Food!

What does one think of on a foggy rainy day? Food! Of course! And there is quite a large choice here in Japan, provided you have a broad enough definition of food.

Fish there is plenty of, of all shapes and sizes. There are even little dried and salted fish in the japanese mix you can get here. If you look closely you can see them on the packet. There are in fact small packets of little dried (but not salted, I assume) fish hanging in the dog and cat food section too, but I am sure a true Japanese can tell the difference.

Also in the fish section, but this time on the "gourmet" side (next to the sushi), is were this is sold :

Now this photo is of seaweed washed up on a beach, but they sell it all washed and wrapped in plastic, and quite expensive. Looks a bit tough and seaweedy for my taste, so will pass on that.

Another wonderful find are the shops that sell hot potato pats, fried potato-on-a-stick and tempura pats. These are not very expensive and are extremely popular with businessmen and school children. There also sell little pies in the shape of fish but I'm not really that fond of fish yet.

It is very important to accept gifts, of course, and so when you are offered a little green pat with black specks, you just hope it's not too gooey. It turns out they are not bad at all (in fact I bought myself a small packet). They are sweet, and filled with jam, and coated in sugar. And THEY are the famous sweet bean cakes! And as we have the recipe I can try making them someday....

The other food I kind of reluctantly tasted was the sashimi they had at the JAMSTEC party on Thursday. I still have not gotten over the experience on the boat. However it proved to be excellent and I joined right in the fan club around the sashimi table. This also allowed me to chat with Florence Pradillon, the only other french-speaker there. She has been in Japan for 3 years now and still can hardly understand the language (bad news), and said that she still has trouble with ship food too (good news in a way, as I don't feel so wimpy about not liking the food).

Tzar

RIP Tzar, you will be fondly remembered.

Hiking

Today was the big hiking day, with a path leaving from the Kanazawa zoo, near Kanazawa-bunko on Tokyo bay side, all the way across the Miura peninsula to Kamakura, where all the temples are, on Sagami bay. After a bit of trouble finding the starting point off I went on a two and a half hour walk on nice trails through very pretty forests.

I have posted the evolution of what the paths looked like along the walk, going from paved paths to well kept up dirt paths, though camellia thickets with quite large end enthusiastic birds in them, on to evergreen forests, tall and thin, and finally to the green bamboo forests, creaking and clonking with the grey squirells running around in the fallen leaves. The undergrowth is very tropical-looking, with many different kinds of ferns and palms and smaller bamboo types. There are lots of plants I don't recognise here.

The animal life was mostly composed of birds, and even that stopped when I ran into a huge group of runners, with proper numbers and electronic badges to time them, and officials at every cross-roads to say which way to go. Very impressive, but kind of minimized the chance of seeing birds or squirrels.

View of Tokyo bay with Oppama station to the right and JAMSTEC behind the small hill, left.

At about the bamboo forest I lost my way, as there was a small café in the middle of nowhere and I went around it on the wrong side to see the signpost. At the next crossroads, none of the signs said Kamakuragu, which is where I wanted to go. Just then an elderly group of japanese hikers came along and I asked them which way to go. They did not know of the way, but they got out their maps, and I got out my map, and everyone went in to a huge discussion, the ones at the front having to explain to the ones at the back why they had stopped, where I wanted to go, and what had so-far been decided. The final conclusion was that the road I wanted was a

shortcut of the one they were going on, and so that I should go with them to my turn-off. It was only a short way beyond the little café, so said goodbye to them, having accepted their map and some sweets, and continued down towards Kamakura. This time the path followed a gurgling little stream, and was more or less in the stream bed. They said this path is not good if it had rained recently, and I totally agree. The red clay is horribly slippery, and you don't need water running over it as well.

I got to Kamakura without any further trouble, right next to a series of temples I had missed last time. And, to my not total surprise the first sakuras. The large number of Japanese wandering around with HUGE cameras was a bit of a giveaway... It is really just the start, as they were only in two temples, and not in the center of town proper. Next week-end will probably be better, but I think kamakura will not be a good place to go, seeing the crowds there were today in the main part of town. I will have to find either a less-crowded (unlikely if the cherries are in bloom), or more open place.

Kanazawa-hakkei

The week-end has arrived, with real sunlight! All day long, too, not just the one hour of sun we usually get in the morning. And it is actually quite pleasant out.

Today was my big shopping expedition! Dhugal has invited me to a party at his house next week, and that seemed like a good enough excuse to go and investigate the big shopping center at Kanazawa-hakkei.

