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Kyoto/Osaka/Nara trip – Quite simply in two words; beauty and tranquilty. Think breathtaking shrines and temples, and then some.

The annual retreat back into wilderness and the embrace of everything natural continues this year with a 5 day travel itinerary to Takasaki in the Gunma Perfecture, hometown of my very good friend Takeshi. Here ample thanks and gratitude must be appropriated to my hosts Takeshi+Kojima whom without them this trip would never have been possible. We travelled far and wide for hours to distant mountains and waterfalls, cabbage farms so huge and wide it was like standing in the middle of the world; quiet, undiscovered villages that could only have appeared in quaint old Japanese films. One night a miraculously timed, passing glance into the starry skies had us catching a beautiful, long tailed shooting star. What are the odds.

Takeshi’s father is a farmer so every trip back to Takasaki is like a dietary detox session; an astonishing variety of homegrown vegetables are eaten and meat consumption drops to a virtual zero.

Kojima attempts a Kodak moment.

The Ito residence.

No, I didn’t digitally enhanced the colours on these flowers; they were of the very same intensity I saw with my own eyes, but Takeshi quickly informs : “Erm..these are actually the flowers of…weeds.” Killjoy.

A half-reluctant 3 days holiday trip to Yamanashi Highlands had me reliving the forgotten horrors of an organized group tour. Sponsored by a certain Rotary Club, whose members have affliations with my former Japanese language school, I had fatally commited my name a month ago, thinking perhaps I could meet up with some of my old friends, most of whom didn’t turn up anyway. So after checking into the hotel the “program” started as we were ferried from place to place, touch and go travelling, stopping at one souvenir town after another till I was sure I won’t survive till day three.

And what’s with the incessant photo taking ?? Sure, I mean if the scenery’s justifiably beautiful and all, but the crazied lot were snapping everywhere they went, outside a cliched souvenir shop, front of the roadside, long as they could find a place to stand. This lady, seeing me grieving in pain outside the souvenir shop, came up and asked : ” Say, you don’t like taking pictures ? ”

Silence.

No more group tours for me.

An invitation from my good friends Takeshi+Kojima for a summer vacation in Takeshi’s hometown Gunma ( a largely rural prefecture north of Tokyo, very Riri ShuShu-ish. ) was an excellent way to kickstart the vacation, although temperatures there soared to a searing 37.1 degrees as we arrived, threatening to set my short crop on fire. This time round armed with a video camera documentation was high on the tasklist, and the highlights certainly had to include a drive up mountain Akagiyama ( home to the manga and film Initial D, although the drive up the winding roads gave me none of that “need for speed” gusto but a splitting headache instead. ), as well as the annual Takasaki summer festival, complete with fireworks and folkdances.