Nagoya Castle Main Palace is coming to life again

Main palace once was a large complex of one-storey wooden buildings with more than 30 rooms of different sizes and functions. Unfortunately they were all burnt down by air-raid in 1945.

The city decided to rebuild the National Treasure  for the 400th anniversary of the founding Nagoya City and started the construction in 2010.

It is good that the old documents, charts and photos were survived the destruction or fire during the war, this made the restoration work easier following the original palace of 17th century.

Take a look at those huge beams, pillars, and rafters.  Japanese cypress “Hinoki” is used for making these parts.

They are durable and lasts for hundreds of years.  One can see beautiful natural wooden patterns. Japanese cypress has good aroma and one can smell it from the lumbers.  As Japanese people love simplicity in nature, we don't paint the lumber to keep its natural color.

Aside from Japanese cypress,  cedar, pine, mulberry, and zelkova are also used in the different sections of the buildings.
Good qualities of those timbers are from several areas such as Gifu Prefecture, Nagono, Wakayama and some in Shikoku region. 

Please observe the beautiful roofs covered with  thinly cut woods called singles.

They are made of Japanese cedar which is quite resistant to rain.
Carpenters lay thin singles precisely in an overlapping pattern starting from bottom to roof top.

Do you know how do they seal singles? They use bamboo nails. They are durable and free from rusting.

The carpenter put some tiny bamboo nails into his mouth.  When he use it,  he takes out one by one from his mouth.  Then he presses a bamboo nail hard against a single then quickly hit it by a hammer. Amazing skill.

Usually there are about twenty to forty carpenters including several young women carpenters working daily in this location.
Aside from carpenters, other craftsmen such as stone workers, plasterers, roof tilers, lacquer workers are working inside and outside the buildings.
Most of them are from Tokai area.  The city is planning to hire them for long term maintenance.

This huge reconstruction project is very significant for craftsmen to study and hand down the Japanese traditional art of carpentry to the next generation.


One section of the palace will be open to the public this May.  The whole restoration will be completed in 2018.
Anyone will be able to see this on-going construction  from the special walkway for the visitors. You can't miss this rare chance.

More about on Nagoya Castle Main Palace Restoration is here

Steam Locomotive runs in the city

This morning I saw several helicopters hovering over the sky above the station area.
"What's going on?"  Noisy sound really bothered me. Then I noticed that today and tomorrow the city runs a steam locomotive C56-160 for the first time in 27 years as an trial event.
Nagoya City Mayor, Kawamura is aiming the operation of locomotive  in the city will bring about some good effects on the economy.  During the demonstration run for two days, they make some research  on  surrounding areas in terms of noises, shakes, smoke and soot.  If the results clear the regulation, we may add a new attraction spot in Nagoya.
 
 A C56-160 will run tomorrow three times. It's a 20-minute-ride to a terminal.  A total number of 1,200 seats for two days were booked by lot in advance.
Here some more information on schedule.(Japanese only)

You may be also interested in this article, too.

pictures from TV news program：

By the way,  you may see some reflections in a picture.  
This is not a Psychic photograph , I'm afraid　:<

Happy Valentine's Day

I send you every single friends of mine

 lots of thoughts and love on this special day. 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR FRIENDSHIP

How many are there on your hands?

Today  it's about websites or blogs or other social net services I get involved with now.
I have one of each.  I have to admit.


1)My first personal website 2) My blog in Japanese 3) My blog in English 4) Twitter 5) Facebook  6)Two photo logs.

Besides these private ones, I take care of the website of the volunteer interpreters group  as well as its Twitter and its Facebook Page.

How do I possibly handle one of each for these ten years???
I don't know.  Probably I like writing. I like expressing.  I am not a good writer but I keep them one way or another.

Most of my blogs are just like my dairy while my Twitter, Facebook are for interacting with my friends inside and outside the country with two languages; Japanese and English .  Of all these, here I write "My Hodgepodge" in English.  It is  to build up my ideas, thoughts, concerns and issues so that I could share them in English.  It's an important exercise for me. That also helps me a lot when I guide foreign guests and tourists.

Communicating in different styles is fun!

My childhood hero is gone

  

My childhood great hero is gone.

The former sumo grand champion Taiho passed away at the age of 72.

  While Japanese enjoy its longevity, I am afraid that his death has come a bit earlier.

It is no doubt that he is one of the greatest grand champions in the sumo history.

He  won the trophy 32 times in his career from 1956 to 1971.

This record has not yet been broken by now.

When I was a kid,  he was already on the top as a grand sumo champion.

He was strong, quiet, reserved and what's more handsome.

Oh I really liked him. He was strong and always had a good fight with his opponent.

Every match I watched on TV, it was too thrilling for a kid.

I recall I often watched him grappling with his opponent wrestler 

while I was hiding at the back of my father's shoulder 

or  covering my eyes halfway with my hands. 

I just couldn't keep an eye on an exciting match

while people roared loudly at two wrestlers' every move.

When I heard the TV announcer shout 

that Taiho threw his opponent down to the ground,

I felt released and happy.