I did not visit much but the little bit of town I did see was very nice. There is a small built-up bay with pleasure boats in it, and lots of small jetties between the appartment houses. There is also the cutest little shrine on the cutest little island I have ever seen. You get to it down a little gravel path and a cross a little red wooden bridge, everything lined with very old pruned trees. The main temple is actually across the road from the little shine, but they had a ceremony going on so I didn't go there. Also to see in the bay is the bridge of the Kanazawa sea-side train line, that starts at Kanazawa-hakkei and goes a little way up the coast. The ride must be quite fun, going out over the water on a tiny little bridge like that.

The shopping center was very big and very nice, with lots of different shops inside it and the expedition was a complete success. I even found a nice little book store where I purchased my first japanese book : book 1, volume 1, for children 1 to 3 years old (that's me), with a free alphabet poster. I have so far deciphered how to say Koala : ko-a-ra. Neat! Soon I will be able to go to a zoo in all confidence.

So untill something else interesting happens,

Sayonara!

Yokohama

Today, Sunday the 14th of February 2010: St Valentine's day AND the Chinese New Year, I decided to go visit Yokohama, Japan's second largest city. And it turns out it wasn't actually as crowded as it might have been.

Yokohama's main train station is right down town near the docks. For lack of space, they have a very nice commercial center below the train station. Today it was packed with stalls selling chocolate as in Japan, St Valentine's day is for women to give chocolate to men. They have the White day a month later for men to give presents to women. As well as the chocolate it was also the last day of the winter sales, but there wasn't really any shopping frenzy.

The dock area is very beautiful, and completely converted into little parks and walkways where people take their children and dogs out for a stroll in the sun. Closest to the station is the Minato Mirai 21 area, which is an ancient dock area where they've built lots of architectural wonders, all very earthquake-proof. It is here that you can see Japan's tallest building, the Yokohama landmark tower (296m), containing the world's fastest elevator which goes 750m a minute. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go up in it because the queue was huge, even at 10am. At the foot of the landmark tower is the ship Nippon Maru, which used to be a school boat and is now a museum/restorant. Also at the foot of the landmark tower was the Kanagawa Prefectural Police Band playing for their 60th anniversary.

Further along the docks is the Aka Renga park, or Red Brick Warehouse park, home to, sure enough, 2 large red-brick warehouses. I love the way the Japanese name things. next to the warehouse park is the International Passenger Terminal, a very design piece of architecture, all in wood with steel bars, where they need to put signs up all over to say what is the floor and where the roof starts. They also have some cute little warning signs: on one side they say "may be slippery" on the other they have a pircture of a hand and of a foot, both crossed out, meaning don't walk on your hands or with bare feet?

Chinatown is right behind that. There were not really many festivities. There were tons of stalls set up selling good luck charms and hot dumplings, but no firecrackers or dancers or anything. Not even many tiger pictures. Still, I bought a few good luck charms, as they are all in the shape of strings of chili peppers. Each colour has a special meaning, but I can't remember which is which. I have some dumpling here at home, so passed on those.

I found Yokohama to be a very pleasant city, and I plan to go back there later in spring when all the flowers are up. There are lots of museums to visit there, so will keep that in mind for the next rainy day.

Kamakura

A great visit to Kamakura yesterday. The train ride getting there proved a bit more difficult than planned as it turns out there are 2 train stations in Yokosuka, one for the Keikyu line that goes through Oppama and one for the JR lines. But as there are about 18 busses connecting the 2, it wasn't that much of a problem. That way I got to spend more time in Yokosuka and see Foreigners! English- speaking! Even some black people! Wow!

Kamakura used to be Japan's capital during the Kamakura period. That means it is packed full of temples (65, one of which has a giant Buddha) and shrines (19) that were erected on the sites of the different houses and palaces. It also has a wonderful beach with some nice surfing waves and even more hawks than at Miura-Kaigan, and a (natural?) pass through a cliff with some tombs carved into the walls of it.

I started off by the biggest tourist hit (because the closest to the train station? probable...). It's an alley lined with cherry trees (not in flower yet) and that ends in a huge temple complex et the center of which is the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine. There are lots off small shrines surrounding it and lotus ponds (also not in bloom) with some nice carps and ducks.

Then I kind of followed the signs visiting several different styles of temples and shrines. It's like that that I found the path to the Shakado pass. It's not very big but quite impressive due to the beautiful forest surrounding it. There are big warning signs in Japanese on both sides with a well-worn path in between, so I guess it takes more than a sign to stop a japanese sightseer.

