HELICOPTER QUAKE RELIEF 2

Tues. March 22, 11 days after the mega-quake, up at the crack of dawn and out to the Minikamo Heliport to load the helicopters with medicines and emergency supplies for direct aid flights.

Above, Friendship Flight 2005 partner Nishimori San and one of his staff, with the other 2 choppers behind. A 4th chopper joined them mid flight from Gunma.
The choppers were packed full of supplies I collected over the weekend at TV Tower and Hope International collected at the Hilton...
The Robinson R44 choppers are small, but it's surprising how much you can fit in one if you try!
A Nagoya TV crew was on hand to film us loading the helicopters and interview us too.

QUAKE HELICOPTER RELIEF

The Japan Helicopter Owners and Pilots Assoc. have been making relief flights into the quake zones. Above, Hashimoto San, with whom I fly regularly, and Nishimori San, who flew with me on the Australia-Japan Friendship Flight 2005. I've been coordinating things from Nagoya, and will be doing a drive for supplies and donations tomorrow. The private owners and pilots have donated machines and pilots. We still need money to cover fuel costs to get medicines and emergency supplies direct to the hardest hit, and accessible only by air regions. Contact me for more details!

TUNNEL VISION AGAIN!

Trying some roast beef while on location for TV Aichi's Sanji No Tsubo programme...
Not long after, we went down this long, dark, cramped and humid, tube-filled tunnel some 10 meters below the city streets...
The tunnel runs from where I'm standing to directly underneath the building with the yellow sign behind me, and then to other major buildings in the vicinity! Find out what it's for and why on Tuesday afternoon from 3 on TV Aichi!

THE REAL DEATH STAR

The new Nagoya Science Center and world's biggest Planetarium opens this month,...it looks just like the Death Star from Star Wars....
To further illustrate the point, I quickly drew up a small Death Star / Darth Vader illustration for the TV show Sanji No Tsubo on TV Aichi...
You can see the science Center, the Planetarium, and the illustration this coming Tuesday from 3pm on TV Aichi,...and why I almost died in the Death Star wearing these clothes!

HONNOJI REVISITED

Hotel Honnoji! The Honnoji was the temple the great warlord Oda Nobunaga was staying at when one of his generals turned traitor and killed him in 1582,...so I guess, expect friends to attack and burn you alive when you stay here?
Behind the hotel is the Honnoji Temple itself. The original site is now an old folks home, while this Honnoji was rebuilt about a kilometer away after the assassination of Nobunaga. As it was, I was 30 seconds late,...as I neared the temple, the priests were shutting the big wooden gate... If I hadn't taken that hotel shot....D'Oh...

SAMURAI SEMINAR 1

High on the eastern mountainsides overlooking the ancient capitol of Kyoto stands the Shohouji Temple. Not famous by Kyoto standards, this many hundreds of years old temple was to be the site for a Samurai Seminar for a foreign tour group.
Before we began, preparations included lugging my 20kg armour up the 140 stairs to the top, and the armour stand, and my swords, and... everything else... The temple has electricity, but no flowing water, that still comes from a deep well behind the main prayer hall...
Looking west over Kyoto City while waiting for the participants... As you can see, it was still misty in the western regions, and freezing cold that morning.
The 15 Australian participants turned up, and so we got them into the mood and into some samurai wear, kimono and hakama.... (continues)

SAMURAI SEMINAR 2

With the Australian "samurai" ready, the talks began. Part 1 consisted of an explantion about samurai armour...

Later, an informal chat about Japanese swords...

The guys then got the chance to go outside (in the bitterly cold Kyoto morning) and try their hand at swordsmanship... (looks like a scene from the Last Samurai, doesn't it!?)

The Japanese samurai team provided a short demonstration...

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...and then to wrap things up, we all did the kachidoki samurai war cry together. It was great to see the Australians so interested in Japanese culture and history. Looking forward to presenting more of these simple and fun seminars.