Journey 11

In September 2013 I visited Turkey with a group of writers and photographers from Perth. This unplanned experience made a lasting impression on me.

Drawn to sounds of eastern music, we step down from the bus and follow our driver to a side street where a boy of about nine and dressed like a prince, sits at a table behind a box quickly filling with money. He is the star for today—his day of circumcision.

He holds a lolly on a stick, sucking furiously, refusing to let go to smile for our cameras. Big brown eyes and wrinkled brow convey his fear and apprehension.

The rest of the village, plus visiting family and friends,are here to celebrate: to eat, drink and be proud of the boy who is about to become a man. We are privileged to be welcomed into this very special and private party.

‘Come, come.’ Hands beckon me to walk to the open kitchen, where smoke-filled air and delicious aromas rise from a large barbecue. The cook, in white hat and coat and posing like the national winner of ‘Masterchef’, delays turning meatballs until I am satisfied with my picture.

Back on the street, a man wearing glasses and a smart cap looks at me, expectantly. I click and smile and thank him. Another man points invitingly to the trays of food coming from the makeshift kitchen. I am offered a seat, but decline; this table seems reserved for males only. 

Instead, I smile and continue to ask permission to photograph men, probably no older than me. Lined faces reveal the stories of their lives—stories I would love to write if only we spoke a common language.

Across the street the boy still sucks his lolly. Paper money is tucked into the folds of his pristine white jacket. He tries to smile. Sister, sitting beside him, beams for our cameras. Mother leans into her boy, pats his shoulder, smiles proudly. Grandmother hovers. Her face remains serious. Is she annoyed that we interrupt this sacred tradition, or concerned for her grandson and the pain he must endure?

I walk towards the women’s table, snapping at grandmothers in coloured scarves and un-coordinated, multi-layered jackets, skirts and trousers. Warm and bright seem to be the only requirements for female fashion.

The air is filled with more smoke and the music continues as we walk back to the bus. I feel as if I have participated in some ancient mystical ritual; a privilege for which I am very grateful.  

Journey 12

Thursday 19 October 2017.   The heavens opened, and down came the rain like we hadn’t seen for a long time. However, this was not going to stop us. We purchased our tickets, and off we went. We had decided that we would walk and enjoy the scenery.  From our hotel in Barcelona to Sagrada Familia was about 3kms and should take us about 45 mins to 1 hour.  We got lost,this is very common, as I had the iPhone with the maps and am the designated navigator.  The rain was coming down, steady at first.  

We finally arrived at the Segrada after a lovely detour because even when you get lost, you manage to see some beautiful scenery.  We were early, so we decided to sit and have some Churros and hot chocolate and then the heavens opened like you wouldn’t believe. When it was time for us to join the queue, it was pouring down.  The umbrella was protecting us a little bit!!  Finally, we were inside, the heavens opened up again,and the rain just poured down.  

When we looked around, what we saw was mind-blowing.  I had tears in my eyes; for years it had been a wish to come to Barcelona and see Antoni Gaudi’s wonderful buildings; for a while I just stood in stunned disbelief that I was actually in the Segrada.  Words cannot explain how it felt to be there and to see his wonderful vision coming to fruition.   The stained glass that was finished was breathtaking.  Columns of stone rising to the ceiling were capped off with branches making you feel like you were in a giant Forrest. All of Gaudi’s creations were centred around nature. The carvings were beautiful. The middle part of the main access doors was inscribed with the Lord's Prayer in Catalan, and the background were the words ‘Give us our daily bread’ in 49 more languages 

There were hundreds of people in the Basilica, but it wasn’t crowded. You could take photos without a lot of problems. There was also an organ recital, and the choir was practising, so to be there at that time was just incredible. Around 7:00 pm, we left to head back to our hotel. The rain had stopped when it was time to leave.  Unfortunately, it was getting late, so we didn’t really have a lot of time to have a look around the outside of the building, but what we saw was just amazing.  On the way back to the hotel, we walked via the Placa de Catalunya and the fountain was all lit up.  It was the most magical end to a wonderful day.

Journey 13

ON THE BUS

The man sitting in front of me has HAIR just like my brother.

It is wavy and kinked, brown with lots of grey and so very neat. It has been well-groomed, but a little curl or two that would have become ringlets, if allowed, are around the neckline. So not quite perfect, and a little wisp is blowing in the air conditioning.

That is the only resemblance. My beloved older brother lives in Canberra, and I don’t see him very often.

