Friday Project - The Koto

Hello again.

This friday's project (10/27/2006) We were guests to a Koto instructor. I did not get very much information about her, but I do have plenty of nice pictures to show, along with some clips. Let's start with a clip to listen to while you browse the pictures.



The Koto is a Japanese Harp. It consists of a long rounded block of hard wood, nylon strings tightly attached end-to-end, and a series of plastic bridges that hold the strings taut and assist in tuning.

The strings are individually tuned for the particular song you are playing. I'm sure there's a lot more information on Wikipedia So I'm just going to talk about what I saw and show off the pictures that I took. Plus the sounds are cool, of course.

Just a moment while I fire up Photoshop. I've been 'developing' my photos digitally. cropping and tuning up the colors and contrast. The results are great, I think. :)



This is the instrument.



And here's a closeup of the strings.



And a few more detail shots of the Koto and instructor's playing. The standing things are 'pillars' and the finger things are for playing. She occasionally presses down with her left hand to change the pitch of the note. It was interesting to watch.

After a short bit of instruction, it was time for the students to put on the little finger-picks and try their hand at 'Mushi no Koe' or "An Insect's Voice." Now, I didn't record any of their playing, I was too busy taking pictures. :)


The students were faced with strings and picks, and a sheet of japanese music, but most of them did pretty well, I would think.


Everybody taking turns at studying.

Finally, we were presented with a much more involved demonstration of Koto to round up the morning session. Apparently these Koto are owned by JCMU and Shiga Prefecture, so some of the students were interested in continuing to practice.



Enjoy!

Oh! Osaka!

Yay, Osaka!

It was too bad that the first time I went I had no camera, so this time I made sure it was charged, full of batteries, and empty. I set the picture quality up so that I would be able to take plenty of shots and off I went...

First, a few random shots in the train station:

This is where we got off in Osaka, underground.



And a random statue with a big open area in the underground mall called the 'Namba walk.' The mall itself was pretty cool.


(switched to Flickr to continue)
And here's a monument in the mall itself.

Out to the surface and we find...

Dotonbori (after a short walk) and a mechanical crab! Next time I see it I'll try and video the movement.

Dotonbori is a famous shopping street in Osaka. There is the home of such landmarks as...

The glico man! A giant neon sign.

And most famous of all is Kuidaore Taro.


He's even got Kuidaore themed food.

Here's another shot of the river beside Dotonbori.


After leaving dotonbori we headed for Nipponbashi, otherwise known as Den-Den town. The Den comes from 'Denki' or electricity. Den-Den town is full of video game and electronics stores.
So starting off from Dotonbori we headed south along the road past Namba station, past the Shin Kabuki-za...


And the Nankai building (which I hear has a theater inside)


And here comes tower records as we round the corner...


And we turn down a side street to see...

The beginning of the several miles of game stores.

Things really pick up once you get to the Nipponbashi proper.


And you can find stuff like old video games...

Or plastic figures and models...


Or even giant figures!

Smile, snake!


At the southernmost end of Nipponbashi is Tsutenkaku, another monument of Osaka.

We walked right up underneath it!

And ate Takoyaki, a fried ball of dough with a little octopus leg inside.

It didn't taste that good though. Well, I didn't like the texture.

Since night had fallen we walked back to that intersection and I took a photo of Tsutenkaku at night... except they didn't light it up! bummer.


And that was our trip to Osaka!

10.23.2006 - A new plan

So today I had a regular day. Class, lunch, etc. I recieved my test from last friday. I had a score of 74. Hope to make it to 80 next time!

Anyway, I realized that since I can edit posts and save them up for a while, I should start making two types of posts, photo collections, and blogs.

I can write the blogs every day, no problem, but the photo stuff takes longer. If I keep holding myself back because of photos then I forget to do them, or don't want to spend time making updates. So now I'll make regular blog posts (maybe with some topic-of-the-day photos) and work on the big posts in the spare time I have.

That's all for today, i want to make more progress on my photo posts!

10.18.2006 - Another Day

Got some time to post today.

As I start posting more regularly, I think I will start off with a summary of current events. Then move on into the pictures.

Today is Wednesday, everybody goes off to the bar on Wednesday nights, but I stay back. Well, not everybody, but a good portion of people. I would like to go, but it being the middle of the week and Wednesdays being what they are I would really rather not strain myself that much.

On Wednesday I have class in the morning, then I ride directly over to USP (that's the University of Shiga Prefecture) to meet with the ESS (English Speaking Society.) There are ESS clubs at most universities.
Firstly I'll say that USP is a bit of a ride. About 15-30 minutes, depending on the wind and weather. I usually bring headphones to wear while I ride.

ESS today was not bad. Each day one of the students volunteers a lesson. I attend to help out with English and also participate in the lesson. It's hard for me to speak English here since I'm surrounded by Japanese kids, but I try my best. Today the lesson was 'music listening.' We listened to a song and looked at a sheet of lyrics with some blanks in it. The students were to write the word that went in the blank by listening for it in the song. It was actually pretty hard, but I only got one wrong. Obviously it was much more difficult for the Japanese kids, but they gave it a good try. I was impressed. I ate lunch during this class. Though I usually get Curry Rice from the cafeteria, today I got two pieces of garlic toast, a bagel, and some juice because I wasn't very hungry.

