Isumi line

Next train line on my treck across Chiba was the Isumi line, another small one-car collector's train line.

And for some, as yet unexplained, reason, this line runs under the sign of Moomins.

The Moomin headquarters are at Kuniyoshi, but along the whole train line it is possibe to see small Moomin houses and characters, fishing at the side of small streams, of sitting around camp fires.

As that was where my hotel was, I took the opportunity to wander around Kuniyoshi a bit. It is a small city, largely based on rice production,

A self service rice-cleaning booth.

but with some ongoing road constructions and house expansions.

I was instructed, at Kuniyoshi station, that they were having a summer festival in Ootaki, a village on the opposite side of where I had planned to go. But when the small one-car train bound for Ootaki arrived, packed full of people like a morning train in Tokyo, I decided to stick to my plans and head on to Oohara, to see the beach!

Oohara is a very old-style japanese city, without any high-rise buildings, based largely on fishing.

There are 2 very nice temples in the city itself, one a rather common wood and plaster construction.

The second, a beautiful wooden, thatched-rooved temple was build on the side of a small hill overlooking a small lake. The lake, filled with water lilies and what might have been redhead ducks also had a small little red wooden bridge across to another small temple building.

Climbing up the hill behind the temple, one could see the famous Oohara temple bell, taken to the United States after the wall, but kindly returned to them by Duluth some years later. This is really just trivia, as the bell was of quite ordinary size and disposition.

Although I've seen from the maps that the northern shore of Oohara is a wide beach, famous for surfing and such, the southern coast is lined with sheer limestone cliffs, interspersed with small coves. On the last cliff before the city port, a small shrine has been built, to protect those going off to sea. They had a large anchor in lieu of statues near the shrine, and many small recesses filled with fox statuettes, a diety known for cunning and mischief.

As I got my first good look at the Pacific Ocean, these protections seemed rfectly in order, as it could only be described as brooding. The sky was a dark grey, low over the water, and the waves were quite high, clearly delimitating the 'inside' and 'outside' of the port breakwater.

I had time to tour the little hill on which the shrine was built before the rain hit, and then just waited it out, as were the fishermen on the wharves. 'cue for promoting how great my new raincoat is'

Although it never actually stopped raining, it did settle down into an acceptable drizzle, Turning the cliffs into a mozaic of sun and shade.

Oohara is still about 2 hours from Tokyo, and another hour and a half home to Oppama, so I did not feel I had the time to explore further along the southern shore of Oohara, much to my regret. That will definitely be on my list of further trips, though, as it seemed an absolutely beautiful place to go walking. Preferably not in the rain, of course.

Yorokeikoku

Moving along down the line, I had lunch near another beautiful temple. This one had an amazing copper 'samurai-hat' roof, and stone pillars creating a small inner courtyard around the plain, uncarved temple walls.

Then back onto the train again, and on to Yorokeikoku, where there is a hiking course recommended by my guide book.

I totally failed mapping at this point, and although I spent an amazing 2 hours hiking around in the forest, I missed almost all the sites from the guidebook, only stumbling upon the 'famous' red wooden bridge by accident, while making my way back to the train station.

What I did see was amazingly beautiful countryside, with the added bonus of there not being any other people.

I started out by going over a red metal bridge, then up the road for a while, untill I found a small country road off through the forest. The forest was all planted cedar, but here and there were a few of the original trees, the largest with a small shrine at its base,

and many other small shrines dug into the rock on the side of the road.

The road I was on still being paved, and therefore too big to be really interesting, I spent my time skirting down the little paths the farmers use to tend their fields, and there found a whole different countryside. The valleys are quite sharp, but whet land there is has been carfully levelled out and irrigation ditches constructed to water the rice fields.

What fields are not needed, or are being left to rest, are a mass of tall yellow flowers and grasses, which harbour a multitude of grasshoppers, a few frogs, a few more snakes, and even a few wild piggies!

I came across one quite by accident, while he was taking his afternoon siesta in a small muddy area. I thought he was dead, when my brain registered what I was seeing, and so stepped closer to see hime better. I'm not sure whether he had not heard me or was playing dead, but he suddenly gave a big grunt of suprise, sending both of us jumping backwards, and he raced off through the grasses and down into the next valley.

