Kazusakameyama

Sunday's trip was to Kazusakameyama, a small village lost in the middle of rice paddies and bamboo forests, at the end of a little old narrow-gauge railroad line. And I have become a total fan of that place. This is why....

The biggest negative point is that it's a bit in the boonies. It takes about 4H from Oppama station, 5 if you happen to miss the little train that runs only once an hour. And it only runs once an hour because most of the way there is only 1 track and so the trains can only pass at 2 stations.

There are however sooooo many positive points that the travel time just dwindles into nothing. It's like griping about the time it takes to get to paradise.

According to wikipedia Chiba prefecture is the peanut heart of Japan. Well I would just like to say that I did not see anything that might even closely resemble a field of peanut bushes.

What I did see was real japanese countryside: small wooden houses in clumps amongst the rice paddies, wading birds galore (some wonderful white herons and small ginger pheasants), all the little connecting roads and paths between the paddies, and the rounded hills surrounding the valley with lush bamboo forests, agremented with cherry trees in blossom and japanese ceders, with now and then a steep canyon carved by a river, with the bamboo forests kind of waterfalling down into them. And down the middle of the valley goes clickety-clacking the little 2 car narrow-gauge diesel train.

When I arrived at the station where I was to catch this adorable little train I found that I had nearly an hour's wait before the next train. Well that was no problem, except that I was stuck in a, frankly, quite ugly port town on Tokyo bay. There is absolutely nothing positive to say about that town, which will remain unnamed for it's own good.

So an hour later I arrived back at the train station, a bit discouraged, and there! THE TRAIN! I knew right then and there that I was into something good. There was the little train puffing to itself, and there was a whole throng of japanese folk taking photos of it. And the whole way along the track there were folks with tripods set up along the roads and bridges, waiting for the train to go by so they could get photos. Now it's a cute little train, but not really spectacular. It's not really that old-fashionned, although the "air-conditionning" system is a bit rustique. But the japanese really have a train-freak side. On week-end TV they have train-spotting info, on which places are best every week, depending on what flowers are in bloom etc...

The train trip lasts an hour but it seems like 15 minutes.

At the end of the line is Kazusakameyama, and as I got off the train I was greated by the near deffening sound of frogs. It's a small village, with only about 100 houses, suoounded on one side by rice paddies, on one side by a dammed up lake, and on one side by forested hills. The perfect paradise.

The frogs it turns out inhabit the rice paddies. It seems dumb, but I had never thought of frogs in rice paddies. I have never actually thought much about rice paddies anyway, but what thoughts I did have did not include frogs. From now on they will, although, and this is very vexing, I did not once set eyes on any frog. I was so close to one that the sound hurt my ears but I could not see him! When I go back to that wonderful valley I will go prepared for a frog hunt!

One you have seen the rice paddies and been deafened by the frogs you realise there isn't much more to do with rice paddies. So off to the lake I went. One thing you don't realise from looking at pictures on goole maps is that the lake is about 200m below the rice paddy level. 200m straight down. Which makes picnicking on the side of the lake a bit difficult. I did finally find a small bamboo outcrop a bit flatter than the rest and had a nice lunch looking at all people fishing. The lake seems to be THE place to go fishing on a sunny Sunday, and frankly I can see why (I actually COULD see why as the fish were quite visible from up on the bridge). And these were not sport fishermen with style or anything. These were folks out for an afternoon in the fresh air, and were happy just to get the lure in the water. As you can see from the next photo and with a close-up of the overhead wires (just above the clump of darker trees, slightly left of center), we have enthusiasm=100%, actual technique = close to 0%. But it's the fun that matters, and there was a lot of that.

Along one bank of the lake runs a small road no trafic on it. The sides of the road are full of wonderful irisis, picher plants and ferns, and of course bamboo. And also along the side of the road are monkeys! I saw a couple in the forest, and then the male went out onto the bridge to cross the the other side. It was really great to see them just wandering around in the forest, free. That made an already wonderful trip simply fantastic. After staring for 10 minutes at the male monkey sunbathing on a tree branch I managed to tear myself away. I still had the forest side to investigate before I went home.

The forest path was somewhat muddy, but thanks to that I now know there is a quite large deer family inhabiting the forest. Of course due to the mud the forest was filled with the sounds of thousands of totally invisible frogs, accompnied by a few invisible bird melodies. As a consolation prize, I did see some nice big gurking toads, and some turtles (thankfully silent). All too early I had to leave the forest to head back to the train station. With only one train an hour, you can quickly arrive home very late if you miss it...

So regretfully I left this wonderfully forgotten corner of paradise. But I promised to go back, and I surely will.

