The grass is green, the sky is blue, the sun is out...

which makes it a sweltering 39 degrees today. And a humidity that, judging by the amount of sweat being produced by everyone I see (and myself) must be at eleventy million.....

But that's ok. Air con in cars meant I could go with Hachisuke sensei (one of the Shiramizu dojo instructors) to the Sekiyado-Jo museum. A Jo is basically a fort, and it's located right on the border between Saitama and Chiba prefectures. In the olden days (like, feudalistic, Tokugawa days; if you know your Japanese history), it was a rather large fort/town during the warring periods. That's me and Hachi in front of the fort gates.

There was some pretty interesting stuff ranging from old old documents to suits of armour to models of how they controlled the flooding river to a seppukku knives display (seppukku, as you may well know, is personal disembowelment, reserved only for those who have truly brought shame upon themselves). Would you have the resolve to disembowel yourself with these knives??

It was pretty interesting to see and at the top, on a clear, non-smoggy day, you're supposed to be able to see Mt. Fuji. But, as is the way things are, it was rather smoggy that day so there wasn't much to see. Although the surrounding country side was rather pretty.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm off on a whirlwind tour of Tokyo with Richard. I'm rather looking forward to that, if not only to be able to speak regular English at a regular speed for some length of time. Richard, this blog, and emails are the occassional Japanese person are the few that I can speak "regular" English to.

Try as I might, I fear I will talk a bit funny for the first few weeks after I return to Canada haha.........