Josh Tiessen - Shipwrecked Treasure

Saturday June 1, Zachary and I went to Stoney Creek for the Stoney Creek Artists Stroll event and also the Battle of Stoney Creek (200th anniversary) re-enactment. For the artist stroll, we went to visit Josh Tiessen at his studio. What a terrific artist and great young man - all of 17 and already making a great career for himself as a painter. He was also homeschooled and really appreciated the chance to have the ability to focus on his passion and talent for art - and what talent it is.
His paintings are really something, and he's had a piece exhibited at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa along with being mentored by renowned artist Robert Bateman. I bought a giclee print of his "Shipwrecked Treasure" for Debbie and I to celebrate our upcoming anniversary and to reflect our Nova Scotian heritage. Here's Zach with Josh and the original.

The Haka

During our post-conference hike, we spent two days in Paradise, where some of the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed. The scenery in the area is truly astounding, but more on that later. The cool thing that happens at U Otago's Physical Education program is that, prior to the start of 2nd year, students are taken on an outdoor experience in Paradise. There, they learn outdoor skills including firelighting, river crossing, tramping (hiking in Kiwi-speak), and teamwork. The other important thing they learn, apart from being comfortable in nature, is Maori history, worldview, approach to health and wellness, etc. It's really quite neat. At the end of each session of camp, the students perform a Maori haka, or song and dance.
Many of us know the Haka from the rugby All-Blacks, but that is just one of many songs, and both men and women can be part of it. As you can see here, the guys REALLY got into it, and it's very powerful to see it in action. Of course, if this was an angry 120 kg All-Black doing this, I'd be off to another continent (and incontinent!) in no time!

Daddy's feet returns!!

On the 21, we went to the ZuiderZee Museum at Enkhuizen, it was an Open air museum which was on an island. there was a place where you could try on some old types of clothes and also clogs. We went there with Hein and Elly, there was also a cafe where we had something to drink.

After the ZuiderZee museum, we went to a town called Markham,where we had dinner, we had Bacon and Cheese pancakes, and fish soup. We walked around after dinner in the town, and saw a memorial from world war 2.

Went to the fishing village of Marken for the evening. It's formerly an island village with very distinct houses built up high together on mounds against the tides. Now there's a causeway to the mainland and lots of tourists, kind of like a Dutch Peggy's Cove.

The ZuiderZee Museum was quite neat, and you can even get freshly caught and dried fish and smoked herring there! Jacob with his vintage car on the right.

Pez socks and clogs!

Henry V-Stratford

On Thursday we went to Stratford, to see the Shakespeare play Henry V. before the play we also had a tour of the props warehouse, where they had all of the costumes, and the props they use in the plays stored. There were many different types of props including Food, Chairs/couches, and daily household items.
Also there were medieval props as well, we didn't get to see the weapons, but we did see some armor, and a fake horse with armor.

It was a good play, it is about an English king named Henry V, he invaded France with his small army and subdued it. The play had the whole plot, starting from back in England where Henry makes up his mind to go to France, Then he goes to France, and fights many battles, (The only 2 in the play are The battles of Harfleur, and Agincort,) in the play they simplified the battle of Harfleur so there was no fighting. But for Agincort They made a full scale battle, with both armies rushing across the stage, and afterwards with all of the wounded going across the battle field. in the play they have many French and English flags, but at the end, after everyone bowed the put up a Canada flag.

Kobe Earthquake Museum

My final morning in Japan, Nari took me for a drive from Kobe over to the nearby big island, though it was impossible to see anything across the long suspension bridge due to heavy rain and fog. Our target was the museum for the earthquake that rocked Kobe on January 17, 1995.

The museum itself was pretty amazing, as it was built right on part of the fault line from the large earthquake. About 6,000 died and much of the city was wrecked, with the epicentre right between the island and the city. So the bulk of the museum runs the length of 150 m of the fault line, largely preserved as it was from the quake.

So you can see on the left the big section of the fault line that's preserved at the museum. On the right you can see the actual shift that occurred ifyou look at the orange flags. In total, the ground shifted upwards about 0.5 m and right by 1.5 m, after a lot of shaking and shifting of course. They also had an earthquake simulator at the museum, where you sit down in a mock dining room and they rumble and shake the whole place like what happened during the quake! Unfortunately, a good portion of my flight home also consisted of heavy turbulence, so I got a lot of shaking into me over the course of the day! 

