We met the 6th graders in their gym, and received a warm welcome from everyone.  I think every single kid had a Stitch of some sort in their hands, which made Dean and I feel right at home.  The kids did some dragon drawings.  We usually sit it out for the first few minutes before making our rounds, but this time Dean noticed there was a chalkboard behind us, so he grabbed some blue chalk and started drawing Stitch.  I thought this was a good idea, so I drew Stitch on the opposite end of the board.  Dean’s looked nice when he was done, and my Stitch looked rather like a five year-old drew it, which is the way I draw, especially on chalkboards.  I’m pretty sure if we ever visit this school again, Dean’s Stitch will still be there.  My side of the chalkboard will probably have some lesson plans on it.

Oh, have I mentioned that these teachers were amazing?  I couldn’t follow everything they were saying but I didn’t need to.  Incredible energy and optimism.  You can tell when kids are connecting with teachers and vice-versa.  This was a lucky bunch of kids.  And a lucky bunch of teachers as well.  What a great school.

There were a lot of fantastic pictures from this morning, and as usual I’m having a hard time narrowing it down.  I’m sure that when I finally each the end of this trip on my Blog, I’ll have to have a few postings of all the images I didn’t have room for before.  Not to mention the Video.  At least I have something to keep me busy till Christmas.

The point of this post is to bring you some of the images we captured on our visit to this beautiful school.  Whatever they’re doing there, they’re doing it right.  These kids were amazingly talented, and just glowed with enthusiasm.  We spent the morning talking with as many as we could while they worked on their drawings of dragons.  A testament to how fun this all was for us, is that Dean forgot how hot it was while he was making his rounds.  I think it was actually hotter and more humid there than in Florida.  No one else there seemed to notice.  If we ever need to colonize the planet Mercury, these kids would be a good choice.

As usual, our visit was too short.  Before we left we were presented with several gifts.

But the memories of that day are the most enduring gift of all.  We can’t thank them enough.

When I brought these up on my screen, I was amazed.  Now I get why people take pictures of sports.

Before I came to Japan, appearing in a photograph next to real football players was something that was only going to happen to me through the wonders of Photoshop.  And the possibility of  being presented with a real jersey was about the same probability for me as winning the Giant Slalom or living in Key West with a dolphin friend that I solved mysteries with every week.

But all that has changed.

Today I got to stand on stage next to Ryuji Bando and Akihiro Ienaga.  They play football for Cerezo Osaka.  They are calm, thoughtful and soft spoken, as opposed to me, who is noisy and moves around too much.  But they don’t know that and so they gave me a jersey that they had signed.  They gave one to Dean too.  Then they took a picture with us.

I really don’t know how to add to that.  So I’ll just stop here.

There are some exhibits in the galleries upstairs, and I saw original Range Murata drawings and some huge prints of his finished work.  There was a cast of Hayao Miyazaki’s hand.  There were a lot of visitors dressed up like their favorite characters, and it made me feel at home, like I was visiting Comic Con a little early.  All these things were what I expected to see.

But what I didn’t expect was that the vast majority of the space in the two-story building was lined with books.  Tall, unending shelves of them.  It starts downstairs and continues upstairs.  And every so often there is a bench with someone reading.  The core of the upstairs was a very tall gallery with Manga arranged neatly from 1945 to 2010.  You could read whatever you wanted.  People were sitting on benches and sofas, catching up on stories that began before they were born.  That’s really what this place is, a massive reading room and repository for Manga culture.

No picture taking is allowed in the main room or the galleries but I’m sure they have a website you could visit to get a better image of the place.

In Japan its more likely to be a solid granite temple built by master artists, frequented by real spirits and demons.

In this case it is a truly amazing temple built to channel a natural spring which has been running constantly since, like, eight hundred years ago.  Otowa waterfall.  It is part of a large complex of buildings and temples at the foot of a mountain.  People stand in a short line for their turn to capture a little cup of water from one of three streams coursing above their heads.  Each stream has a specific in its properties.  Drinking the water of the three streams is said to confer wisdom, health, or longevity.  I was told that drinking from more than one was considered bad form, and may bring misfortune.

I wasn’t sure if the order of the  streams went from left to right, or right to left.  So I didn’t chance getting the wrong thing, and just watched from a distance and took pictures of everyone else drinking.  I’m not sure about the power of the water, but the temple seemed to bring a lot of happiness indeed.

This suits me because its how I navigate.  When I was a kid I rode my bicycle everywhere, but never realized I wasn’t reading street signs when one day, after riding the same route for ten years, I looked around and didn’t recognize anything.  I was lost.  I had to backtrack and circle for quite a while before I figured out where I was.  How did I get lost in a county I rode through thousands of times?   A guy painted his house.  When the color of the house changed, I didn’t get my cue to turn and, well, just kept riding, looking for a yellow house, till I hit the foothills of the rocky mountains and realized there was a problem.

This is me and OHK.

OHK gets me.

Its alright that Dean is in our picture.  OHK is cool with it.

Even though this is really just a picture of me and OHK.

Yeah, OHK

I started the morning by taking the Bullet Train from Fukuoka to Okayama.  We visited Uchiyama Kindregarten.  Uchiyama Kindergarten is where Japan keeps the cutest kids on the planet.  About 70 or so children gathered in their auditorium/gym to ask some questions about our movie and what we do for a living.  Then everyone split into four groups to paint some large dragons.  We were supposed to talk to the kids as they worked, but Dean and just I ended up painting with them.    After the painting they made a giant circle and did a bit of dancing before we had to leave.

Uchiyama Kindergarten 1

Taking a break

We had lunch in an italian restaurant across from a real palace.  Dean and I were told that this town was famous for a legend about a boy who was born out of a peach, and went on to defeat demons.  As we left the restaurant I noticed that an illustration of the boy from the legend was molded into the manhole cover in the street.  At least I’m pretty sure that’s who it is.

Then we drove to a TV station for a live TV appearance.  When we arrived I immediately became distracted by what seemed to be the station’s mascot – a little animal named OHK.  It’s pronounced OH-koo.  He wears a black cap that covers his ears, and orange pants.  I immediately focused all my attention on him.  I helpfully identified every OHK I saw as we walked through the building, waving at plush OHK I saw in offices and poking at the eyes of the ones printed on posters.  I asked if he was working there somewhere, and if I could meet him.  It didn’t take long before they dug up some OHK stickers and a OHK file folders for Dean and I.  They even had a little rubber stamp they had made with OHK’s autograph, which they stamped a business card with.  This made me extremely happy, and I was buzzing with joy when we went on the TV show.  Dean and I each drew Toothless for the hosts as we answered questions.  Dean drew Toothless’ head, and I drew Toothless sitting on a lawn next to OHK with a big shiny heart floating between them.  I think the show went well, and everyone seemed enthusiastic about the accuracy of my OHK drawing.  When we got back to the green room I couldn’t believe my eyes….”

OHK!!!!!!!  He was there!  The real actual OHK!  There he was in his orange pants, waiting for me!  I ran to him and asked him many questions.  They showed him my drawing and he threw up his tiny, perfect white paws in exclamation.  I didn’t have my camera handy, so Dean shot a few pictures with his cel phone.  I’ll get hold of them and post them later.  Alas, I couldn’t stay with OHK as long as I wanted (he has many responsibilities) so we bid him farewell and moved on to our next appointment.

This video was shot just before the train reached top speed, so this is actually a little slower than it normally goes.