On the other side of the pass I stumbled upon the most wonderful of temples, while being completely lost having lost sight of the little green signs. It was completely empty and yet the temple was very nice, with very intracate wood carvings above the entrance. The entrance clerc was kind enough to give me lots of explanatory panflets (all in Japanese, but with a nice map) and so I found my way up tons of winding stone steps to some small shrines, and a wonderful view of Kamakura, with Mt Fuji in the background.

On the opposite side of town there is the second big tourist attraction : Kotokuin temple, with a 13m tall seated Buddha statue. That is really very impressive. And of course one mustn't gorget the giant Buddha's sandals, made by the local schools. Right behind that temple is a very nice hiking route that wanders along the top of the hill throught very nice forests. It ends near another shrine, this one accessible through a tunnel. You come out in a small valley where a waterfall comes straight out of the cliff. There is also a series of caves with various small shrines inside. A very different style from the flashy shrines in the center of town.

I finished off the visit by buying a senbei wrapped in seaweed : a large toasted rice cracker dipped in soy sauce. Very good.

Miura-Kaigan beach

After a morning of ... blogging, I went off to the beach for the afternoon. I had found photos of the beach at Miura-Kaigen and it seemed quite appropriate, right down at the end of Miura peninsula. Especially as it is the before last station on the Keikyu line and so relatively easy of access. All the station names are written in English (very very small) and they have a board that says what station comes next. Getting on the right train is a bit complicated (I got on 3 different trains before getting there) but the trains are so regular and so punctual it's no problem at all.

The town of Miura-Kaigan is a bit decrepit but there is a cute little market near the train station and some nice flowering plums surrounded by crazed photographers.

The beach itself is very nice. It's a kind of grayish sand with a few nice sea-shells. There are some particular rock formations right at the edge of the water, and said rocks are covered in chitons (first time I've ever seen any) and seaweed and I even saw a sea cucumber. There are lots of birds that circle and fly right down near the sand too. It completely makes up for my birdless stay in Banyuls.

And yes, they have racks set up to dry the seaweed for market. A bit more on the original side, they also have row upon row of racks set up to dry... white radishes?!

Why not. I guess...

Also at the end of a beach is a small bunker carved into the cliff side. We can only gee the window now, as I assume the door would have been on the top of the hill somewhere.

Last dive

The PICASSO team.

Well, no farewell drink for us, as everyone was busy working till past midnight. The engineers needed to fix the zoom and focus again after the tests they did, and the PICASSO scientists had a meeting about what to improve and what they could do next. They are planning to keep tinkering on PICASSO till they get a system that works well, then rebuild it completely from scratch so that it will work better.

For the last dive PICASSO gave us it’s best show yet : impeccable steering the whole time, great shots of midwater jellyfish and ctenophores with zoom and focus and everything, and nice shots of the benthos with some good sea anemones and possibly a new ctenophore species. We will even be studying that video as it’s so good. And it looks like everyone on board could feel it was a sucess : without asking anyone the captain of the ship stopped the winch and turned the boat completely around so that the PICASSO would be suspended in front of Mt Fuji. A very good show, recorded for TV and on the cameras of about half the crew. I will be adding better photos later, as I was using Dhugal’s camera at the time.

While they were diving I was busy feeding my jellyfish (the fish won’t eat) and packing up the lab. It says in the book that Liriope are voraceous feeders and it certainly likes everything I’ve given it. I also left it with 2 copepods and a piece of something so that it won’t get too hungry during the week-end. I also had the video of the dive in real-time on the big TV in the lab so that was fun.

Because of the wind we couldn’t disembark at Ito port as planned so they decided to go to JAMSTEC and dock there. We got to take the fish and jellyfish and the frozen siphonophore off that way and put them away safely. We also took the microscope off so we will be able to start looking at stuff on Monday. It will also make it easier to feed my jellyfish. It does seem to be growing, but it’s still not much over 1mm wide. I can’t wait to see what it’ll look like on Monday (I do hope it will still be alive!).

JAMSTEC, right beside the little knoll, left of the 2 big red things.

