Japan Part 6

So now coming to the end of my 3 weeks in Japan and to the end of my current travels.

I first spent 2 nights in the coastal town of Toyama where I spotted this sign for the men's toilets:

Another colourful manhole cover which made me think of thistles...

I went to the port for a great view from the Observation Tower:

Cars being loaded for export. Among them some Audis (didn't know they were built in Japan). The ship had come from Vladivostok.

Exhortation to use the pedestrian crossing at the tram stop.

Inside the house of a trading family that were based close to the port. They had warehouses with thick stone doors for the rice etc. that they were exporting. I also went to the excellent science museum with a very realistic animatronic T-Rex (half size!). I enjoyed a great planetarium show there.

From Toyama I took the train to Matsumoto a town higher up surrounded by snow capped mountains. Also contained a lot of colourful manhole covers like these two:

Matsumoto is the home of the now 97 year old artist Yayoi Kusama, famous for her colourful style:

There were also several exhibits using mirror and lights in which you stood in small room to experience the infinity effect. Very cool.

Whilst searching for a supermarket I passed a cat cafe. Something that has spread to the UK too now:

Today I walked to a museum of woodblock prints. A fascinating video showed how these prints were made - hand carved, one block for each colour used and then the printer has to make sure the paper lines up exactly each time a new colour is applied:

Next door was a collection of old buildings that had been moved from elsewhere in the area, these included a courthouse, a prison, a silk factory and an inn the female workers used on their way from their villages to the factory:

The factory was in operation until 1995. The basins were filled with the silk worm cases and the workers had to grab the threads and loop them through the small rings and then they were wound together into threads.

Matsumoto also has the oldest wooden castle in Japan, dating to the end of the sixteenth century:

I stayed in an excellent hostel called the Couch Potato. Very comfy and clean but with a lovely Japanese aesthetic. The town itself isn't big and has lots of great sights, cafes, bars etc. Also some onsen, though I didn't visit those.

The next day before leaving I visited the former Kaichi School built in 1876:

It was in the Giyofu style of architecture - a quasi Western style where the builders used traditional Japanese techniques but more Western finishes and flourishes like the tower. It was also a leading educational centre with forest schools, the best teachers assigned to the failing students and had 60% attendance rates compared to the national average of 30%. So many children had to work and here there were evening classes for those affected.

Although traditional notion software gender roles were emphasised it's interesting to note the end of this excerpt:

Also at that time the Western influence moved the system away from more individual programmes of education with children following their own interests to whole class teaching using wall charts (as textbooks were rare at first). An idea that is being turned around now in Scotland as we move back to child led learning.

After a stroll around it was back on the train for Tokyo and thankfully an easy change at the massive and labyrinthine Shinjoku station to get to my Narita airport hotel and be reunited with the rest of my luggage I had left there. 

And so this morning heading off to Haneda airport for the flight to London via Singapore, then Aberdeen and finally scheduled to arrive in Shetland in 40 hours or so.