari Land consists of a small theme park area that is free to enter, although you have to pay for tokens that are then valid across the rides, and the Safari Part itself where you could either pay to drive through in your own car or take a guided tour through on a bus. We always go for the guided bus since you also get to feed the various animals on the route through the use of some metal tongs that can be pushed through grills along the side of the bus.

Safari Bus

We arrived at the park to find the first available bus tour was already full so we signed up for the second bus and then took a walk around the theme park section. MiniMe went straight to the go-kart track where he was now tall enough to drive one of the ‘skid karts’ around the track provided that he had an adult sitting next to him. I drew the short straw and had several scary laps of the track with MiniMe at the helm while Japanese pop music blasted from speakers dotted around the course. MiniMe loved it although I hope his driving skills improve as he gets older.

We’ve been visiting the Safari Land for quite a few years now and it was strange to see MiniMe aiming for all the older kid rides this time when previously he would just want to sit on the little kid cars, which do not move anywhere and just resemble the small kid rides you find outside supermarkets in the UK. He did insist on riding the giraffe around, which has a small motor and wheels on the legs, but I suspect that will not be repeated on our next visit since he’ll deem it a ride “for babies”.

It was soon time for our bus tour so we grabbed some drinks from the plentiful vending machines (there are vending machines everywhere in Japan) before taking our bench seat on the bus ready for the tour to begin. This time we had the lion bus and we were soon being driven around the park. Our first stop was to feed some zebra and a camel by holding out some small pieces of bread with the tongs but on a first attempt one of the circling hawks dive bombed the side of the bus and helped itself to MiniMe’s bread. He was not happy with the birds so I had to let MiniMe use my bread while I kept a lookout for more cheeky winged beasts.

Japanese Shrine

The bus then moved through various security gates as we headed into the more dangerous animal sections; first stop was the cheetah enclosure where we have the opportunity to hold out pieces of meat from the side of the bus. Next we moved through the tiger enclosure and the lion enclosure where again small pieces of meat were dangled out of the side of the bus ready for the growling large cats to take their feed. I was once again on hawk duty since the somewhat suicidal birds would swoop down across the side of the bus trying to grab the meat before the tigers or lions could snap their jaws shut. It would not surprise me to find that the lions get an accidental bird lunch on occasion.

The tour pulls to a stop in a ‘petting zoo’ style section where the small goats, llama, and kangaroos seem even more aggressive in their pursuit of people to feed them. There is even a small enclosure where there seems to be hundreds of guinea pigs hopping about but the small furry fiends give Mrs danyul the heebie jeebies so we stayed away this time.

The final stop on the way back to the car park was at the elephant house where MiniMe had great fun holding out carrots and other vegetables for the baby elephant to snack on. Again, Mrs danyul keeps a distance from the elephant since it’s trunk sways around sniffing for food and it does not seem to discriminate between food and scarves if you get too close. This ended our visit to Yamaguchi Safari Land and we headed home with a very content MiniMe snoring in the back of the car.