Stormy Weather

That's not dandruff...they're snowflakes., a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

Yesterday a strong storm blew over most of Japan. I remember reading that offshore wind speeds of higher than 100km/h had been recorded. Inland where I am we had the power lines dancing and the building shaking a little. Some students, especially the younger ones, stayed home. A co-worker told me that he looked out on his balcony this morning and found a pair of slippers, perfectly lined up as if waiting for someone to step into them, sitting there. A bit of an odd discovery if I should say so myself.

One thing that happens in such situations is that the trains are halted once the wind speed gets too high. A friend who once worked on the Yamagata Shinkansen recalled being on trains which were halted for half an hour under those conditions. If the wind speed were to pick up again at the 28th minute (or so) then they'd have to sit there for another 30 minutes. That's just the nature of the business.

Aside from strong winds, we're still getting small amounts of snowfall. April Fool's Day was several days ago and this joke of "It's spring...Ha! Ha! No it isn't!" is starting to wear really thin. We're planning an Ohanami party at work for staff and students. Given the conditions I have no idea if there will be any bloom on the day we've picked which is April 22nd. We can't hold it the following week because it's the start of Uesugi Matsuri and Golden Week. By May 12th or so we expect all the blossoms to have fallen.

Someone asked me online "How far north are you?". The snowy conditions don't have that much to do with our latitude (it's 37.9˚N). It has a lot to do with geography I think. The cold air comes rumbling in from the Sea of Japan and slams into the mountains surrounding the city. We're at the southern end of a basin plain ("bonchi" 盆地 in Japanese) and in a pocket with low mountains to the west and higher mountains to the south and east. The elevation of the city is only 267m (compared to 1048m for Calgary).

I learned a new word today: "Antifebrile". It's a medical adjective describing something which can reduce one's fever. As a noun it is the agent which reduces fever. I had asked around the class if anyone had allergies and one student said she was allergic to "genetsuyaku" (解熱剤). Her electronic translation dictionary had brought up the English definitions of antifebrile and antipyretic. I made a note about the former on the class record. It's just one of those things which is peculiar enough that you want to keep track of it....

Spring Snow and Other Things

Spring Snow, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The photo was taken on March 26th. Yet, it snowed again on April 1st. Has this been a long winter? Yes. When I look at photos taken by some of my contacts on Flickr I see subjects like their kids' Sakura Matsuri. I have no idea when we're going to see anything blossom around here but at the rate we're going it might be around the same time as Uesugi Matsuri which this year is being held from April 29th.

Nonetheless the snow has melted enough such that virtually all roads and sidewalks are clear. That means I don't have to resort to walking everywhere. That's a welcome change. It'll be nice to be able to go a little farther when exploring this city.

Speaking of exploring, I didn't do too bad in March walking about. I found a Jodo Shinshu temple which is affiliated with Nishi Hongwanji (the same main temple which the Vancouver Buddhist Temple is associated with), a hobby shop and a pretty good gyoza shop hidden on a side street. I also managed to trek out to Yamagata to watch a friend play a gig there. So in spite of no car and a long winter I've managed to get out and about.

One place I checked out today was a restaurant called Silk Road. It's run by an Iranian fellow and he specializes in Persian cuisine. The food is quite tasty (I ordered a chicken shish kebab dish) and the atmosphere is much like the Persian restaurants I've been to back home though not quite as polished and snazzy. All in all it was a welcome treat to be able to go out and try something different.

I Just Can't Put My Finger On It

Scene in Yamagata City, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I passed by this shrine in Yamagata city as I was making my way to Music Showa to see a friend's set at a concert. The shrine itself is an odd creation with a concrete building, with touches of traditional Japanese architectural style, standing ahead of a traditional wooden construction shrine building. I didn't stop to take a second look at the striped safety cone standing there in front of this architectural mash-up so I'm not quite sure if it is a permanent fixture or not. I'm really not sure if this scene is absurd, funny or just plain wrong. In a way I can't put my finger on it to say which of those it is.

As for the concert in question, it was an interesting affair. A lot of the people in the audience were high school students (the guitarist for HALENCH MUCUS asked for a show of hands and quite a few went up). I didn't know anything about the acts on the bill save for the band my friend plays in (they play a sort of "emo" thrash rock with a touch of influence from the Japanese psycho underground movement) so I had no expectations with respect to what I was going to be listening to. In general the acts were bands that would fit the standard mold of Japanese indie rock: power pop/rock units with the standard lineup of guitar, bass and drums. All were competent musicians and some were better than others. The headline act called Est Infection (no, I don't know why that name was chosen) was a trio of high school students just finishing their third and final year. Given that they were all graduating, and most likely going separate ways, this concert was their last one together. It goes without saying the set was emotionally overwhelming for at least one member of the band. There was a fair bit of chatting and reminiscing between songs so it was touching...to a certain point. I would have rather they kept the chatting short and sweet and focused on going out with a bang. But that's just my opinion.

The one thing that struck me as odd about the concert was that the audience more or less just stood still. Applause came after the routine "Arigato" at the end of every tune...never right after the final note had been played. I couldn't put my finger on the reason for that either. In general I have found audiences in small venues to be a reserved lot but this group was so much more so. I talked about this with the fellow who drove me back to Yonezawa and he didn't have any theories on it other than it being something to do with the demographic; an audience with a lot of high school students in a dry concert hall. We had both been at a concert in a bar the previous night and things there had been significantly more livelier. The other factor I observed was that the headline act wasn't playing the kind of music I'd identify as being easy to dance or party to. They were skilled musicians who leaned towards what I'd call "shoegaze" rock. It's great to listen to, it's well arranged and it's thoughtful but it's a far cry from anything George Thorogood ever played (I picked him to make my point because I was listening to his songs today). The sign on the door of the concert hall which said "No diving off the stage" pretty well told me that not all Japanese audiences are polite and reserved. There have to be some crazies out there somewhere...

