In August '05 I visited the Far East to watch the World Championships in Gifu, Japan, where Henry and other Monktonians were rowing. Unfortunately there was an earthquake just before they arrived in advance of us, for training, and they had to use rowing machines for the week because of the rough water of the Nagara River.
Meanwhile I was in Korea having a wonderful time visiting the demilitarised zone (where you have to sign to say your family won't sue the travel company in the event of you being shot!) seeing the sights (we were amazed by their honesty, the street vendors simply tie a piece of plastic on with string over their stalls when they go home for the night) and sampling the local brew - a 40% white wine in an egg cup, unless being a westerner you ask for a wine glass - the locals watched to see what would happen. A week later I flew in to join Henry for the start of the heats which were delayed by a typhoon coming in.
However, once underway, all three Monktonians made it through to the A-finals the following weekend. Having spent two minutes catching up with Henry as he was whisked off on a bus for food rest, and more training, I and a friend left for Hiroshima, Nara and Kyoto.
We sampled plenty of local delicacies in the sushi bars, went by train in a 'limited romance car' (no sex allowed in the day), took the overnight sleeper to Hiroshima, saw the largest ever cast bronze - a buddha at 53' tall, admired the state of the art Viking horn water-sprinklers on the top of the temples, visited a 'rehabilitated' palace, saw silk spinning, bamboo weaving, rice paper making, etc. We also visited the gem of the Shukkeien Garden, from 1645, replanted after the war. We admired the 'bullet' but couldn't afford to go on it, so took the slow train which stopped at 46 stations instead of 7, on the same route. We admired the wonderful French architecture and roof garden at Kyoto train station, stayed in a ryokan, and also with a Japanese family; two of the three rooms in their cramped house were a Shinto Shrine and a Buddhist Temple, which had the most exquisite gold altar. Japanese move freely between religions, using the buddhist temple for serious occasions like funerals and illness, the shinto for happy times - births and anniversaries, and particularly amongst the younger generations Christianity for white weddings.
We philosophised on the philosophers walk on the way to the plain wooden silver temple (they ran out of money) after the extravagance of the golden one, before returning to Okagi and the 45 minute shuttle bus to the course for the finals the following weekend. These had been brought forward owing to another expected typhoon!
We watched Alex Partridge and Steve Williams in the coxless four winning a fabulous gold comfortably, which was a wonderful triumph. Then it came to the eights finals, and from the stands two Italian media chaps completely blocked everyone's view of the start of the race on the big screen, so I crawled along past the athletes' stand then the VIPs' till I got into the media stand where I prodded them from behind and loudly remonstrated "I haven't come halfway round the world to look at your backs, I want to see my son" - or words to the effect. They succumbed to an English mum and beat a retreat to cheers all round. On my way back I was nabbed by the GB crews - "In here Mrs. B". They 'forced' me to sit and watch with them. Henry and his new crew came 4th in the A-final they weren't expected to get into, beaten by USA, Italy, and Germany, their crews having a solid base of past olympic rowers. It was all very exciting.
As a finale we followed Henry and the boys to Tokyo for a few days; they succumbed to hard drinking and the allnightlife, but they did manage to visit Nikko. We met my Japanese guardianship child from Stonar and her mother and visited local spots not usually seen by tourists. We also went to the world's biggest fish market; they had 97 tuna lying on the ground that morning; it's no wonder there are so few fish left. The boys then left from Tokoyo, no typhoons or earthquakes this time, whilst we returned to Nagoya via Mount Fuji on a miserable grey overcast rainy day. We decided despite all and sundry assuring us that Fuji would not be visible to go anyway. We were the only tourists in the cable car; as we got to the top the clouds parted, Fuji was magnificent. We lunched in the cafe watching it. I walked round the other side to photograph the hot springs, was gone about two minutes, came back, and Fuji had gone. As we descended the other side in the cable car to board the *pirate ship the weather literally closed in. No one else had seen Fuji, someone up there was looking after us giving us a wonderful time.