ah, tradition

The star and the rest of the decorations came down yesterday, along with the Christmas tree, and up went the kadomatsu pine decorations for the new year. When M asked the women at the flower shop where we bought them what they could be attached with, one of the women went completely blank, and the other suggested gamu tepu, or packing tape. We were laughing at how much people have forgotten about traditions, and looked on the internet for possible suggestions. Then our friend Ben dropped by the other day with some hemp rope that he suggested would be perfect, and it was.

The odd thing was that the next day I was walking from the station to my office, and passed three kadomatsu displays. Of course, I had to stop and check, and found that--sure enough--they were each attached with gamu tepu. I don't know, maybe it's a traditional thing after all.

digging out

Between the move and the holidays and various commitments, it's been tough digging out of the mountain of boxes (the empties now occupy an entire room--M's salon). But we have the dining and living rooms as well as the kitchen pretty much sorted out and we're finding it pretty livable. This is the first time I've lived in a house in Japan that was well insulated (I did live in a condo in Ebisu that was surrounded by other condos, but that doesn't count since it's not a real house). I'm used to waking up in the winter in the Hiroo house with the temperature around 10 degrees C (50F), but this one has so far always been above 15 (60F) even with the stove off overnight. What a huge difference that 5 degrees makes. I hope it stays like this through the nastier days of February.

The floors, both the tatami and the cryptomeria wood, stay very warm as well, and are soft under the feet. We've already tested out the softness of the wood in many places, dropping things, spilling things, making the house ours, I guess.

u-eee

I guess it wasn't enough that I have to leave the morning sunlight on Mt. Fuji and Standing Rock to begin my commute to Tokyo every morning. On my second day, just as I was putting on all my bike wear to fend off the cold, a huge flock of u, or cormorants, and shirasagi, white egrets  (about a third of them are in the above photo) came swooping in and descended on what must have been a school of fish just outside the window. They'd dive and then take off and make these huge sweeping circles before settling again in the water. I've seen three of four of the egrets before, standing in the shallow river water hunting for fish, but these were dozens of them.

all lit up

It turned cold yesterday along with very strong winds, so it was a perfect time to get the wood stove up and running. We did three break-in burns, which give off a pretty strong smell from the oils, I guess, in the iron, but the heat was appreciated--until the afternoon sun started warming the place up. I got up this morning at 6:30 to practice for Monday, when I'll have to start my commute to Tokyo, and while lighting the stove, was met with the glowing tip of Mt. Fuji, as the sun started to light the horizon.

Still tripping over boxes. I made it to the DIY center yesterday to get a long hose. I've got to constantly spray the car, bike, windows, etc., to remove the salt, especially with the high winds like we had through last night. Also picked up stuff like a wheelbarrow, legs to make M's desk from a former table, and a five-meter ladder, which I'll need to do windows, hopefully not when the winds are howling.

one again

In the midst of unpacking what seems like thousands of boxes of things we've never seen before and have no idea where we're going to put them, we took little gifts around to the neighbors to pay our respects. And before she could finish saying thank you, the wife of the old man who used to be a barber was loading us down with vegetables that she'd just been given by a farmer friend. Daikon. Mizuna. Cauliflower. Kabu turnips, and yuzu citrus. We had to go back home to offload before we could make the rest of the rounds.

The stove guys from Nagano showed up around noon to start installing the Intrepid II. They finished the chimney by the end of the day, and will be back tomorrow to set up the stove itself. It was a pretty calm day most of the time, but in the late afternoon the wind really picked up and was threatening to toss them off the roof.

m and I also found the time to set up the Christmas tree, and we got the lights going just as the sun was setting in bright orange brilliance. M and I got the wreath up at the entrance. This wreath was given to us by the mother of one of m's classmates--a hilarious down-to-earth woman who runs a flower shop in the very trendy Hiro Garden Place.

zero

One of the last things the site foreman did on the day they handed the house over to us was to cut the top off the plastic pipe that was jutting out of the earth just by the side of the house, leaving about ten centimeters protruding from the earth. It's the pipe coming out of the old well, which was found in excavating for the foundation. On the day of the jichinsai (above), when the Shinto priest made his blessings and asking the gods for their cooperation, he made a special effort at the well, which is where gods are believed to have their residences. (We've got two other old wells that have been filled in long ago, but this one still had well water in it.) So we had it filled in, but left the pipe for the god to have access, and the foreman didn't want to be the one to cut it off completely or fill it in. I'm not going to either.