A cross-sectional view on the left of the fault line. Part of the museum also includes this house (aerial shot on the right) that the fault line ran right through the middle. Amazingly it shifted but still stood, and Nari tells me that the people even lived in there for another 4 years! 

Nari also asked me what I wanted for my last lunch in Japan - ramen obviously!

Genbaku Dome - A Bomb Memorial

Among the places Hiroshi and I visited during my quick visit to Hiroshima was the Genbaku Dome in the middle of the city. A building from the 1880s, it gained fame and infamy August 6, 1945, when the fireball of the first atomic bomb exploded about 600 m overhead and slightly southeast. Being ground zero for the A-bomb, ironically it was also about the only building in town standing after the explosion. Check on Google and you can find iconic photos of Hiroshima after the bomb, and the Genbaku is the only building you'll see standing. Post-war, Hiroshima was rapidly rebuilt, but in the 1960s it was decided to keep Genbaku as it stood as a permanent memorial. It was pretty powerful to stand there on a beautiful quiet night and realize that such horror occurred directly above your head.

Miyajima Island

After giving a talk and touring Hiroshi's labs at U. Hiroshima and a yummy udon noodle lunch, we took a drive over to the city itself and Miyajima Island that sits right offshore. Hiroshima is quite beautiful, with a setting right one the water with massive mountains all around. Descending into the city, I got the distinct impression of being back in Vancouver, which led me to thinking of what a horror it must have been to have the city obliterated.

The centre-piece of Miyajima is the Itsukushima Shinto shrine, another UNESCO site that I keep bumping into here in Japan. First built in 593 AD, it was rebuilt into its present scale in 1168 AD. The main corridor is about 280 m long, incorporating over 20 buildings. The main entry gate for the shrine is built right on the water's edge, so that the ebbing and flowing of the tides determine whether you can get near it. On the right is another family celebrating the 7-5-3 years. Didn't get to see anyone playing the massive drums, although I did hear them from afar.

I've got to say that fall is my favourite season, and it's not just because of cyclocross! I especially love the way the angle of the sun makes things just glow, like the shrine gates on the left and especially the red/golden pagoda on the right. Take a look on the left and tell me it doesn't remind you of Vancouver?!

The fall colours were getting very nice now in Japan! And oysters are a specialty and favourite around here. There's an oyster far between the island and the mainland, and the products are grilled all around at different kiosks. 

Thank You - Merci Dieppe Veterans

70 years ago today, about 5,000 Canadian soldiers took part in the infamous raid on the northwestern French town of Dieppe. Growing up, I read so much about World War 2, and it was a special dream of mine to visit Dieppe and the site of the invasion. We were fortunate to do so last December during our road trip to commemorate WW1 and 2.

It's a small town and there are no massive monuments like at Vimy Ridge or Ieper, but rather lots of small commemorative plaques and monuments. The Canadian cemetery is a few kilometres inland from the beach itself. I rather like that the beach is largely untouched by ceremony. Standing there on the rough shifting pebbles, battered by the wind and waves, I certainly got a sense of the enormity of trying to survive on that completely exposed beach.

Merci beaucoup. Je me souviens.

Vermeer's Delft

While we were in Delft we spent some time at the Vermeer Centre Delft. Johannes Vermeer (Oct 31/1632 - Dec. 15, 1675) is an artist that was born, lived and died in Delft and so he is always associated with the city.  He was a member of the St. Luke's Guild and the Vermeer Centre today is housed in the St.. Luke's Guild House.

The house where Vermeer was born is now a cafe. When he was 9 years old, he moved with his family to the Mechelen Inn, which is also still standing but with another use. Vermeer's father was a inn-keeper and art dealer, so the young Vermeer grew up surrounded by art and artists.

He converted to Catholicism to marry Catharina Thins and lived with her wealthy mother - Maria Thins. The house where they lived together on the Oud Delft canal is now the site of a church.  It is very close to the Nieuw Kerk where Johannes and his sister were baptized. Johannes and Catharina had 15 children together, 4 of whom died at young ages. Johannes himself died at the age of 43 leaving Catharina with 11 children and a mountain of debts. He is buried in the Oud Kerk near the main Markt.

