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20 October 2008

British Style Garden in Tokyo

I went to Former Furukawa House & Garden Park in Tokyo. The house and garden used to be owned by one rich family named Furukawa, who established very big conglamour. The house was designed by British architect Josiah Conder. It was built in 1917.

Now it is owned by the Tokyo metropolitan government. It is beautiful, especially the time like this with beautiful roses blossoming in the garden.

See the photos of the below.

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I'll post some more photos of the garden on album section.

The Poem reading and guitar playing show was held in the garden. The below photo is a woman reading a Shakespear's poem.

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You can also enjoy the You Tube clip of the visit.

Enjoy the acoustic guitar playing at last part. It was very nice.

 

15 September 2008

Visited the Shrine for the Shogun's grave

On 14 of September, Sunday, I visited Japan's most famous shrine in Nikko city, which is 2 hour train ride from Tokyo.

It is called Nikko-Toshogu. The shrine was established for the grave of the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who established Tokugawa dynasty in early 17th century. The dynasty established unified Japan. He placed Japan's capital in Tokyo, which was called Edo at that time.

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The reason I went there is not just to enjoy the views of the shrine but to pray the Budha or enshrined spirits to protect Tokyo capital region. The shrine is said to be built to forever protect Tokyo capital region. Tokyo is now in dangerous period because the dangerous ship of barbarians are coming and to be anchored very soon. Read this article.

 

The views of the shrine was magnificient. I really enjoyed. A lot of foreign tourists were there. The decorations of the shrine's gate and walls are very artisitic. The statues of Budha, engraves, paintings, all satisfied my expectations. The shrines decorations are relatively flashy compared with typical shrines in Japan. But they are still Japanese and outcompete Chinese temples or old buildings. I really found another type of Japanese beauty.

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Next to this shrine is third Shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu's grave shrine. He is grandson of Ieyasu. Iemitsu in fact established foundamental systems and rules of the dynasty that ran 15 generations, more than 260 years such as seclusion, banning of Christianity and alternate year attendance for regional lords. Those things were done to prevent colonization by the West and separation of the country. He really was great Shogun. Interesting thing is he was known to be very gay Shogun. Although as Shogun, he could have many girls to sleep with, he never made any successor until middle age. He had gay relationship with his retainers. It was openly done because being gay was not conceived inmoral thing in those days. When he died, one samurai lord committed suicide because he was very loyal to him and had strong love relationship with Iemitsu. Well, that is how Japanese samurais were different from western knights.

The below is video clip of the visit on You Tube.

07 September 2008

My favourite TV commerical on You Tube

Kind of heartwarming story in it.

The TV commercial for Suntory's Whiskey, Johnny Walker Black Label. Although I don't like whiskey, this ad is my favourite. That was aired maybe 2 decades ago. I just recently found it on You Tube.

 

The conversation between 2 young guys.

At first, a guy in the bar saw his friend giving $ 10 bill to a begger on the street.

Then his friend came in and they met each other. A guy with glasses said "You were deceived. She had no sick child."

But his friend smiled and replied "I am glad there is no sick child."

 

It just gives you the idea of what is the most important thing in our life.

13:55 Posted in Culture | Permalink | Comments (0)

13 February 2008

Dear Australians: Apology to the Aboriginal people

The Austraian government made an official apology to the Aboriginal people. The Prime Minister said "sorry" to the Stolen generation who were taken away from their families to concentration camps to be assimilated to white values.

 

I've seen the movie "Rabbit Proof Fence." Three Aboriginal girls forced to live in the camp apart from their parents escaped from the camp to go back their home by tracking down the rabbit proof fence. That was based on a true story. What a terrible thing whites did to them. This Aborigines' sad history was mentioned in the You Tube Video about whaling issue. Some scenes of the video showed Aborinial people and subtitles "Australians treated Aborigines inhumanely." The video was viewed by the Australia's foreign minister. It is now removed. But it was very interesting. The theme was Australians' anti-whaling is racist sentiment against Japanese.

 

Now we feel like Aborigines who were taken away their identity and culture. What is wrong with hunting whales and eating the meat? You are not only protesting whaling because of the extinction issue. You think whales are special animal that even there were plenty of it in the ocean, anyone should not hunt even one of them.

Your government showed the photos of captured whales being transported to the fleet from the ocean by the anchor. Cruel? Haven't you ever seen the photos of the meat factories? See this video.   

Are you extracting meat from cows, pigs and kangaroos without killing them? Are you living in the Disney fantazy? Learn the history of your people, there were Australian whaler ships in the past.

 

I shall stop eating Australian beef because cows are cute and intelligent. That is how you think.

 

I do not think your country is civilized nation. You might poison the beef like what Chinese did to us.

It is just fair to decide not to eat the meat imported from the people who criticize what we eat.  

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The photo of whalemeat sashimi served in a restaurant in Tokyo.