It as fun seeing the ship steam up to JAMSTEC. About half the people are staying on for the last leg of the trip with the MR-X1 but thy were planning to go have a run around the town a bit first. The engineer who helped design PICASSO had even gotter dressed up in black pants with a fancy white shirt. Everyone’s plans for the evening were different but they all included a non-fish dinner. I wonder why.... As the ship was so big I didn’t have too much problems walking on land. Just a bit at first standing on the dock, looking at the immobile ship and seeing the dock slowly go up and down....

Back at home now, wading through all the unread e-mails and waiting till the wash finishes. It was a super duper cruise, and it’s really hard to beleive that I was still in France just 2 weeks ago. This week-end is for resting, but it may include a small trip down to the end of the train line to the beach, just to get it out of my system. I am planning on eating pasta a lot next week too, as I’ve been missing it. They did serve italian style pasta a bit on the boat, but 3 spaghettis in tomato sauce at 7am doesn’t really count...

Off to get myself some clean clothes now. It’s only when you get off the boat that you realise they really smell! The people on the JAMSTEC shuttle bus last night must have thought I’d fallen in a gasoline pit....

Midwater survey

Thursday 4th of February : first midwater survey for the AUV PICASSO. A few technical issues still : the camera doesn’t focus worth beans and there was a crimp in the fiber-optics cable so the communication with the vehicle came and went. Another biggish problem was that there was absolutely NOTHING in the midwater zone. Not even siphonophores, which had been relatively abundant in the other dives. During an hour and a half of dive we saw 1 siphonophore that we were unable to focus on and lots of puffs of squid ink from a squid that was off camera, during a period where we had lost contact and so couldn’t move. We did get to see a lot of marine snow though....

In the afternoon we did 2 plankton nets, one at 300 and one at 400, but they contained the same things as the surface ones. We did find a juvenile jellyfish which we think might be a stage 1 of Liriope tetraphylla, develloping into a stage 2. As it’s really not like any of the other jellyfish in the books we’ve decided to keep it and see if we can get it to devellop into an adult. I fed it a bit of detritus half it’s size (it’s only about 1mm across) and it gobbled it right up. It had nearly finished digesting it an hour later. That is more than can be said of the porcupine fish, who seems positively terrified of the clam bit we gave him and spt out the fish bit we offered him. He must not be starving yet.

Last day for us tomorrow. There will be a PICASSO dive in the morning, aroung 500m and down to the seafloor if there’s nothing in midwater. We will also have to pack the lab up and move out of the container so the MR-X1 robot team can move in and start diving on Saturday. We will be leaving all the equipment on board as the ship will be arriving at JAMSTEC on the 9th. We will need to take the fish and the jellyfish though. I will leave the boots and water clothes on board so have extra space in my luggage.

I will add the dive photos later, as I took them on Dhugal's camera.

Success!

The 2 dives were a great success, the first real sea-floor surveys made with PICASSO since it started functioning, about 2 years ago. Even the second dive went well, even though the fiber-optics cable didn’t unroll as it should have done. Luckily they have 2 coils, one inside PICASSO and the other on the ship. That problem has already been solved before tomorrow’s dive. I have gotten the hang of the pre-dive checks now. As it’s technically only the biologists doing the dives we are kind of lacking people and so I helped out screwing the tops on and such to go faster. We would like the pre-dive check to go from an hour and a half to less than an hour.

The driving of PICASSO is very tiring, but Dhugal is getting very good at it, and never even touched the bottom on the second dive. They have also gotten the hang of the camera’s zoom and focus, and got some good footage of sea anemones, some siphonophore bells, some shrimp and fish and the billions of star fish (brittle stars?) that live on the sea-floor. We don’t reall know why there are so many, but there is lots of detritus in the bay, and they may be able to catch small preys from the water. We have not had the opportunity to look closely at the videos, as the engineers are still fiddling around with stuff in the container. Hopefully tomorrow we can go through some. We only have a dive in the morning, and then the laser group takes over in the afternoon.

At the end of the second dive I had time to do a small surface plankton net, to keep myself busy. There were lots of jellyfish this time. Mostly siphonophore bells, but also some Obelia medusae. And lots of small fish larvae, either sardines or anchovy. We had a go looking at them under polarized light and it’s amazing what the muscle bands look like. Jellyfish are, of course, completely invisible. But it was still fun playing around with.

Also in the lab is a porcupine fish that the people on the small boat brought back when they went to take James Reimer to the port. It’s not looking great, and we don’t really have anything to feed it, but we’ll try and keep it happy enough untill we get back to JAMSTEC. We gave it fresh water today and it seemed to be happy enough.

A restful night for everyone, as it was an eventful day.