A Walk Up to Asakusa

Foot of a Guardian, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

Feb 19, 2012

The chronicle of the day is straight forward; we were met at the hotel by my mom's friend and family (husband and son). We didn't have any plans laid out ahead of time so we just headed off and walked in the general direction of Asakusa.

One neighbourhood we passed through was Kappabashi (literally "Water Imp Bridge"). The area was well represented by stores aimed at serving restaurants and households. The most interesting of course being the stores which sell the ubiquitous models of food seen in the fronts of restaurants all over Japan. I picked up a very nice bread knife for ¥2300. There was a cheaper one for ¥1600 but I didn't see it until after I had paid. Nonetheless I'm happy with my purchase.

Lunch was had at a restaurant which was part cafeteria and part made to order. It was reasonable, the selection of dishes was quite large and the tamagoyaki were fresh made and very tasty.

After that we made our final approach to Sensoji. Along the way we passed theatres which I believe are dedicated to manzai or rakugo acts. Or perhaps not. Perhaps they specialize in comedy and variety acts such as those celebrated in the movie "Warai no Daigaku" (The University of Laughter). All in all it's not the type of theatre one sees in other parts of Japan, let alone Tokyo.

The other entertainment flashback we encountered was a kamishibai story teller. This is the type of show where a person sets up a box made to look like a stage and they tell a tale while flashing paintings or drawings held in the box. Once again this is a form of entertainment rarely seen elsewhere nowadays.

After parting ways with my mom's friend we took a rest and then made our way out to Ebisu. My mom hasn't been there before so I thought it would be a nice place to visit. As my luck would have it not all the buildings and shops there were open. So there really weren't any places to get a bite to eat. To add insult to injury the Ebisu Beer Museum and the pub were closed.

All in all this was a good day. Being able to see a face of Tokyo which I hadn't seen in previous visits was a good thing. It demonstrated once again how this giant metropolis can pleasantly surprise you no matter how many times you visit it....

1446h - Unmarked lines to the horizon

1446h - Unmarked lines to the horizon, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I wasn't where I had planned to be but perhaps it was better that I wasn't there in the sense that I was striving to make a statement. So this was the moment as I experienced it and this was the place. It was where and when I paused to think about that terrible day last year and all the victims.

Dropping in on Matsuyama

Dogo Onsen, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

We arrived in the coastal plain city of Matsuyama in the early afternoon. The train ride was straight forward. I snapped a photo of the Inland Sea simply because it was the closest I had been to salt water in a long time. Yes, I'd love to be out paddling again. One cute (literally!) coincidence on that train; the woman selling refreshments and box lunches was the same woman who had worked on the train we had taken to Kotohira the previous day. I certainly can't say I've come across that kind of chance meeting on a JR train in all the times I've been riding back and forth across the country.

The city of Matsuyama is a pleasant place. It's not a massive metropolis nor is a backwoods small city. Like any Japanese city there are confections to sell to the tourists. In the case of Matsuyama they're "taruto", sponge roll cake filled with a variety of sweet pastes but I suspect the traditional filling was sweet red been paste. The profile of the city centre is dominated by the large hill where the Matsuyama Castle sits. It's an impressive structure and it's the genuine article not a concrete reconstruction as seen in many other cities. I have no idea how it escaped destruction at the time of the Meiji Restoration. Perhaps because it was only completed in 1859 (or thereabouts).

One place which I didn't get around to enjoying until the following morning was the famed Dogo Onsen. I have no idea how old the structure is but the place has been in business for centuries I believe. Of course it has been modernized but the essence of the place is probably the same as it was at the start of the twentieth century. The bath which I entered was close to the entry way and, though not the most spacious one I've ever been in, it certainly was nice and hot. I do wonder if there are other baths in the place...there have to be more.

From Koyasan to Kotohira

The old light tower, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

This light tower was one of the few sights I was able to take in at Kotohira. We had arrived there mid-afternoon just about half an hour or so before check-in time at our hotel. It had been a long haul from Koyasan to Kotohira so only Mr. Nomura and I took the time to walk around and check out the town. Amongst other things we found a dusky old store selling ceramics and pottery and a similarly dusky old hobby shop run by an elderly couple. The hobby shop was a throw back to the shop I had frequented when I lived in Hiyoshi in my junior high school days. It wasn't large by any stretch of the imagination but it was filled with the kinds of things that once captivated young minds. A sign of a slow down in business was the fact that they didn't stock adhesives. There isn't enough demand to warrant stocking it as their stock would dry out on the shelf. So they only bring it in on special order from their suppliers in Osaka.

The highlight of the day was the journey to Kotohira and the morning services at Ekoin. We took in morning sutra reading in the Hondo of Ekoin and then stepped outside to wander up to a nearby shrine dedicated to Bishamonten, the Japanese Buddhist god of war. Their we observed a service which involved a chanting of sutras and the burning of oils and incense over flames. For me this was a truly unique experience as it was my first experience to Shingon sect rituals and proceedings.

There's one thing I saw on our trip to and from Koyasan which I found a touch odd and perhaps even a bit disturbing: palm trees. You don't see palm trees in the Tohoku region and I don't recall seeing them much elsewhere. But there they were popping up all over the place along the Nankai train route up to Koyasan. I was starting to get the feeling they were an invasive species. Perhaps they are indigenous but I highly doubt that. Anyways, I certainly wasn't expecting to see palm trees as I headed into the mountains of Wakayama.