Japan really is some country! There are so many wonderful things there – beautiful buildings, temples, bullet trains, courteous people, great cuisine and on and on. These things, and more, we expected we might find and we were never disappointed, but one thing that truly surprised me was the toilets of Japan. I do not mean to be discourteous or trivial or rude to our Japanese hosts in making these observations. The truth is that their loos demonstrate, if anything, the ingenuity of Japanese in an area of life that is relevant to all of us every day. They have given toilets much more thought than we in the west have ever done.
Continue readingArchive for August, 2024
We have this new dog. Her name is Sable. A young black labrador, she is sleeping at my feet right now. I think that I knackered her out when we went fishing today.
Continue readingWhen we witnessed the cormorant fishing on the Uji river we were told that the fish that the cormorants catch are sweetfish or Ayu. I knew nothing of these fish and, in learning more about them, I found out about an ingenious way that Japanese fishermen catch them.
Continue readingA highlight of our recent visit to Japan was getting to see cormorant fishing on the Uji River which runs through Uji city in Kyoto. We came across this opportunity by chance, having climbed nearby to see the macaques on a nearby hilltop (these are monkeys famously seen bathing in hot springs during the depths of winter). Having worked up quite a sweat we decided to “chill” for a little while aboard a little hired rowing boat on the river nearby. It was only when we returned our boat that we came across a poster advertising boat trips to witness the ancient tradition of fishing with cormorants. We decided that we would return to do so the next evening.
Continue reading
fishydreams 