Brassica

Today's outing was through the brassica fields of Japan. It was a very pretty walk, from the last station on the Keikyu line through the cabbage and turnup fields and down to the beach. It was also a much shorter walk than it seemed on the map, being only about 1km to the beach. However 1 km is more than enough to fully appreciate the smell of cabbage, and I was glad to see the beach.

This beach did not really have anything striking to it. There was a kind of dark, almost black sand, some nice rocks at one end, and some cliffs with WWII tunnels dug in them. This seems neat at first, untill you realize that absolutely ALL the hills have WWII tunnels in them. When I did the walk from Kanazawa-bunko to Oppama they had a photo expo in one. As far as I can gather they used them as plane hangars and warehouses. Best camouflage you can have, I guess.

As it was a very rural area and the few summer houses were still empty, the beachgoers were only interested in picking up seaweed. So just in an hour I got myself a nice seashell collection. And I was really lucky, as just as I was wondering what I could do with my shells I happened to look in the 'burnable' trash bin, and voilà! A wonderful wooden box, of perfect size, with 2 little ribbons on the side. What could be better? Now I have myself a shell collection, to show all the people who aren't really enthousiastic about seeing my jellyfish collection!

Ueno zoo

I have been in Japan 2 months now, and it is totally inacceptable that I have not yet been to Tokyo! So today I decided to visit Ueno park, as it is easily accessible and has bunches of things to see all right there. However I kind of misjuged the size of the park. So my first visit of Tokyo.... turned into the visit of only Ueno zoo.

Well that's not completely true... I had promissed myself not to leave Japan without seeing a Shinkansen. Today I saw 6 in 15 minutes, so guess that's a success. They are not only bullet trains but they go every 3 minutes!

And I also got to experience a tokyoite sakura fever, which is a bit more exuberant than the countryside ones. Here is the main alley of Ueno park at 9am ....

.... and at 3pm (note the sakura-fan on the step ladder, and the red power-ranger in the distance who turned around too late for the photo so you can't see where he had the little golden bells attached ...)(He did, yes. This is what the japanese do when they're not being extremely quite and well behaved.)

This zoo was quite different from the Kanazawa one. The cages themselves aren't landscaped, but they have enough space in this one that they can have their own lotus lake (not growing yet), with a monorail going around the parc and everything.

They have all sorts of animals, from lions and tigers to gorillas, and bunches of different birds. They're very into establishing breeding colonies of endangered species, so it was like walking through a Gerald Durrell book. They even had the flat toads that he gets in Argentina! They really are flat, and do look squished a bit. And of course they had all the japanese endemic species, including the giant salamander, and the cranes, and the monkeys.

As well as the animals there is also a 5 story pagoda in the zoo, which is the 'home' of some cranes, ducks, geese and swans, as well as the ever present crows. I am getting into the sakura habit, so here is the pagoda with and without blossoms. The cherry trees are just getting into swing. In a couple of weeks you won't be able to move in that park it'll be so packed full of people.

Kanazawa Zoo

This week-end was the (15th?) anniversary of the Kanazawa zoo, and so they were open for free for the 3 days. Today was a very sunny but not too warm day. The zoo opens at 9:30 and it was packed full right from the start, with the zoo mascots there to welcome everyone.

The zoo is part of a big park complex with several botanical gardens on different themes and the zoo. The zoo was very nice, with fake-rock walls and moats to seperate the cages instead of bars, and flowers and trees all over.

The animals all seemed happy, except the african mule-type thing that looked in a filthy mood, but that's pretty normal for any mule. There were several babies but none of them new-born, although a baby rhino is probably pretty big to start with.

As there has been some quite warm weather lately most of the animals were shedding like mad. But for once the moose didn't look the worst! And all the animals were really active. I guess it was the combination of sun and cool weather. And of course for a given value of 'really active'. By that I mean most of the animals were running around all over the place, the wombat was scratching itself and moving about, and one of the koalas had it's eyes open. You can't expect supernatural behaviour either....

And as well as being a very nice zoo, it has something I have never seen anywhere else before. You have all seen aviaries. Well this zoo has a ....

Stag-beetle-ary!

It's just like an aviary: you walk through the mesh doors, noting the little sign saying don't squish the beetles, and inside there are open boxes full of dirt. And in the dirt and humongous white grubs, which will, eventually, hatch into stag beetles. And yes, that stage beetles will be free inside the tent just like birds in aviaries. Cool, eh? They even have special boxes of dirt set out special so that you can dig in them yourself to try and find yourself a grub. You don't get to keep them, however. Must be great fun in summer time in there.

Spring! literally.

It is officially spring! And Japan is on vacation and planning on making the most of it. The part around Yokosuka and Kanazawa feels that way anyway. It's party time all over the place. It is also really truly spring, with cherry blossoms and pigreons making nests (note how much prettier Japanese pigeons are).

