Kannonzaki

Autumn has come at last!

Finished the hot swealtering days, and into some good proper autumn weather! Turns out there is nothing better than a monstrous typhoon to get the weather sorted out, and we now have a mix of showers and sunny spells, rather than ongoing 85% humidity. And a wonderful cool breeze, which has luckily decreased in intensity since Wednesday when the typhoon came over us and was actually blowing people off their feet.

Geology at work in Kannonzaki

Kannonzaki is right at the south-eastern end of Uraga peninsula, and it must have been quite impressive on Wednesday! There was plastic and styrofoam bits more than 10 meters above sea level, and the forests are littered with broken branches and fallen trees.

Today, the weather was overcast, with the most beautiful lighting out over Tokyo bay and onto Chiba peninsula on the other side. The sea was an interesting mix of crystal clear water on crystal clear sand, and, a bit further on, meters and meters of seaweed and plastic trash both on the beach and in the water.

The fish, at least, seemed happy, as they were jumping out of the water all over the place, and I even saw several schools of what look remarquably like fugu.

I am told they are extremely rare (because of overfishing), and, as I saw these right outside a fishing village, they are most likely not.

It has been such a swift turn of weather, that many of the plants have gone from green summer foliage to dead, so I'm not sure whether there will be much autumn colours viewing this year.

September hiking

Such a long time since I've done anything interesting! This is because it is hot. Very hot. And humid. Very humid. One might even say very very humid.

Today was no exception, starting off at 7am around 26°C and 70% humidity. But it does not look like it is planning any fall weather soon, so I set off for a small hike anyway. I took the train to Kanazawa-bunko and then walked to the zoo, to do my favorite walk to Kamakura. It was fun to see all the mushrooms coming up all over the forest, and it was quite a relief to see the ginko trees have not yet started losing their fruit.

The main temple in Kamakura was also relatively empty, but that just gave me more space to stand and take in the relaxing sight of a huge lotus pond. The flowers have finished already, and most of the seed pods are already drooping to release the seeds, but it was still very beautiful. And the very very old weeping willows lining the ponds just make it that much more serene. The oodles of monstous carp made it somewhat less so, but they are part of the japanese culture, too.

I then decided to take the Yokosuka line in Kamakura to the Higashi-zushi station, which means East-Zushi, and that's just where it is. From that station, it is an easy climb to the Oppama-Jimmuji path, and I came home along that. By easy climb, I mean the path climbed easily. The combination of heat and humidity made the walk ever so tiring, and the sweat running down my face made it rather difficult to look up into the trees to look for birds and cicadas. But that meant I had my eyes down when I startled the most amazing skink. It was quite small, but amazingly fast and agile, with a shiny brown body with cream stripes, which turned into a violent blue on the tail.

My photo, where you can just make out a bit of blue tail.

A photo off the internet, done either with a very fast camera, or of a dead animal.

There were surprisingly few people out, and the forest was absolutely beautiful. Also absolutely beautiful was the sky, with huge rolling white cumulus, on a crystal-clear background, without so much as a humidity haze in the distance.

This doesn't mean Fuji-san was obvious, though. It reminds me of the Castle in the Sky, which is just an odd cloud, before you look at it again, and it suddenly turns out to be the castle, which now seems to have always been there. The main problem with Fuji-san is that it does not appear to be in contact with the ground. There are the hills you are walking through, the hills in the distance, the sky above the hills with its collection of puffy cumulus. Then look higher still, and you shall see Fuji-san, proud as a peacock, seemingly floating on a sea of clouds. With a tantalizing patch of clear sky below it, in which the bottom of Fuji-san cannot be seen.

If you can't see Fuji-san, you're looking too low!

However, when you do tear your eyes away from it, the view across the whole West coast of Tokyo Bay and onto the shore of Chiba prefecture on the other side was truely worth the long walk. I was not the only one to be enjoying the sight, in fact, as there were several people painting on top of the lookout tower.

After this, what I needed was an ice cream, to cool down a bit, and then a nice cool shower. I don't think I have ever sweated so much in so little time. Can't wait till it starts getting cooler! And more dry would be nice, too, but that will probably have to wait till the end of the typhoon season.

Ogi-machi

After a very chic breakfast at the hotel restaurant, we set off for a small visit of the other sites of Gifu prefecture. These included some marvelous little local markets, and a nice natural source footbath.

Then for lunch, we decided to go to another main point of Gifu life: ayu fishing. Now ayu are mainly plant feeders, and so the main fishing method is to tie a live ayu to the fising wire and attach hooks all around it. You then throw the live ayu in the water, where it (hopefully) swims into another ayu's territory and gets attacked, thereby snaring the other ayu on one of the hooks attached around it.

Ayu grilled in salt over coal

Seeing the enormous number of ayu eaten every day in this region alone, it is obvious from the start that traditional ayu fishing cannot be the only way of catching them. And indeed, it isn't. The most used way of catching ayu is a huge bamboo fish trap contraption, in which the river water is diverted and falls quite fast onto a bamboo mesh, stopping the fish from going through, and, I assume, stunning them enough that they cannot jup back into the stream above.

What neither I nor any of the japanese had expected to find while visiting a temporarily closed ayu trap, was the huge giant salamander, quite dead, that had washed up on the bamboo slats. Having only ever seen it in aquariums, it was sad to see the first wild one so totally dead, which kind of punt a damper on the party for a while (it is a "natural monument" in Japan, although everyone agreed the translation was rather odd).