I am becoming fascinated by the man in front of me. He is sitting so still. Apart from the wisp of hair moving in the breeze, nothing is moving. My physiotherapist friend and my massage friend would say, "look at the stress and tension there". My nursing assessment training swings into action.

He has good size ears, even-sized, not prominent, but because he is very thin, they seem to stick out. His neck is straight and clean. His age would be late fifties. He is wearing a pale grey/blue shirt collar over a jumper of matching tones. His shoulders are straight and rigid. They have not moved in half an hour. (Is he dead?)

I wonder. His hands must be folded on his lap. I imagine his long fingers. I cannot see anymore of him and wonder now if he is holding a bag. Did he make his own sandwich and fruit for lunch? Does he live alone, or is he cared for?

Sometimes when you sit behind someone, you can see their reflection in the window, but I could not. The man has no face.

My mind has wandered on to something else when I am startled by the man taking a huge breath so that his shoulders rise; then he gives out a long sigh. His day in the city is about to begin.

I wish him a good day.

Journey 14

It’s July 1989, and here we are with six months long-service leave and round-the-world tickets! We stayed in Sydney to start with and caught up with old friends from our South African days. We went to church with them on the Sunday, but when we reached Honolulu, it was still Sunday – we had crossed the international dateline, and we had made a day! Hawaii is a state of the USA even though it’s over 3,000 km away. However, it didn’t feel like America; it was quite exotic with the people just like Pacific Islanders, wonderful beaches and grass skirts. They didn’t just have night markets; they had all-night markets.

We landed in Los Angeles, where the fog doesn’t lift till the afternoon, and the young mums go up and down the beachfront on roller skates in bikinis pushing their prams. My cousin met us, and we were treated royally for the next few days and able to meet lots of my family members. Some of my father’s family had emigrated to the US from Wales in the 1930s.

After doing a wonderful coach tour which took us from Los Angeles – Phoenix Arizona - Grand Canyon – Las Vegas – Yosemite and San Francisco, we got the train up to Seattle. This took us through the fertile farmlands we had read about in “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck.

From Seattle we took the ferry across to Vancouver Island, which took four hours. We met a friend there and spent two days being shown the sights before driving to the north of the island and getting the ferry to the mainland. Between there and Vancouver, it’s a whole system of ferries and seaplanes.

From Vancouver, we got the Greyhound bus across Calgary, which is a strange place to arrive in on a Sunday. It seemed to be all closed up and dirty and dusty. The next day we discovered that all the life is inside the buildings. Because of the extreme cold in winter, everywhere has double doors and windows. The shops and gardens are inside, and there are walkways high up over the streets so that you don’t have to keep going outside.

One of the highlight days of our trip was going to Banff and up the ice highway to Jasper. On the way, we went in a snow coach up to the edge of the Athabasca glacier. We could see where the glacier had receded, and I expect by now, a lot more has melted due to climate change. Wildlife abounds in Canada; we had seen black bears twice, mountain sheep and elk. Also, a large mouse with grass in its mouth but no tail. Turned out it was a cony and looked like a little fat rabbit.

We flew to Chicago from Calgary and did the things tourists do. Went up the Sears Tower and had a boat trip on Lake Michigan.

Next – fly to London from Chicago– hooray.

Relatives met us at Heathrow, and we were able to spend time with them in Richmond before heading north. We were in the UK for ten weeks, hired a car and travelled right around the British Isles from Lands End to John O’Groats, visiting 30 lots of friends and relatives. 

Journey 15

In 2013, Brenda and I were driving in the country north-west of Stawell, Victoria, trying to find the location of my great-grandfather’s farm. Joseph Mazzucchelli had immigrated to Australia from southern Switzerland as a 17-year-old in 1859 to prospect for gold. All we had to go on was an advertisement in the Stawell News and Pleasant Creek Chronicle dated 15 February 1887, that J Mazzucchelli is offering ‘Swiss Farm’ for sale, situated in the Wimmera District, five miles north-east of Warranook Railway Station. That and a rudimentary map of pastoral properties as at 1851 published in C E Sayer’s book ‘Shepherd’s Gold – The Story of Stawell’. We found a railway station in the town of Rupanyup, but the railway had long since disappeared. Rupanyup is located within the outline of Warranooke Pastoral Lease as it was before the land was excised, sub-divided and made available for selection in the 1870s. We must have looked lost when we started talking to locals who, sensing our interest in history, insisted that we visit the town museum. This was featured in a recent ABC program of ‘Outback Roads’ and consists of a huge shed containing every type of agricultural machinery and a complete town street with fully stocked shops from the past, dentists’ and doctors’ surgeries etc. In the course of conversation, it was recommended we enquire at the Stawell Shire office. 