This is the last post from the Tokyo house. The trucks are due in sixty minutes, and the next time I'll turn on the computer will be 61.3 kilometers from here. Bye.

one

Fourteen hours until the moving trucks arrive. Surrounded by boxes and stunned by the complexities of this move (what a difference a family--and moving 70 kilometers away--makes), it seems like a good time to procrastinate and pay homage to the old house again, in this, one of my favorite shots by Ben. (Click on it to see the whole picture.) If this new house can give us any fraction of the enjoyment I got out of the old one, we're going to have a great life.

Speaking of 70 kilometers, I had to turn in my resident registration to the company admin to get them to pay for my rail pass for commuting. I didn't know this, but the company regulations allow payment only up to 70 kilometers. I had to juggle the lines I'll use to commute since several ways put me over the limit. I finally found a way that puts me at 69.3 kilometers, so I won't have to pay out of my own pocket. I will, however, pay plenty with my ass sitting on a train seat for 3 hours a day, so I guess we're even.

two

The stone backing for the wood stove has been laid, and the stove is scheduled to be put in later in the week. We'll have two days living there without it, but don't see a real problem. We're in the chaotic middle of packing but have to take the television, one computer and phone down today so the cable company can set them up. TV, internet and an internet phone are part of a package from the same company. I'm getting a little tired of driving back and forth, but damn it's getting close to the time when that will be behind me (mostly). I'm almost looking forward to the train ride, where at least I'll be able to read.

threeeeee!

I'm beat. Loaded up the little Honda and made a round-trip to the site, unloading stuff that we didn't want or need the movers to handle, like my not quite antique glass collection, futons, fans, vases, etc. It was kind of cold in Tokyo when I left but a few degrees warmer in Akiya, and toasty warm in the house--almost like someone left a heater on. Then came back to the Tokyo house, and spent hours packing, and putting out trash for tomorrow's pickup (we left a mountain of almost embarrassing volume).

m went with some friends on a mikan picking trip, and M's mom was a huge help in packing. She is such a pro that I couldn't find anything in the kitchen; we're trying to use up all the stuff left in the refrigerator, but when I made pasta (knowing I could make it at brain-scorching heat since m was not around), I couldn't find anything: no collander, no chilis, no carrots--so I added whatever hot sauce I could find in the refrigerator, from tabasco to some shit I couldn't even read the lable on.

four

Today was the hiki-watashi day. We gathered at the house at 10:00am with (from left) Yamada-san, the sales rep, Yoshimura-san, the site foreman, and Takahashi-san, the architect. We sat down in the tatami room and did the formalities--including receiving the keys--that made the house officially ours.

I got kind of emotional. There's still a few things that have to be done: fixing the handrails of the second floor windows, etc., but the house is in our hands, and coming a day after my birthday, it's a rare present.

They said they were all kind of sad to leave this location--that everyone who'd worked here had a hard time finishing the job and walking away.  Suzuki-san, the master carpenter who built the house, raved about the location so much that all the carpenters of the company held their annual summer barbecue on the beach in front of the house, and they've decided to come back every year. Yoshimura-san told us he'll be bringing his kids here in the summer, and Yamada-san lives only a few minutes away, so we hope we'll see him fairly often. We've become friends with them all in a very short time.

Back in Tokyo now, packing up a storm. Four days to the move.

five

 The contractor added earth and placed the stones according to a diagram I drew out for them for the walkway and the driveway. These are the Sajima-ishi, the stones from the quarry down the coast that were used as the foundation of the old house. Half of them were carried away, but we still had plenty for this. I wish we had kept more of them because they make such good stepping stones. In the photo above you can also see the koushi, the latticed wood over the windows. This was another feature that we went back and forth on whether to do it or not, but I'm glad we decided to at the last minute. It goes well with the latticed feel of the front door. It also means more staining--one of these days, when we get around to it.