After that class I go to my four-hour religion class. Last week we watched 'Sanshiro', a movie about Judo by Akira Kurosawa. We also watched 'Hoichi the Earless', an adaptation of a japanese ghost story.
This week it was 'Haunted Junction', a rather silly and (I thought) boring anime by the same guy that did Ranma 1/2. While it was a little funny, mostly I was just bored by the animation, the slapstick, and the dialogue. I guess I'm growing out of that sort of anime, or perhaps it was too old.
The story was about three kids living at a school that is full of ghosts. The lead character is the son of a christian priest, the boy is the son of a buddhist priest, and the girl is the son of a shinto priest. Their respective 3 homes (and temples/churches) are at the points of a triangle of power centered on the school, which is the cause of the ghosts. If it sounds a bit occult, don't worry, the anime mostly just pokes fun at all three religions and is mostly very silly, with a lot of running around and surprises from the school spirits. In each episode the three combine their skills to fight off demons that try to attack the school, and the various ghosts of the school help out too.


Afterward we watched 'Princess Mononoke.' This is avaliable on DVD in america. It's a movie that is a good example of 'Animism,' or the idea that living and nonliving things have spirits in them, and there are things like 'the god of boars' or 'the god of the forest.' It refers to a spiritual energy that is created by the life of the trees and animals in nature, and generally attributes a lot of mysical power to nature itself. In the movie a young boy comes across a boar god that has been taken over by some oily blackness, an evil. He kills the god/demon, but not before some of the evil black stuff burns his arm and the god curses him with its dying breath. From there he leaves his home village and travels the world to find a cure for the growing black rot on his arm.
While it seems strange, the movie is basically about the evils of an expanding human civilization that doesn't care for the sacred woods or nature in general. People wielding guns attack the 'gods' and attempt to steal the head of the god of the forest in an effort to obtain eternal life. In the end of the movie nature rebels against them and almost kills off humanity, but the young boy risks his life to retrieve the head and return it to nature, repenting for the sins of mankind. In the end nature reclaims the lands that man had covered with buildings and spoiled with mines, but allows humanity to live, having learned its lesson.
So the message is 'don't be reckless with nature, because before you know it you might find your life in danger because of your carelessness.'

Now for a couple of pictures before I go to bed. I spent a lot more time talking about my day than I did getting photos ready, so here's a couple...

Here's a picture of a bridge in the castle. This bridge is built so that the part on the side of the castle is higher than the one that visitors would enter by. This is so that the lord greeting the visitors would not only seem taller, but also be able to see everybody that was standing there. Nobody could hide from the archers up in the castle, either.

And here's a picture of the castle grounds. Not even all of it either. This is just a part that we could see from up top. The castle hill/mountain is quite tall. You can see the castle from most places in Hikone.

Well, it's time for me to go now. Hope that I get to post a lot more pictures tomorrow.

10.17.2006 - Hikone Castle

Well, here I am for another 30 minutes to give you some blog.

Right now the internet is very slow, so I might post some pictures, or I might talk a little about life in Japan. Let's see how things go...

Starting off is a photo of Hikone Castle!



It's been so long since I went here that I forgot what it was about! This is still old-camera photos, by the way. I will go back to Hikone Castle when the leaves start turning red to get a new set of pictures.

Anyway, the tour of the castle was pretty interesting. It's actually more than just that one building (Which is pretty small.) The castle grounds are quite large and are very impressive. Lots of high walls, tons of stairs, and stonework everywhere.



This is a shot of the garden outside the castle. I say garden, but it's actually just a big field with lots of rocks in it, monuments and things. I'm trying out a bit iof professional photo editing too. Maybe I can squeeze some life out of the old camera photos yet. :)

Some rapid-fire stuff before I go to bed:
...
Or not, since the internet is so slow now.

Oh well... Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to post some more.

10.05.2006 - My birthday, other things...

Hello again. It's been way too long since my last blog post. I'm going to try and post more often now so I can work through all the pictures that I took. So let's see what's up first...



Aha! The drag-and-drop method worked. This makes it much easier to post images... I won't bore you with technicalities, though. Images are still hosted on imageshack, but now it's because I like imageshack -better- than blogger's image hosting.

As for the actual image, this is our clam. We've actually found a second one. He's really small and sometime I'll take a picture of him and the other clam out of the water, and also try to get one of them in action.


We went to Big Boy. Yep, they have Big Boy in japan. The sign says 'Handmade Hamburgers" in yellow.



Here Don and Brian decide what to have for dinner. Angie is to the left, but isn't in the frame.

And when we're ready to order, we push a button...


This informs a waitress that our table is ready to order. After we're done we get the food... which looked so good that I didn't take a picture of it.

But they don't server burgers, they serve 'hamburg steak', which is basically a hamburger patty on a hot skillet with various garnishings. Mine had ham and cheese inside. Yum.

That's all the pictures for September 25th. I'm out of time for now, but I'll keep updating until I run out of pictures to put up. :)