Our time in the area was limited, so we cut short our museum visit and headed 40 km back to Stawell. Our enquiry at the Shire was rewarded with a photocopy of the original selection map, clearly showing the 320 acre block selected by J Mazzucchelli (Fig 1).

We were elated but needed a modern road map to be able to find the location of Swiss Farm. When this was produced, we could interpret the present-day roads to access the property later in the same day. It didn’t look at all Swiss – a flat, bare paddock with the outline of the Grampian Mountains in the distance (Figure 2).

There was no sign of the three room house, dairy and outbuildings that Joseph had erected on the property, which he farmed from 1878 to 1887. It now forms part of an adjoining farm.

This formed part of the research we did into the life of my great-grandfather as an immigrant, prospector, miner, hotelier and farmer, which has recently been published as a book – ‘Fossicking Afar’.

Journey 16

This is an account of our trip to the village of this famous Japanese warrior-philosopher on 21st Feb 2020 and two Kyoto sites of interest associated with Musashi. 

Miyamoto Musashi was born in the spring of 1584 in the village of Miyamoto in the Yoshino District of Mimisaka Province in Japan. Miyamoto Musashi was the greatest swordsman to ever come out a nation of great swordsmen. In one-on-one combat he defeated 60 opponents, yet his greatest legacy is his seminal work, the Book of Five Rings. Miyamoto Musashi's Go Rin no Sho or the book of five rings, is considered a classic treatise on military strategy. [1] This is the book that drew us to this tiny village in rural Japan.

Figure 1: Local train route from Himeji to Miyamoto – Musashi village. The local trains are infrequent so we had to move fast from the station to the Musashi’s house and the museum and be  back to station to catch the same train back to Kamigori and then to Himeji. The trip from Himeji to Miyamoto Musashi took about an hour. 

Figure 2: : Wie hoch ist der Fahrpreis? Unchin wa ikuradesu ka? Local train fare was not covered by our JR pass.


Figure 3: We visited Musashi’s birthplace on 21st February 2020. Arrived at Miyamoto-Musashi at around 09:40 hrs.

Figure 4: Behind and to my right is the statue of Takezo (Musashi in his youth) and friends at  front of the unattended Miyamoto Musashi train station.

Figure 5: The house of his sisters’ family can still be found, and their descendants continue to live in Miyamoto.

The five "books" refer to the idea that there are different elements of battle just as there are different physical elements in life, as described by Buddhism, Shinto, and other Eastern religions¹:

Earth (rigorous knowledge of swordsmanship, practice with discipline);

Water (fluidity in movement, in harmony with self while disrupting the opponent);

Fire (speed, agility and fierceness in combat); 

Wind (alertness to the environment and learning and improving one’s skill);

Void (Knowing what are unnecessary distractions. The void is nothingness. By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist). 

In the same way as Musashi  had drawn similarity from religion, his five elements can be mapped into requirements which are applicable for business success; especially important to those in business management and strategic planning.  

Figure 6:  Miyamoto Musashi two-sword stance statue in front of  the museum at Miyamoto Musashi. I was in strategic planning and system optimization once.

Throughout the book Musashi defends his thesis: a man who conquers himself is ready to take it on the world, should need arise.¹

Figure 7: A bronze statue of Musashi wielding two swords at Hachidai Shrine, Kyoto.

Musashi’s duel with the Yoshioka brothers is still celebrated at the Hachidai shrine, which is situated in a wooded area behind the Shisen monastery. A huge trunk of pine wood, belonging to a tree that once graced the place of the duel is now kept on the shrine’s precinct and venerated. In front of it stands a bronze statue of Musashi wielding two swords.²

Visit to Ichijoji, Kyoto

This second defeat was a complete loss of face for the Yoshioka family and their school. This time however, Musashi arrived early. It is said he vanquished  Matashichiro, and  as many as one half of the opponents before escaping. Today, the Yoshioka family is one of the most sought after and prestigious silk dyers in Kyoto.³

References:

1. The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi

2. Miyamoto Musashi - THE RECONSTRUCTION OF A SWORDSMAN’S LIFE. Hachidai Shrine.

3. Musashi Miyamoto In Kyoto - www.samuraitours.com