A couple of weekends back we celebrated ‘Coming of Age Day’ here in Japan. During the day off, I visited Odawara — a somewhat faded tourist town near Tokyo.

As ever, I’ve uploaded a small collection of photos to the usual places:

• .Mac Gallery (Fast Computers)
• Flickr (Slow Computers)

Odawara Castle itself is a modern reproduction and hosts a small museum of Japanese artifacts. One particular display brought back a childhood fascination with pocket sundials, instilled after seeing a number in the London Science Museum:

Last weekend, a friend — Dede — invited me to the Tokyo 12th annual ‘Foreign Students’ Music Contest’ in which she was competing.

Performances ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime; the audience watched a Jackson-esq dance routine set to ‘Smooth Criminal’ followed closely by a performance of traditional Japanese Noh-style drumming.

I snapped a couple of the photos of Dede’s Indonesian group performing a SMAP number and was lucky enough to catch Dede in full swing with her ‘angklung‘:

Last weekend, I enjoyed my first snowboarding of the season, taking first a day trip to Gala Yuzawa and then spending three days in Shigakogen in Nagano.

Nagano is referred to as the Japanese Alps and, with all the intertwined slopes and beautiful scenery, it’s easy to see why.

This year I ventured out with my camera and took a few photos:

• .Mac Gallery (Fast Computers)
• Flickr (Slow Computers)

Mike has now posted yet more tales of our trip through the northern lands.

We came upon a street of innumerable tiny bars, and stopped in one after being harangued by a greeting-lady stood outside. The bar was the size of a large dining table, and could fit around eight people in, squeezed between the counter and the windows. Somehow, this tiny bar managed to provide us with delicious sake-spirit type drinks and the largest amount of raw squid I’ve ever had the pleasure of consuming…

Read the full posting here.

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first ever Noh performance. Noh is a traditional Japanese performance art, described by Wikipedia as “a major form of classic Japanese musical drama [...] performed since the 14th century”.

Noh Flyer

As with many such traditional art forms, women are unable to take part in performances so their roles are played by men. In the case of Noh, men wear masks to portray women and extra-ordinary characters. These are reminiscent of Victorian-era porcelain dolls and – coupled with the rather agressive dancing of Noh – would have given me many a nightmare as a child.