Follow Burke’s Backyard travelling throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia
Don visited a pet shop in Tokyo and found that it was very different from Australian pet shops. It was full of snakes, every sort of lizard, huge tortoises, turtles, chameleons and colourful horned toads. There were enormous tarantulas, coloured mice, toucans and just...
Don visited Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto to see one of the greatest masterpieces of Japanese culture – a superlative Zen garden. Thought to have been created around 1488, the garden is 30m long from east to west and 10m from north to south. Five groupings of rocks...
Sumo wrestling is a national obsession in Japan, and is followed by millions of fans on national television. It has the same profile as rugby league or AFL in Australia, and the master Sumo wrestlers, or Yokozuna, are revered as sporting heroes. Basic Rules of Sumo...
Don visited some houses to find out how the Japanese actually live. The first was a 20 year old country house, and the second a town house in Kyoto. Country house Some parts of this house were quite traditional, with paper walls and floor matting. Other parts were...
Don visited Mr Kazuo Miyashita, who is a shop owner dealing in rice and Japanese sweets. He is also a fowl hobbyist, and for the last 15 years has bred around 50 different kinds of chickens, including the rare Japanese Long-tail fowl (Onagadori). Honourable fowl...
One of the most memorable things about Japan for Don was the roofs. Mostly constructed of fired clay tile, they are made with the most incredible precision. The roof shown in our segment was was made of a grey fired material, which was then painted silver. Australian...
Don visited Akihabara, Tokyo’s ‘Electric City’. Akihabara is the electronics district, where the latest hi-tech gizmos and gadgets can be tried and tested for free. There are hundreds of shops, ranging from tiny specialist stores to large electrical...
The Adachi Museum of Art is famous for its collection of around 1300 contemporary Japanese paintings, including works by Taikan Yokoyama and Shiho Sakakibara. There are also ceramics by Kanjiro Kawai and Rosanjin Kitaoji, as well as wood sculpture and gold lacquer...
Don met with a group of Japanese dogs and their owners to test the Bowlingual, a dog ‘translation’ device. The Bowlingual is made up of two parts, a microphone and a console. The 8cm wide, wireless microphone is attached to the dog’s collar. It transmits sounds to the...
Don travelled north of Tokyo to see the famous Nikko Suginamiki, or cedar avenue. Thousands of Japanese cedar trees (Cryptomeria japonica) line the 37 kilometre route from Nikko City to the Toshogu Shrine. (Toshogu Shrine is the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder...