Living in Japan, life is always full of surprises. Dave decided to come back and stay with us for a few more days after his week in Tokyo and Mr Sakamoto said he wanted to introduce us to his old university buddy who is now a Master Samurai Swordsmith. BTW Mr Sakamoto is an architect by profession, but his friend decided to give up a career in architecture to inherit the family business of Samurai Sword making.
Mr Sakamoto's friend lives quite far from us, right out the other side of Nara city actually. Since we had an afternoon appointment with the Master Samurai Swordsmith, we decided to take Dave out to see Nara in the morning.
So after seeing the Dai-Butsu (the giant Buddha) in Todai-ji (Todai temple), having lunch at our favourite Israeli Restaurant (serves Kosher & Vegan dishes) and stopping in to look at the historical Episcopal (Anglican) Church with architecture inspired by the Buddhist Temples in Nara, we finally caught a ride with the Sakamotos out to Sakurai.
When we arrived in Sakurai we had to trek on foot following some step pathways through some hills until we finally got to Gassan Sadatoshi's house. Gassan Sadatoshi is a Living National Treasure of Japan and is the current Master of the Gassan School of Sword Making. We spent a couple of hours there looking at the swords and talking about the artistic and technical aspects of sword making. It was such an honour to meet Gassan Sadatoshi and he challenged and inspired us in our own artistic pursuits (photography for me, filmmaking for Dave).