13 September 2019

Text & Photography Marie Barge

Marie Barge, a Japanophile, was happy to chat with three ladies from the Land of the Rising Sun.

At the World Rowing Masters Regatta in Velence, I met three lovely ladies from Japan who have been combining rowing and travelling for some years now. ‘We have accompanied our rowing husbands for more than 10 years and seen many beautiful places in Europe,’ Mrs. Kazuko Nishimura says. She lives in Tokyo together with her 83-year-old husband, who, at that age, is a true Master.

Mrs. Mokoko Saito and her husband (age 78) live in Yokohama and they, together with many of the other Japanese rowers, had difficulty flying out of Japan because of the disastrous typhoon Faxai that hit the greater Tokyo area. (More than a hundred flights were cancelled and passengers were stranded at Narita Airport. Because of that the typhoon was given the nickname – Narita-phoon.) Mrs. Tomoko Koga and her husband, 61-year-old Joshikazu Koga, live in Chiba (where 430.000 homes were left without power.)

Mr. Joshikazu Koga is a member of the rowing club Dankai-Go, which literary means The Baby Boomers, thus indicating the generations born during the 50s and the 60s.

The ladies have done some sightseeing and are very pleased with the venue and Velence. After the Regatta some will continue travelling in Hungary and eventually end up in Prague.