People said he was a genius but he claimed that he was not.

He spoke that he always kept making a tremendous effort. 

"It was not easy." he said.   His favorite word was "patience." 

He also made a great contribution for the social welfare 

especially after overcoming a stroke.

He is a real Hero.  We will miss him.

(image is from web news)

Review 2012

I hardly had time to look back at my previous year before this.

All of my family were back home in time for the New Year's holidays.  

We visited the shrine on the first day of the year 

to make a wish for our healthy and happy life. 

We didn't do anything special beside it.  

We just enjoyed a slow pace of the holidays at home.

Shortly they went back to each routine.

It's time for me to sit back and recall what I did last year.

I started guiding visitors from abroad in English.
I made some trips and journeys

where there were nice people and amazing culture.

I had a happy reunion with a friend from abroad 

for the first time in  30 years.

I always enjoyed interacting with people.  

I am thankful to each and every one of my family and my friends

who made my year so special and inspiring. 

I've got to move on to make this year very rewarding as well.

What a nice way to celebrate the Coming of Age Day

Today we celebrated the national holiday, Coming-of-Age Day, on the second Monday of January. 

It seemed that the whole country was freezing today due to the powerful low pressure, which brought a huge snowfall throughout the country. Cars and trains in Tokyo were crippled, too.

1.22 millions of young adults of 20 years old were all blessed with this freezing weather. Many headed for each public celebration venue such as a city hall and a school gym. Girls were so excited because they wore a traditional kimono with long sleeves, an outstanding symbol of a unmarried young woman. Boys were happy with a traditional outfit or a brand new business suit. 

From today they have a right to vote, to drink  and to smoke not to mention they are required to follow the law to be a good citizen.

Well what are these young generation dreaming their future?

One research stated that 97% of them answered that they have an anticipation for the future. The present society is suffering from the poor economy. They know it's not a world of a life long employment anymore as like their parents were guaranteed. They are conscious about in which way the society is heading for.  Especially all after the mega disaster of 3.11.  

So they are not keen to success or ambition.  According to the research, 56 % of them are interested in getting a job which others show gratitude to them: a service industry for nursing elderly, a care taker for elderly and an environmental conservation business.

No matter what the reality is,  the young generation is trying to make their future, too.  On their own ways.

(all the images are from the web news)

Greetings!

How have you been, my friends? 

I am doing busy as usual but trying to keep up with blogging.  

May 2013 will be filled with peace, love and happiness!

Heartwarming wedding party

This was my last volunteer job for the year 2012 and it was a very worthy one.

One day in spring I got an e-mail from a Japanese woman in Australia.  She was looking for a volunteer interpreter for her Australian husband and his family. They were going to have a wedding party in her home city, Nagoya in December.

On that day I met her for the first time, she introduced me to her husband, and to his family.

When she wrote me the first mail, she mentioned that her husband desperately needed an interpreter sitting next to him at the main table during the whole party.  I wrote back to her that it would not be a good idea.  I was pretty sure people would love to see only the happy couple at the main table. A presence of an interpreter may distract the attention. More than anything else, she could be a best interpreter for her husband.  Yet my idea was not accepted.  Her husband explained to me that they would like to spend much time talking and sharing with their relatives and friends and not for themselves.  So their guests found an interpreter sitting next to a bridegroom on the party day.  My colleague then interpreted for his mother and brother at a table of both families.

The whole party was just heartwarming. Although the bride planned everything in detail beforehand, there were some surprises which she never knew of ----such as a speech of her father and a lively entertainment by her ex-colleagues of flight attendants. Welcoming surprises brought them lots of laughter and happy tears as well.

As for my job, most of the time, I translated by whispering to him. Sometimes I just refrained from interpreting on the spot because I wanted him to feel the atmosphere first.  I did so, for instance, when the bride's uncle chanted a Japanese traditional poem. I explained its meaning after his performance.  He made some questions about Japanese culture and this gave me a chance to talk to them about our traditions. 

My role was more than interpreting.  It was challenging for me.  I felt very much thankful that they gave me an opportunity to have a wonderful experience.

Discussion with Guest-speakers

Well, I wrote this post halfway last month.

My days were quite hectic with different activities.

One of these I write here is actually dated back in Nov.  So what? 

Will you forget about a time gap in a story?

I just begin from where I stopped last time.

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At last my busy week was over. I almost forgot this is the last day of the week, Saturday!

Today I went to the study meeting for volunteer interpreters. Actually we had a special event called the International Exchange Meeting. 　We invited two guest-speakers who talked about what they wanted us Japanese to learn about their countries.
A German lady guest talked about production and handling of garbage and cash/cashless payments.  A woman from China talked about one child policy and dangerous food.
Then we had a very good discussion pointing out some crucial aspects to understand the situation and compare with the situation in Japan. The main purpose of this meeting was the active participation of everyone in the discussion.  By asking and answering questions from each stance of three different countries, it was really an enlightening discussion that we enjoyed after all.

Well maybe I'd better update my blog about the discussion today some time soon-----hopefully. It was indeed good to learn something new from someone in a different country.