What surprised me was how un-Japanese my Japanese host family was. They live in the big, new house pictured here. They have 3 kids, don't drink, like to barbecue at home, and don't like to eat raw fish. These are very rare (but certainly not bad!) things in this country.
Compared to the apartments and houses in the city or suburbs their house is positively massive by Japanese standards. My host family was the wonderful Miyake family. They have three cute children: Ai is 4, Junpei is 2, and Nao is less than a year old. They`re here with my host mom Kayoko.
It was their first time hosting, so they were incredibly relieved that I spoke fine Japanese. Still, there were a few `quirks` that most Japanese hosts would never let occur. For example, they showed me where my futon was stored in my room rather than lay it out for me. Most Japanese host families would never allow such a calamity to occur; I was perfectly happy to make up my own bed. That should illustrate the type of hospitality one gets staying with a host family here.
My host mom picked out a bunch of pamphlets of the surrounding area and the whole prefecture (like a province or state, but usually a bit larger than Rhode Island). Wanting to keep with the experience of the countryside, I picked out all local sites. My host mom said those were all fine, and that we would go see them on the final day before they dropped me off for the bus ride home. The beach shot here is on that final Sunday.
Meanwhile, on Saturday they wanted to take me to more famous places than their hometown. In an ironic turn, my visit to the country took us to Okayama City and Kurashiki City. Okayama the black Okayama Castle as its main attraction. Like so many other things the original castle was destroyed during the war, so this one was rebuilt on the old foundations in the 1960s.
Okayama was a classic castle town of the Tokugawa period, but it also boasts one of the top three gardens in Japan: Korakuen.
The layout was designed for a big shot daimyo (top samurai of a feudal domain) and is painstakingly maintained.
Even more interesting was our visit to Kurashiki. Kurashiki is a great example of a high end traditional tourist site for rich Japanese. The historical Tokugawa (1600s on) town has been preserved on the waterfront and is a pleasure to look at.
The traditional shops are expensive, chintzy, and not really worth looking at to me.
Still, I was shocked to find the town has a really legitimate art museum. We`re standing across from it in this shot.
The Ohara art museum boasts paintings by El Greco, Picasso, Degas, Cezanne, Renior, etc... Interestingly, it also displays the works of Japanese who studied with the Impressionists in Paris.
After starting out on the beach that Sunday, we finally made it to a few of the neighborhood sites. At a traditional garden and machiya in the neighboring town we ran into a friend from KCJS
Running into KCJS friends was common both in Okayama and Kurashiki; clearly no one was proud enough of their oceanside town. My friend was dressed up in Kimono for the afternoon.
Finally, we took a trip up a mountain (by car) to Asakuchi town's real claim to fame: the largest observatory in Japan.
It turns out that Okayama has exceedingly clear skies on days I am not visiting.
1 comment:
The Korakuen garden looks fantastic! Do you have more pictures of it that you can post?
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