鹿児島 (Kagoshima) & Osaka

Back in the first weekend of September I took a quick trip down to Kagoshima to a surprise visit to my grandmother's. My mother and sister were there for quite a while, and my father was also visiting for a week. I had some days in lieu so I popped over for a few days without announcing. I must say that my parents were pleasantly surprised when I called them, and at the same time walked through the front door. tee hee. In all honesty, I wanted to be there for my grandmother since our entire family has never been to meet her together. In the past decade, I've always visited my grandmother on my own, and my mother and sister together. Heck, I never even really meet my whole family together much either, since during those rare moments I'm actually back in Canada, one of my family members would usually be missing. (*the first photo of our whole family together with my grandmother, mother's mother since my sister's been born.)

On the way down, I also stopped by Kobe to meet up with a friendly face. Christina whom used to live in the outskirts of Sanjo, but left for greener (though in actual fact, more concerte) pastures. She seems to be doing well, but is longing for New York which is a city one can not recreate in Japan. I was happy to be able to catch up with her on my way down and back to Kagoshima. Me being the cheap bastard that I am, opted out to take an overnighter bus ride to Osaka and then fly down to Kagoshima than to fly from Niigata airport. (*Check out Christina's new dog in her basket, tee hee)

Anyways, back in Kagoshima. Instead of relaxing at my grandmothers, I was once again busy by trimming and pruning the trees in the garden and other agricultural work. Actually quite a bit of work since my father or I would only come around to my grandmothers once every 5 years or so to overhaul the garden. Plenty of house work to do. Fix the screen windows, take out a lot of accumulated trash etc. (*Japan's biggest Camphor tree is actually from my mothers home town of Kamou, trunk diameter is 24.2metres!)

Many usually presume that one's relative lives in a high-tech home in Japan, but my grandmother is really out in the sticks. The toilet is a long drop (no flushing, plumbing), to get hot water in the tub, you collect the pre-chopped wood and start a fire, or drain some of the water which was pumped up onto a roof top container which was heated via the sun, no airconditioning... What can I say,.. it was bloody hot and my entire family slept under a huge 蚊帳　kaya (mosquito net). Also in Japanese, they would say that we slept in the form of the kanji, "River". 川の字に寝る Since the kanji for river is written as 川, when people sleep side-by-side head to toe, it looks like the "River" kanji. Three lines. Though, in reality you can have more than 3 people and still say that you're sleeping like the kanji "River". I can't recall the last time my whole family sleep together in the same room. Probably a first. (*my folks enjoying a bit of fireworks, with my sister blurred at the side.)

Anyways, I'm keeping all of these blogs short so I can catch up with the other blogs...