We did eventually find an open ayu farm, but had only ayu from their stock, as the fishing was not good at this time, it having been raining too much. More rain is what we got just as we were finishing lunch, but that, if anything, just made the countryside even more beautiful, filling the valleys with spirals of cloud.

And the rain was really just a shower, so everything had nicely dried up by the time we reached the small village of Ogi, near Shirakawa. This is a UNESCO world heritage site, and well worth the protection. The village is entirely made up of old traditional wooden houses, for the most part with thatch rooves, and what is even more excuisite, is that the village is still inhabitted, and people live and farm there.

It being a high-mountain village, it does look quite similar to the old villages one finds in the Alps, but those hardly ever have japanese ornamental gardens.

And here (an unthinkable thought in the Alps), there is not a geranium in sight. I did not see a single one in the whole village.

And, of course, the thatch is made of rice stalks...

We stayed till closing time, then made our way back through the mountains at dusk, and out into the kansai plains on the other side. An amazing visit.

Hachiman

We set off saturday morning at 2am for Gifu prefecture, and at around 7am drove into one of the most beautiful montain villages I have ever seen.

Hachiman, also known as Gujo-Hachiman as it's part of the bigger city Gujo, is a smallish town in a beautiful mountain valley, with 2 rather nice size rivers flowing through it, and many many many small streams. Every road and alleyway has gutters of gurgling water, and there are innumerable canals running between the houses, most of them filled with an amazing number of huge carp.

The houses themselves are still very traditional, which means they don't look solid enough to last through the winter, and yet have obviously been there quite some time.

They also look as if whoever constructed the second floor did so in complete disregard of what style might previously have been employed to build the first floor. This makes the 2- and 3-floor houses look like something from the children's books where you can flip the pages to dress the characters in different clothes.

As the town started to wake up, we had a pleasant little visit, enjoying the cool morning air, before moving on to one main attraction of this town: the plastic food company! Japan is known for its displays of terribly life-like plastic food displays outside of restaurants and bars. And here is one of the places where such displays are made!

Look but don't eat! It's all silicons gel....

We even got to have a little hands-on class of tempura-making. (On the photo I am making the decorative lettuce leaf).

As we got into afternoon, the coolness quickly evaporated to be replaced by a swealtering heat only confined valleys can achieve. And so the local youth moved on to what appears to be their favorite summer occupation: jumping off the bridge into the (freezing cold) river below. Or at least the boys do. The girls either cheer them on from the bridge or get their wet suits on and paddle around in the swimming area near the bridge.

Leaving the rest of the party to swim around in the river, I wandered up to Hachiman castle, one of the main features of the town.

Like seems to be rather common in Japan, this castle spent its lifetime being beuilt, torn down, rebuilt in a different style, burnt down and finally rebuilt again, so that this actual castle is from 1933. It is wooden covered in white plaster which makes it really quite beautiful, sitting atop the mountain. I did not go inside it, though, as there is only a museum in there, and as far as I can tell, they re-built it as a museum in 1933.

And finally, after a delicious dinner of fish, fish and more fish (the local specialities), we got to the point of our trip, the Obon festival! And all dressed up as we should be!

This is half traditional, with a small band platform with singers and a few musicians, which sets in the middle of a square, while the crown join in the traditional dancing, moving up and down the roads on each side of the square. The other side of the town saw a normal village fair, with some small attraction stands (shooting and darts are really big here), and lots and lots of food stands, many of them selling unknown things fried in batter.

It was a very fun evening for all (we had some extra excitement when we had to fish one of the girls' telephone out of the carp pond), but I was glad to slip into bed for some well-deserved sleep!

Kyoto

Maiko-san

My friend Nanae most kindly invited me to come to go house in Hyogo (near Kobe) for a few days with her, as she was going back on vacation.

So after work on Friday we packed into her car, and set off towards Hyogo. The countryside changes drastically once you get past the coastal plains of Kanto, and, driving West, with the haze of high humidity, it was like driving through an old japanese ink painting.

We then drove through a huge tea-growing area, which makes some of the finest tea in Japan. I am rather unsure of the electic fans on poles, but every single field we drove past had them, so I am guessing it is an essecial step of tea-growing.

This week-end was a big holiday all over Japan, as the 15th of August is the day the ancestors come back from wherever they usually are. And so everyone goes back to their family home, to put flowers and offerings on the tombs, to show the ancestors they aren't forgotten.

This means there is a huge rush of outgoing traffic from Tokyo, and even more so going towards Kansai, as the tradition is strongest there.

So it took us quite a long time to get to Nanae's house, and about half of it was in night-time, the sun setting quite early here.

Modern art created by long exposures on a bumpy road

Nanae's family is absolutely charming, and quite as crazy as she is. And they live in a beautiful big old wooden house with perfectly-kept japanese gardens. A true delight.

But the point of my vacation was not to just mope around the house! So after a rather short night, and after a small ceremony to the ancestors, we set out for Kyoto.

Kyoto is a huge city, but luckily, most of the old quarter is huddled around the central hill, all in easy walking distance. Well, the distance is easy. The fact it was an absolute scorcher of a day with not a whiff of wind in sight made it all an exhausting experience.

But we did not let meer meteorological factors stop us, and had a very nice visit of all the temple complex and old shopping streets surrounding it.

Although the temples around Yokohama are staring to all look a bit the same, these were refreshingly different, and, as in Okinawa, clearly stated 'we are the hub of the kingdom'. This was true for many years in Japan, and still is, for many Kyoto and Osaka residents.