Artistically, Vermeer had a remarkably small oeuvre. It is thought that he only painted 40 - 60 paintings during his career and only 37 of them survive, although there is some dispute as to the authenticity of some of them. There are 5 Biblical scenes, 2 landscapes and the rest are "tronies", paintings of a certain type (ie peasant women, old man etc). Many of his paintings show women or groups in small intimate indoor scenes.

The Vermeer Centre doesn't have any actual paintings but they have copies of 37 that are the actual size with descriptions and locations.  We have seen several of the originals at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and Gemmentemuseum, Den Haag but "the Girl with the Pearl Earring" is on loan in Japan during renovations at the Mauritshuis Museum at the Hague.

Vermeer is best known for his amazing use of light and the fact that he used a relatively small palette of colours to achieve spectacular results. The remainder of the centre concentrated on his use of light and colour and all the emblems of love that are contained in Vermeer's work.

Openlucht Museum

One of the really cool museums we went to in the Netherlands is the Openlucht (Open Air) Museum in Arnhem (the ultimate objective of the famous paratroop battle "Operation Market Garden" in WW2). For those of you in Vancouver, it's like Burnaby Village museum at Deer Lake, only MUCH bigger. It is on many hectares, and buildings from all periods of Dutch history from the past 500+ years are relocated and exhibited here. It's really well-done, and is actually celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

http://www.openluchtmuseum.nl/en/

You can walk all throughout from building to building, or you can take the historic trams from stop to stop. In one row of tenement houses, they built up one apartment as it might look in the 1970s, another as it would be in the 1800s during the industrial age, and another as it might be for the tenement nurse. The newest buildings focused on the immigrant experience over the past sixty years - really neat.

There are also, naturally, lots of windmills. But also cool portable dessert stands Popperjes (little waffle-like treats), a cheese factory, a rebuilt train station, even part of a fishing village.

The other really impressive part was the "Holland-Rama." The theatre is on a flight simulator type platform, and you are rotated and tilted all over inside to see different aspects of Dutch history.

Gratuitous Windmill Pic!

Beautiful Brugge

Brugge (in Flemish it's Brugge, in French it's Bruges, but we're in Flanders so Brugge it is!) lies in the heart of west Flanders, and it really is an amazingly beautiful medieval town. It's also the perfect size for walking, at least when it wasn't pouring rain! For cycling fans, Brugge is of course the start point of the Ronde van Vlaanderan (Tour of Flanders) classic the first Sunday every April. That's the belfry there on the left at Grote Markt (Big Market), the main central square where the race begins. The family climbed the belfry Saturday morning and saw/heard the carillons playing - I'm guessing they charge extra for earplugs!

Brugge's central town is crisscrossed by canals, some leading all the way to Gent and other major towns. The numerous canals and cobbled streets are a great way to spend some time logging up your pedometer.

Brugge is just loaded with beautiful buildings. My ECSS conference venue was the Oud Sint-Jan hospital (see previous post). The shot on the left is from the central courtyard terrace, with Notre Dame rising up in the background. It's one of the tallest brick churches in Europe. On the right is Stadhuis (town hall), where we had an "exclusive" reception Thursday night by the mayor before the terrific meal within the ancient stone walls I wrote about earlier.

It was quite a surprise to bump into Phil Sullivan, my colleague at Brock and also my department Chair, at ECSS. I was afraid that he was sent as a bounty hunter to end my sabbatical and haul me back to Brock in handcuffs or frozen in carbonate like Han Solo!

We never did get around to a canal tour in Amsterdam, but we did get lucky with the weather (constantly switching from warm bright sun to rain and back) during our Brugge boat tour. I saw my Aussie friend Aaron Coutts in line for a boat tour in his shorts and flip-flops as it started to pour rain, and joked later with him whether he got a discount for doing bailing duty!

More gratuitous canal scenery on the left. On the right we're outside the basilica where the "Relic of the Holy Blood" is kept. It's located right next to the Stadhuis.