What have I been doing...

In my spare time? haven't really been working too much, and as I already quit my job (leaving Japan in 10 days!), I now have even more time to somehow waste.
Well, for a start, I've been
pretty lazy, not doing too much sightseeing, been to a few museums though, the most interesting was definitely the Yushukan war memorial museum, next to the Yasukuni shrine, which even the people who don't knwo anything about Japan might have heard about. This is the shrine the current prime minister (Koizumi, who is going to quit his job in the next few months) is visiting on an annual basis, which apparently is one of the main reasons for the bad relationships between China, Korea and Japan as a few "class A war criminals" have been enshrined there sometime in the 70s. The shrine was built to honour those wo have died for their country, and a couple of million people are enshrined there. I guess if Germany was to build something in honour of Addi, Goebbi and a few of their mates, and Angie would come for a visit once a year and maybe put some flowers down at the memorial, it would a have a similar impact in Europe. So I guess I can understand the rest of Asia being a bit pissed off.
Anyways, even more interesting is the museum, which shows the long history of wars that were waged in and around Japan, from the Shogun fighting the emperor, to fighting the barbarians (Europeans and Americans) to the wars with China, Korea, Russia and obviously the WWs. What's interesting is the perspective, quite different in some cases to what I learned in school. And although a lot of it is supposedly very toned down in the English translation (obviously I couldn't really tell), some of the suggestions and "truths" about e.g. WW2, such as Germany not really having a choice but to attack the rest of Europe, Japan only trying to establish peace when they invaded China or that the US forcing Japan to attack Pearl Harbour where a bit worrying. I'm sure there is a bit of truth in these aspects, but whoever built this and is responsible for the texts on exhibition, has definitely a very different way of dealing with their past.
Most Japanese I've met here have never been to the museum and have no intention of ever going there for precisely these reasons, and because they know what to expect, so I'm not saying that this represents Japan as a whole, but quite a large number of people must still see it this way, and quite a few of them seem to be in power. Though a few of the new canditates for the post of the prime minister are already distancing themselves from the shrine. So I guess there's hope.

On a lighter note, I also went to Disneyland with Ayako, who's still working there. Hope she'll send me some pictures.
And to Kamakura, which used to be the capital of Japan around 1200. And that's where the big Buddha is. Bought myself some disposable cameras, so from now on there'll be a few pictures every now and then. I'll also upload a few more to my photoblog. They also have a few hundred shrines in Kamakura. Or at least that's what it felt like. After getting a bit bored of those, and going on a little hiking trip with a Canadian guy (Alex) I met on the way there (also waiting for him to send me some pix), we just went down to the beach and watched the surfers. Obviously we didn't watch the girls. And I managed to take a beautiful little picture. In the background the guy with the tiniest speedos I've ever seen. Pretty hot!