My trip to the UK and books, books, books!

Hello.
...
Yes, I know...I have been a VERY bad blogger. SO here are my excuses and everything in between!

1. Work became really busy.  I mean REALLY busy...
2. I went to the UK!!!! in July.
Here are the pictures:

the British Museum

Spent the whole day here and still didn't get to see everything...

The weather was fantastic during my whole stay in London!

the feet of a buddha

After the British Museum, I went to a lovely antiquarian bookseller...

Jarndyce

and bought:

a 1871 edition of the Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

and a 1911 edition of Intentions by Oscar Wilde

the red book on the left is a recent buy.

It is a reproduction (facsimile) of the 1911 first edition of 

The Concise Oxford Dictionary

published to commemorate the 100th anniversary. 

It looks fabulous with the old books that I have.

The inside of the Tate Modern Museum

I spent at least 5 hours here!

London old and new.

Keble College in Oxford. The dining hall.

The dorm room I stayed in at Keble College.

I wonder who is staying there now.  

I left a copy of Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" on the bookshelf.

I had so  much fun in the UK. 

It was only a few weeks later that the riots in London started and that made me very sad...

3. In August I went to Okinawa:

and saw people dancing in the streets.

Visited Shuri Castle on my day off and found 

an interesting looking spigot!

4. At the end of August I had a few days of vacation and visited Nagasaki.  Found a very interesting structure:

that turned out to be a very long slide!

...

5. I also went to two other Prefectures in Japan (sorry no pictures) and of course Tokyo again...all for work...

But a few things arrived in the mail that reminded me of the blogging world...

first it was :

the author Lisa's bloodspot blog is here:

http://papertigertail.blogspot.com/

Finally going to start reading this now!

Which reminded me I have to write a blog on this wonderful series

but I might just wait till her new book arrives!

In the meantime check out the author's blog here:

http://cristyburne.wordpress.com/

And then IT came...

If you are a longtime blogger fan then she needs no introduction...

Tess the author of the Life at Willow Manor blog has published her first booklet of poems.

I said I would buy it if she published it and I have.  It arrived safely here in Japan just a few weeks ago.  I used to love poems but drifted away not being able to find anything new that resonated...but Patina (as is the Willow Manor blog) is filled with poems that are lovely to read out loud and lovely to read silently just like a short story.

I looked up Patina in my brand new First Edition Concise Oxford Dictionary and it says,

"Patina: Incrustation, usu. green, on surface of old bronze, esteemed as ornament. "

Hello again.  I think I am back at blogging!

tatami rooms and western furniture

Tatami rooms are becoming less and less a part of Japanese homes.  I know this because one of my uncles in Japan is a tatami weaver!

Tatami's are made with igusa (rush straws).  I wish I had a picture of some igusa but I haven't seen a crop in decades.  There are still some places that raise igusa in Japan, but the number has decreased over the years due to low priced straw from China.  However, according to my mother, the smell of Japanese igusa is much sweeter than imports.  There is also a lot of hype these days about the amount of pesticides used in China so now consumers are becoming more aware of what their tatamis are made of, and hopefully this will lead to more "home grown" and/or pesticide free tatami.

The igusa is picked when green and it is woven into mats.  The mats are then sewed onto "boards" made of rice straws.  (Some new materials have shown up to replace these boards too.)  The rims of the long side of the tatami are then covered with a specially woven cloth. 

This rim is called "heri" and these are mainly sewn on for decorative purposes.  Ryukyu datami (or tatami from Okinawa) does not have any heri and is popular these days in places other than Okinawa.

Be careful!

In some (traditional) households, and during ceremonies, it is not polite to step on the heri!

There are several reasons for this..some are sort of superstitious but one is actually "eco friendly": The more you step on the material the faster it wears out!

Most "heri" is pretty colorful, but sometimes the material clashes with furniture or curtains, so these days a lot of people choose simple materials and earthy colors to blend in with the decor.

I didn't choose ours, it was already installed into our apartment when we moved in, so I'm afraid I can't show you  "pretty ones"... ours is this....

...a simple dark brown.  As you can see, we've had these mats for 3 years now and they are not the beautiful green they were when we first moved in.  I'd like to change them but they aren't supposed to stay green forever and the fibers are not damaged at all since we hardly use this room.

Living in tatami rooms is supposed to be good for your health.  That is what the "tatami weaver's association" (tatami shokunin kyokai)  says.  According to the association, studies show that the standing up and sitting down on the floor helps to strengthen bones.  The mats also soak in CO2 and help clean the air... it's like having  a built in air filter... on your floor!

Culture is largely sculpted by the natural environment, and tatami is a perfect example of this. If you have experienced the hot and humid summers of Japan, then you will know that the texture of the tatami floors are a blessing to sticky feet.  They are dry and often cool to the touch in summer.  

The best way to clean your tatami is with a rag soaked in hot water. Be sure to wring out all the water.  Nothing is worse for  tatami than a very damp rag!  Wipe the tatami along the fibers so as not to snag them.  It is best to "hang out" the tatami twice a year to keep them dry, especially after the rainy season (June).  This is easier said than done, so not very many people do this anymore.  A good substitute for this process is to add a few drops of vinegar into the hot water you soak your rag in.  The vinegar acts as a natural disinfectant.

We hardly use our one tatami room for several reasons

1)  It is being used as my library and I don't have enough shelf space yet so there's lots of books stacked on the floor.  

2)  I can't decide on a "look".  (Couches, western style tables and chairs do not look good on tatami.  They make indentations of the mats as well.)

 However, when I was in Nagasaki last year, I stopped by Dejima - a small part of Nagasaki City (more like one block) that used to be the home of Dutch ship merchants from 1636 to 1839.  Does the East India Company wring a bell?  (For more information please visit the Dejima official website.)

This is where I found for the first time, a tatami room that didn't look odd with western style furniture.

I think I have finally found "the look" that I want.

Now I just have to save money to buy the right kind of furniture...uh oh!

Nagasaki part 1 (Megane Bashi)

Megane Bashi (or Glasses Bridge) is the oldest brick bridge in Japan.  It was the first of it's kind built in 1634.  

The day I took this picture the winds were pretty strong so, there are small waves on the surface of the river.  If there were no waves, then the bridge would have reflected more clearly on the water...making it look like a pair of gigantic  eyeglasses staring right at you.  It is 22 meters long.  In 1960 it was designated as a national cultural asset. 

 If you stand on the bridge or around it and start taking pictures of it, one of the nice citizens of Nagasaki is bound to come forward and explain all of this to you.  It happened to me...twice...  I didn't have the heart to say that I already knew all of that.  The people of Nagasaki are really nice.  I know it is ridiculous to stereotype, but everywhere I went there was always somebody willing to explain the history of the city and it's buildings...and I don't even look like a traveler!

Many people who travel to Japan will visit Tokyo and Kyoto.  Some people will even try to get to Hiroshima...(even Che Guevara has been to Hiroshima!) but in my opinion, not enough people travel to Nagasaki.  One of the reasons is because the bullet train (shinkansen) does not go all the way to Nagasaki.  (There are mainly two reasons for that and I will try to explain that some other day...)  But I still think that Nagasaki, although it is rather inky dinky in size, is a good place to learn about some of the most interesting and devastating times of Japanese history.