He was quite small, and a light yollowish brown colour, but I'm glad he went the other way, and made sure to make lots of noise going through the bushes after that!

After wandering down a little-used path invaded by monstrous spiders on their monstrous webs, I finally got down to the river.

I followed a proper road back to the train station, in order not to miss the last train. The road was just as beautiful as the forest path, winding along the forest for a while and then through a small village with a cool Buddha.

Then up and over the big blue metal bridge, giving me a nice view of the red bridge I had started out on, and a last view of the river, being rewarded by a pair of white cranes and a brilland blue kingfisher sightings.

My new hiking boots are amazing, and just eat up the kilometers. But by the time the train click-clacked into the station, my brain was dwelling on thoughts of hot baths and dinners promised to me at my hotel in Kuniyoshi.

I hot forgotten just how hot the japanese like their baths, so, after a 1 second excursion of my foot into and right back out of the bathtub, I gave up and simply enjoyed a nice shower.

And, as the sun set over the rice fields and cypress trees, I tucked into an amazing dinner od tempura, sashimi, pickles, soups, etc....

Kominatotetsudo line, 3 stars in my book!

Kominatotetsudo

Another long and unpronounceable name, it must be another trip to Chiba! This time, prepared like a pro, and much more at ease with navigating in japanese and with *shudders* japanese maps, it was with high expectations that I set out for Chiba once again.

For a long-standing, maritime culture like Japan, they make the most horrendous maps I've ever seen. I refused to believe, though, that they lack logic all together, and so after many months of study, have finally found a key to japanese mapping!

For large-scale maps, I guess they feel internationally pressured to use such denominators as North and South, and distance scales. For smaller, local maps, however, we enter into the reign of the japanese mapping fantasy. The maps must include the train line, the station, and all intersections with traffic lights. All other streets, too modest to have their own traffic lights, will be added at the artists inclination.

'Up' is almost directly South, here

But what really sends you off (literally) into the woods, is the orientation of said half-filled out maps. The train line will go horizontally across the map, regardless of where North is. The top of the map is, in fact, the direction you are facing while you are looking at the map! This seems dull, but it has the huge implication that the exact same map on the opposite side of the street will have the 'top' on the bottom of the map, all the writing now facing the new 'top'.

With all this in mind, I only got lost about 50% of the time, instead of all the time!

I left Oppama early, to get on a bus in Yokohama, which whisks you up the coast to where Haneda airport is, then down into a tunnel,

and in just 30 minutes, up you pop on the shores of Chiba peninsula! I took the bus to Goi station, where the Kominatotetsudoline train was waiting for me! This is another of those "seen on television" must, and so I gladly joined the motley crew of day trippers, cameras out and on the ready.

The line starts out though the rather small city of Goi, and then out into large flat rice paddy land, with just the hint of hills in the distance. The stations are of the old spaghetti western kind, clapboard wood painted while, with flowers along the quay, and a lazy cat on the bench outside the station.

Not far from the first station was a very nice temple, in its little cedar grove, with beautifully carved dragons and cranes above the main entrance.

Then quickly back to the station, and on the the next stop on the line. You'll have to excuse the lack of names here, but although I have the names written in kanji on my map, I haven't a clue how to pronounce any of them....

This station was actually close to a small town, but rather than go there, I took a small local road straight across the rice paddies, heading for the hills. The rice has been cut, but it looks like they might be trying for a second cutting this year, as the stumps have been left to grow.

The small clusters of houses out of town, on the edge of the hills were what were truly worth the walk. They are the houses of the farmers tending the rice fields and vegetable crops, and all have that old, lived-in beauty that you only get in farm houses.

Beyond the rice fields, the road wound around through a small wood, to a very small shrine in a bamboo and cedar grove. It looking so abandoned, I decided to put a coin in the little box, and ring the bell, wishing for general good luck.

Just minutes after, I saw this very big and beautiful snake. That is, admitedly, not everyone's definition of luck, but why not?

Many more animals were also out and about, with the largest butterfly I've seen a long time.

As well as hordes of dragonflies, crayfish in all the ponds and streams, as well as a frog or two, and even some kind of grasshopper thing.