Japan – Expo, Kyoto and Samurai

The day before had been a bit of a challenge because Osaka station was soooo busy but, I got to the hostel with no issues. Tatjana and I met up in the morning after a slight mix up on the trains, weirdly not me this time but, I only had one stop. Anyway we had tickets to the Expo and we made our way there. I’m not sure what I was expecting but, it was colossal and each country had its own building and the theme was ‘Designing Future Society for Our Lives’.

I’m not sure I felt that title in any of the sub themes, it just seemed to be a showcase for tourism as far as I could see.

I think I should say that we had not pre booked any of the stands and didn’t fancy the long queues so I may not be being fair to the other exhibitions.

Bangladesh and Oman made a good impression. Oman particularly with handsome men smiling and dressing up everyone. It surprised us that the men were even dressing the women. Everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time. We asked about travel there to several representatives men and women. The men are really attractive and charming and I said to Tatjana that might be an issue for young women travellers and some older ones Hahaha! Oman might be on the cards for a future trip! I can still see Tatjana’s raising her eyebrows at me!!

The stand out exhibition was Ukraine. Their stand was set up like a shop but the theme was ‘Not for Sale’. Each item had a barcode and an explanation of what it symbolised for war effort. It was very professionally done and hard hitting.

Surrounding the whole event was a huge circular structure several storeys high. Escalators took you up so you could walk around on it. It was even planted with various insect loving plants but, I didn’t see one insect!

We left the exhibition a bit non-plussed I think.

After this we headed to Otsu near Kyoto where Tatjana’s daughter’s family had rented a house. It was lovely to see them again and their little son is now six months old and very cute!

We had one relaxing day walking up to the temples around Mount Hiei. Here we heard the weirdest bird call, we couldn’t see the bird at all,  it’s call would have made a great trilling  phone sound. Tatjana was able to identify it with her phone, a brown headed kingfisher! Who knew!

Then we walked over the peak and down the other side. As we walked there were some very loud Americans behind us. Tatjana told them it was a pilgrimage trail and to get the authentic Japanese effect was by being quiet!!! It was put somewhat more diplomatically than I’ve just described it. It worked for a while!

After a meal in Kyoto we caught the train back.

I had the next day to myself and visited Kyoto, I wasn’t sure what I was going to visit but decided a Samurai museum would be interesting.

Did you know about 30% of the warriors were women? These like the Samurai were from the ruling classes and had a different name Onna-bugeisha and Onna-Mushen, they were trained in Martial Arts, weapons and other skills. They sometimes fought with the Samurai and were trained to defend their households. the peasant classes came the Ninjas and there were women Ninjas too. Kunoichin as they were called often often became spies. Again they were material arts and weapons trained.

The other funny thing was the Samurai armour. Well specifically the helmets were funny, often with Moustaches, this was to disguise the fact many of the warriors were very very young.

I had a go at throwing shurikan (throwing stars). I was rubbish. I think I got one onto the target out of ten throws!

After this I went to the genteel part of town to  visit Gion, the Geisha district. I knew I would be very unlikely to see one. And yes Geishas still exist although there are not so many now.

Geisha are women entertainers and artists, it takes many years to become fully fledged. They conduct tea ceremonies, sing, they dance they are conversationalists and well versed in many things! They are hired privately.

I saw lots of pretend Geishas though as I wandered up to the Temples. I was aiming for the philosopher’s walk, it is meant to be beautiful when the cherries are out. I walked quite a long way and eventually got onto the walk.

It was a rather long day and I walked miles and got the wrong bus when I tried to get back to the house so walked even more. I made it eventually though!