Kamis, 18 Juni 2009

Wednesday, June 17, 2009






Before going on the trip, I had found information about a fabulous bath house, basically across the street from where we were staying. My original intention was to go there every evening.

I did not waste any time. I convinced June to join me on the first night. We put on the ryokan's yukata and went out into the rainstorm to the bath house. The bath house Daikokuyu sentou, as you can see by the pictures, is beautiful. The only reason I did not feel like returning the other evenings was that the water temperature was truly scalding. We came out red like lobsters. This was not my first time to Japanese bath houses, so I was expecting it to be hot.

Sentou are different from onsen, the latter ones are hot springs. Please learn more about sentou here.

This picture reminded me of June and I fighting the wind and rain in our yukata after the bath on our way back to the ryokan. It was hard to keep a yukata properly closed in such a situation.

( Picture of bath house from http://klikdotsystems.jp/stronapolska/files/rok2002/sento.html)

This picture is for Tommy, Ian and Milo. During a memorable lunch in Nikko, Japan, we had a discussion about Tanuki, a Japanese animal. I was informing them about the mythical properties of the tanuki that appear in Japanese folk tradition. But they had doubts about my tales. I promised them an illustration that I found at
http://darumamuseum.blogspot.com/2007/06/tanuki-scrotum.html.
And so if you look carefully...




These manga images are from Ando-Natsu (I think). They represent Naka-mise street in Asakusa after the store have closed. These pictures remind me of the afternoon after we went to visit Bandai. Many of us went back to Asakusa. At that time some of the stores were closing. I took a couple of picture of the closed store fronts because I thought they were amazing.

Vampires in modern day films

Shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural have altered the original context of Bram Stoker's original vampire; Dracula. Thevampire in our more modern has become more comical and relaxed in how he/she has been portrayed in both television shows. Vampires now have a more accepted presence in society where as Bram Stoker's original Vampire was seen as more of a creature to be feared and hunted by man.

In the film Twilight, Bella Swan (human) and Edward Cullen (vampire) fall in love as Bella goes past the Vampire traits in Edward, as she has fallen in love with him. Bella says in the film "Your a Vampire", but later expresses that this will never change anything about how they feel about each other. The vampire has evolved over time to become someone that human mortals can fall in love with and live happily ever after, so it moves away from the antagonist perception to a more protagonist view. However there is still a minority that exists where there bad vampires in existence this is evident in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, where Vampires act both as good and bad