Emptiness and a Train

I don't go up to Yamagata city all that often.  Every now and then I might go up there to fill in for a teacher.  Aside from that, I've been up there a few times to catch a bus to go to the Yamagata Prefecture Traffic Safety Office (back home we'd call it the Motor Vehicle Branch) and to attend a couple of concerts.  Oh yeah, I did drop in one time after visiting Mt. Zao too.

Yesterday was a sunny day and I wasn't in the mood to stay home all day.  So I decided to head up to Yamagata to check out a store I've been thinking of going to.  I did briefly consider driving but decided to take the train instead.  It was simply a case of saving gas.  As I made my way up there on the train I realized that I also had the liberty of taking my time without having to worry about finding or paying for parking.

Once there I did a quick tour of the department store at the station and then grabbed a bite to eat at a local Mos Burger restaurant.  After that I dropped in on the shop I had my eye one, made a mental shopping list and then wandered over to the Yamagata City Art Museum.  The museum is located quite close the inner moat of the Yamagata castle.  There's no much left of the castle other that its walls and moat.  The grounds of the castle are now home to a park and some athletic facilities.  The eastern entrance, close to the museum, is dominated by a reconstruction of its gate and guard house.  I indulged myself by taking a few photos of the structure and some passing trains (the Ou line tracks are laid outside the castle walls and moat).

The museum is a modern looking structure which functions as both an exhibit and meeting facility.  Not all of the galleries are in use.  The permanent collection seems to consist of French paintings (Impressionist, landscape and modern), bronze sculptures and some Japanese screens and scrolls.  The French paintings were an interesting bunch with representative works by Monet, Manet, Picasso, Renoir and their contemporaries.  As for the sculptures, I noticed that about half of them were made prior to World War II.  Which of course had me thinking about how the larger pieces managed to escape being melted down for the war effort.  I suppose they weren't large enough or of a usable metal composition.  Or perhaps just lucky.

The trip home was uneventful but not without a touch of the peculiar.  I had taken my iPod with me to help me pass the time.  I had picked The Tragically Hip's "Yer Favourites" to listen to.  It's a two CD set so there would be enough tunes to listen to for the duration of the trip back to Yonezawa.  At first the setting wasn't so odd.  It was dusk and I wasn't paying too much attention to what was passing outside.  But once it was dark then I noticed something different.  I was listening to songs which made me cast my mind to the vast emptiness of Canada.  Once we were passing through the mountain valleys and fields then the setting was complete.  One couldn't see much other than the banks of snow lining the side of the tracks.  I looked out and felt like I was on a train traversing a snow covered empty expanse of the Canadian prairies.  That was not withstanding the conductor's announcements in Japanese and decidedly Japanese looking stations.  The effect gave out once the train got past Nanyo.  There were more visible signs of civilization and human habitation then.  And so, alas, that little bit of magic evaporated...

Happy New Year!

年越しそば, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The photograph I've picked is one of a dish called 年越しそば (Toshikoshi soba). There are no hard rules on what ought to be in or not be in this dish. It's pretty well anything goes. Some people have it hot, some have it cold. Some don't even use soba to make it (though that is more likely to happen outside of Japan). Nonetheless, this dish is traditionally what one eats to mark the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new year. It ought to be consumed prior to midnight on New Year's Eve but this year there was a bit of a delay in its preparation so it was consumed a few minutes late.

Anyways, all the best in 2014!

At the Movies, 2013 - Part I

I've been trying to organize my thoughts about the latest movie I went to see: "Eien no Zero" (The Eternal Zero).  So far, no success.  My initial rating of the movie right after I finished viewing it was "so-so".  Overall, the movie may still hold that rating from me but there are a number of details which have kept my mind spinning.  More on that later.

In the meantime, here are some quick thoughts from me about other movies I watched this year.

"Wara no Tate" (Straw Shield).  Directed by Miike Takeshi.
A student of mine told me she had gone to see a movie and found herself the only person in the theatre.  I asked which movie and went to see it myself.  I also was the only person in the theatre.  Part of that coincidence came from the fact that we both had gone to the late screening of the film and the other was that the film had been in the theatres for a few weeks.  The movie in question was the above named offering from Miike Takeshi.  We both agreed that the film started off well but fizzled out as it reached its end.

"Kaze Tachinu" (The Wind Rises).  Directed by Miyazaki Hayao.
I didn't get the theatre to see this film the weekend it was released as I was out of town then.  Though I didn't really wait too long to see it.  I think I caught it at a late show screening the following Monday.  No, I was not the only person in the theatre.  All in all, I enjoyed this film.  I was captivated by the film's depiction of life in prewar Japan.  The story, a mixture of fact, fiction and pure fancy, was not as contentious as I thought it could have been but it wasn't lighthearted fluff either.

"Django Unchained".  Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
It's a Tarantino movie.  Went to see it with my co-worker Nick, who is a big Tarantino fan, and his girlfriend.  This one, for me, was all I expected from a Tarantino movie.  It got the job done and that was good enough for me.

"Lincoln".  Directed by Stephen Spielberg.
A good movie interspersed with my occasional observation of "That subtitle is not what that character said".   The political maneuvering depicted in the film had my head spinning at some points.  It was quite fascinating.  I spent a fair bit of time surfing wiki pages after viewing the film to get a better grip on the history behind the story I had had the pleasure of viewing.

"42".  Directed by Brian Helgeland.
This one I went to see more or less on a lark after spotting a poster advertising it at the shopping centre across the street from the theatre.  I had gone there to have a sundae which I had developed a sudden craving for after dropping a couple of suits off at the dry cleaners.  It wasn't a bad movie but it wasn't a great movie.  I was aware of a couple of historical inaccuracies in the film prior to viewing it thanks to a quick check of a review online.  I suspect the student of mine who went to see it after I told him about it was more impressed than I was.  The trailers shown before the film included ones for two films I figured I really did want to see, "Kaguya-hime no Monogatari" and "Eien no Zero".... I will talk about those two in my next post here.