I had seen a poster a way back about a guided hike starting at Kanazawa-bunko station, 11km long. Sounded good, so this morning I showed up a bit early, hoping I could find it. Well it was quite easy... all you needed to do was to follow the huge signs all over the place, and stand in line to sign up and be assigned to one of the 10 guides. And that was just for the 9am hike. They had others starting later.... Guess I shouldn't have worried.

We were a group of 9 with a very nice guide. In red on the map is where we went, starting from the Kanazawa-bunko station (left), and ending up.... at Oppama station! In the middle is the little badge I got for doing the walk. Some people signing up already had 5 or 6 of them....

We saw lots of neat stuff along the way. The temple complex is near the Kanazawa bunko station and is very picturesque, with lirrle red bridges, and carp and stuff. Then we went to someplace that was very pretty .... if what you like is toilets. It seemed to have been important , maybe as the emperor's summer house or something, but every room had a different type of toilet in it. A bit special...

From the island where the weird house is you get a wonderful view of the clam diggers and, behind, Natsushima and the red square things in front of JAMSTEC. And right next to that, a new take on the pick-nick grounds: the barbecue grounds. It was only 11 then, but quite a lot of the pits were taken already.

At Oppama station they had bands, food stalls, garage sales, dancing groups. A really good show! It's a pity abour the wind, which is nearly blowing the food off the stalls, but still a great day.

Sagami bay Cruise

Guess this was my first real oceanographic cruise, with everyone on shifts, and never getting any sleep and stuff like that. It was actually great fun, except for the first afternoon when the sea was just an itsy bitsy bit rough (20 knot winds), and everyone was feeling quite queasy by the time dinner time came. We might all have been ok with a bit of good food in us, but this happened to be the day the cook decided on sashimi..... and the sight of raw fish was just not the thing for us. I was actually quite proud of being the 3rd to leave the dinner table rather precipitously, and one boy never even made it to the table. As it was clear we wouldn't be getting any work done in those conditions we anchored on the sheltered side of the bay for the night.

The Tansei-maru is a ship jointly owned by Tokyo university and JAMSTEC. It's about 40m long and, according to Dhugal, does not have a lot of comfort. It "only" has 3 toilets, a washing-mashine room with sinks and a bath room with a shower and a bath tub that is constantly filled and heated till 9pm. As we were only 8 scientists, the lab was more than large enough, and we all had our own table pretty much.

The next morning we started off bright and sunny, at 6am, and pretty much kept going non stop for 3 days. We had 6 hour shifts, and each was responsible for a net. The first day the planning was a bit off, so everyone was on shift when it was the other folk's nets, and also had to be there for their nets, when they were technically off shift. The second day got things straightened out, and on the third day the sea was too rough for nets in the morning so we did only VPR, and then only nets in the afternoon.

There were 3 different nets, the VPR (video plankton recorder), and some sediment traps, so we always had bunches to do. Dhugal and I were responsible of the VPR, and so had battery changes to do, and data downloading and sorting and such. We also got to recuperate the jellies from the ORI net the other group was doing. That was loads of fun, as there were innumerable interesting things in them. We even found several possible new species, and a few Dhugal had hardly ever seen.

From those nets come the samples of my newly started voucher specimen collection. I am now officially a jellyfish weirdo.

Cruise prepatations

A week-end spent preparing for our next cruise, on the Tansei Maru, a "small" ship (40m long) belonging to Tokyo university and JAMSTEC. As it's cold and raining and really miserable, that wasn't such a bad thing to do. The packing went fast, and we had put everything in the truck by 11am on Saturday, so got the afternoon off.

On Sunday, we were to meet the truck at the dock

where the ship is, at Daiba. I got a teensy weensy bit lost, but have learned that if you write the name of the station down and show it to the information clerk they usually draw you a very clear map as to which train to take. And speaking of trains, here is a sight not many people get to see: the electronic board informing you the train will be arriving early!? Not a word I usually associate with trains....

Daiba seems like a very kitsch resort for week-end Tokyo-ites, but actually has a very nice water front with paths through little gardens and benches by the sea-side. There is also a very nice bird population, with ducks and cormorants and sea gulls and lots of others, I'm sure. One sea gull was paddling around pecking at a dead fish belly up in the water, so I guess you never really forget you're still in the outskirts of Tokyo...

The ship loading went well, with more people than actual luggage. Looks like we'll only be 7 scientists instead of the 12 or so they usually have. That means lots of space for everyone, which is nice.

The weather is awful like good spring weather should be. And spring is the time of cherry blossoms! And so they have put up .... pink, plastic ... um ... blossoms ... in the streets. There is a time when I feel they try just a bit too hard.

Well I'm off to eat some bread and butter. We have just been told that it'll be Japanese breakfasts only on the ship, so I only have 2 days left of bread! How horrible! The thought of broth with tofu in it for breaky. Oh dear.... Must run and get some bread!