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	<title><![CDATA[a sense of history]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][i][URL="http://www.flickr.com/photos/iseelazers/4129119033/"]Gift shop, Higashiyama, Kyoto[/URL] by Lazaro Lazo[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/i]


[I][B]All I need is
Co-ordination
I can't imagine
My destination
My intention[/B]
OMD, Souvenir


[b]A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it - by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir. Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.[/b]
Susan Sontag, On Photography


[b]Pieces, bits and pieces
Add up through the years
I've collected a small fortune
In souvenirs[/b]
Jimmy Buffett


[b]falling sick on a journey
my dream goes wandering 
over a field of dried grass[/b]
Matsuo Basho[/i]


We received some Japanese confectionery this week. A souvenir of a trip to Kyoto. Japanese people like to give souvenirs - omiyage - to friends and family after trips. Speciality food from the area they visited is very popular. 

The confectionery was yatsuhashi. There are soft types and hard types. The soft type usually has a sweet filling like bean paste or sesame paste. The hard type is a little like Belgian cinnamon and ginger speculoos cookies.   

The package said [I]since 1689[/I]. Showing the date of a company or a shop has become fashionable. A coffee shop shows [I]since 1977[/I] on its sign. A microbrewery shows [I]since 1996[/I] on its beer labels. But hundreds of years old is very rare.  

About the time that confectionery shop started business Louis XIV was the King of France. Isaac Newton was writing Philosophia Naturalis Mathematica. John Locke was writing An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In Japan Matsuo Basho was writing the The Narrow Road to the Deep North. 

Aikido, judo and karate are relatively modern. A few decades old. But the kenjutsu I do is more than 400 years old. You can feel the history. Generations and generations of budoka who went before you.

When I started aikido we often went out with our teacher to a Sapporo beer hall after practice. Sapporo Black Label beer shows [I]since 1876[/I]. I think it's the oldest beer in Japan. And it's the best beer in the world.

Niall


[i][B]music | background articles | food blogs [/B]

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQoYeMAS5qo[/url]
OMD, Souvenir

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8loDRy_zsAw[/url]
Jimmy Buffett, Souvenirs

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yatsuhashi[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyagegashi[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meibutsu[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souvenir[/url]
[url]http://www.shogoin.co.jp/[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculoos[/url]
[url]http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/ek20110120wh.html[/url]
[url]http://www.justhungry.com/yatsuhashi-cinnamon-sweets-kyoto[/url] 
[url]http://wagashichronicles.blogspot.jp/[/url]
[url]http://timelines.ws/[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_shogunate[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapporo_beer[/url]


photo: Gift shop, Higashiyama, Kyoto by Lazaro Lazo
[url]http://www.flickr.com/photos/iseelazers/4129119033/[/url]
photostream: [url]http://www.flickr.com/photos/iseelazers/with/4129119033/[/url]


my home page with a mirror of these blog posts plus other stuff: 
[URL="http://mooninthewater.net/aikido"]mooninthewater.net/aikido[/URL]
 

my [URL="http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=75&filter[1]=Niall%20Matthews"]columns[/URL] on aikiweb


I have an essay in a [URL="http://fortohoku.org/"]charity e-book[/URL] put together by some writers and photographers to raise money for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku on 11 March 2011. It costs $9.99.[/i]


© niall matthews 2012]]></body>
	<date>05-05-2012</date>
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