Back in Matsushima

Bird in the shot, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I suppose I could've picked a photo featuring one of the many islands lying in the bay south of Matsushima but I opted for this one instead. I took way too many photos of little pine tree covered islands. So a photo with a seagull hogging the shot is probably a good choice to share here.

My trip to Matsushima was the second time I visited this popular tourist destination. Though the first time wasn't much of a visit. My father drove the family there from our hotel part way up Mount Zao and when we got there the traffic was terrible, it was hot, and there probably wasn't a place to park. So we just looked at the scenery from the car and headed back to Sendai (and Mt. Zao). At least that's how I think things worked out. We're talking about 40 years ago so you'll have to excuse me if my recollection of the visit is a bit hazy.

Matsushima was spared from damage by the the March 11th, 2011 tsunami by virtue of its geographical features. The numerous small islands close to the town and several larger islands lying further out took the brunt of the tsunami. There are probably a number of islands which were damaged by the earthquake but only one of them was pointed out to passengers on the boat cruise I took.

Matsushima is one of the renowned three places of scenic views in Japan. The other two are Itsukishima and Amanohashidate. I've been to Itsukishima (also known as Miyajima) in Hiroshima prefecture. I had once given a thought to visiting Amanohashidate but when planning the visit from Kyoto, where I was staying at the time, I found it to be a touch distant for a single day trip. I suppose I'll get there...some day.

A Rainy Day in Miyagi Prefecture

Kyotokumaru No. 18, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The fishing boat in the above photo is now being dismantled. Not too long after I visited Kesennuma, a vote was taken to decide the fate of the boat and the result was in favour of removing it. Unlike the pine tree of Rikuzentakata which died, was cut down, preserved and raised as a memorial, this boat will not remain to remind people of the devastation caused by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

My drive that soggy July day was sobering one. I started out in Ichinoseki, Iwate prefecture and made my way through Rikuzentakata, Kesennuma, Minamisanriku, Onagawa, Ishinomaki and on to Sendai. I took Route 45 for a good part of that trip. Along the way I passed plenty of signs which marked the upper limits of tsunami inundation, plots of land which looked like abandoned fields but were in fact foundations of houses and buildings, washed out railway bridges, and large compounds full of debris still being sorted out for removal. By the time I got to Ishinomaki I was both physically and mentally tired. Getting onto the highway was a respite of sorts. By the time I found parking and had checked into my hotel, I was pretty well exhausted.

In hindsight I'm not exactly sure why I undertook that leg of the trip. Going to Hiraizumi, Matsushima and Sendai are typical "touristy" things to do. Driving Miyagi's northeastern coastal road is not. I suppose I did it partly out of morbid curiosity, a desire to grasp the gravity of the devastation, and wanting to pay my respects to the victims. In the end I feel a small part grateful that the weather that day was bleak and wet as it intensified the emotional impact that passage along that route had on me.

Yonezawa Technical High School

Yonezawa Technical High School, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I have one student who attends the Yonezawa Technical High School. Apparently they have an annual "event" which the students refer to as "Jigoku no Oenrenshu" (I'd loosely translate it as "School Cheering Practice from Hell"). It seems that at his school there are four school songs which are essentially yelled out at the top of ones lungs. Freshmen students have a week or so to learn these songs at the beginning of a new school year. If I recall the story correctly, the newbies are assembled and taught the songs en mass. Then the following week they have to learn them off by heart. If it was just a matter of being given a lyric sheet and committing the songs to memory then things would be simple. But no, this is Japan and why make things that easy. I was told that all through the second week of the new term the songs are blared through the school PA system at lunch hour each day. Added to that joyful scene are marauding teams of third year students who patrol the school and ambush freshmen students with demands to perform the songs on cue. The part that got lost in translation was the grand finale. The way I understood it, after enduring this torture (what else could I call it), the first year students are hauled down to Fukushima to perform these songs. I asked my student what he thought of that and he told me his class didn't make that trip to Fukushima on account of the 3/11 earthquake.

Addendum: Another one of my friends attended the same school over a decade ago. The "Jigoku no Oenrenshu" was something she missed out on because she transferred into the school in second year. Nonetheless she confirmed the details of the above story. The additional things she pointed out were; 1) that the songs are belted out with one's hands held behind the back whilst thrusting out the chest and looking upward, 2) in her time the upper class students checked on the progress of the first year students on a one-to-one basis and in close quarters (they'd stand less than arm's length away from their "trainee"). Oh joy...

ほたるまつり

ほたるまつり (Firefly Festival) Poster, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

I took this photograph a short while before the "Hotaru Matsuri" (Firefly Festival) opened. I was a bit preoccupied with other things in late June and then the rainy season came on with full vengeance. Taking time off to drive to southern Iwate prefecture and through areas devastated by the 3/11 disaster brought me to July 21st as my first opportunity to go up to Onogawa Onsen.

Onogawa Onsen is a few kilometres south of Yonezawa. It's a small "onsen" (hot spring) resort area with a handful or more ryokan (inns), eateries and souvenir shops. In the winter time the locals make a "kamakura mura" (essentially a collection of snow caves or igloos) to attract visitors. The summer time attraction is the firefly festival.

I think I recall someone saying that in the past it was not uncommon to see fireflies in and around Yonezawa. I can only assume that habitat destruction has led to them only being seen in great numbers out in Onogawa Onsen.

All in all, I saw real fireflies for the first time in my life. Not many of them but enough for me to be happy to say that I've actually seen them.