I think we have to add more stones to the driveway. It's okay for now, as long as we park perfectly balanced on top of them, but it's going to be pretty muddy until we get some planting done, which means we'll be landing in a mud pile every time we get out of the car in the rain.

seven

The police called. They wanted to inform us of the results of the trial of the man charged with the horrific hit and run of m last February. It seems that, in spite of the fact that we didn't press any charges, or appear as witnesses, or do anything other than give our statements in the few days following the accident, the man has been given 10 months of jail time, followed by one year of parole.

We had no say in the matter. The police and prosecutors were hellbent on nailing him, since he not only ran away from the scene, but never showed remorse or made any kind of attempt to apologize.

I think it was such a shocking scene, yet with such a lucky outcome, that we--m, M and me--have been fairly quick at getting it behind us. I feel sorry for the guy, but I'm kind of torn, knowing that I would have to deal with some serious feelings of retribution if m had suffered any kind of serious injury.

eight

M was at school and m was deposited (bad word for it, but apt) at a friend's house, so I was able to spend all Sunday on my knees putting the stain on the downstairs flooring and with my neck crooked at a 45-degree angle putting in the blinds. I spent more than thirty minutes shooting with the Nikon to show M and m what an impressive job I'd done with the floor and the blinds, then jumped in the little Honda, and rode the sewing machine engine back to Tokyo only to find that although I'd filled the back with empty cardboard boxes from the blinds, I'd left the camera somewhere--hopefully in the house, but possibly in the mud outside the door.

Still, here's the study as seen through the atrium from the master bedroom after doing the stain before  putting in the blinds the day before. I first got the idea of putting in the old glass windows from fear of having the raw salt wind attacking computers, etc. Now I'm not sure whether there's any way to really protect high tech products, but I'm curious to find out--hopefully at not too great a cost.

The architect who's reformed the beautiful little kura storehouse down the road was walking on the beach and waved while I was in the middle of wrestling a recalcitrant blind from its package so I gave an awkward shake of a flap of the cardboard box, hoping he'd see it as some kind of a not-too-alien reply.

10 days and counting

My knees are killing me. Yesterday was a blustery day that started with light sprinkles and turned into a downpour, turning the dirt yard into a mud wrestling stage. We spent the entire day at the site, first with the official explanation from the komuten, that really wasn't necessary given the time we've spent there, then with deliveries and installations: 3 air conditioners, a gas dryer, etc.

We also started waxing the floors with a natural finish that is called "clear," but it does bring out the grain of the wood, and the color, especially the reddish areas of the sugi. We were putting in on with a roller, but it requires a good hard rub after that to soak up the excess and that means a lot of time on your knees. We finished the upstairs, since we thought we'd practice on the lesser seen parts, and left the downstairs dining space (which is where the entrance opens on to) for me to do later today.

It was a cold day, too, and luckily we took down a tiny space heater that was enough to heat the tatami room so that m could stay there and play.

better come on into my kitchen

I haven't asked M exactly what she was thinking here, but I'm almost sure what Yoshimura-san, the site foreman is thinking: "Please don't make any changes. Please don't ask me to make the sink bigger, or smaller, or higher or lower. Please accept everything the way it is."

But we're perfectly happy with the kitchen. The counter top is 10cm higher than usual, which is something I begged for, since I already have a permanent bend in my vertebrae thanks to years of low sinks.

During the open house, a number of the grandmothers of the neighborhood came by, and spent a very long time going over every bit of the house. Most of them were about as high as my chest, yet every one of them immediately noticed the height of the sink and gushed and gawed over it. Which makes me think that the bent-over grandmothers all over the country are actually much taller, but have shrunk after endless hours at low sinks.

There's a flimsy partition that comes down out of the ceiling, that is only there as a bureaucratic "let's pretend." Every room with an open flame is supposed to have a divider from the ceiling separating it from other rooms. Well, when the inspector comes in a few days, we will go through a whole pantomime with him and us pretending that it's a solid piece of wall. Then they'll pull this down and restore the openness of the room. It's the same reason we won't install the wood stove until after his departure, so I guess he'll also have to ignore the stack of firewood that is just outside the window.

open house

THE ELECTRICITY IS on. And it highlights the house in all kinds of ways that we've never seen before. (This is the light fixture for the genkan entrance, the one that we insisted on having even after the architect and electrician said it couldn't be done.) It could, and we think it represents the house exactly, the smooth lines of the design and the rough image of natural materials.

We were in a hurry to get down to the site today. Today and tomorrow are open house days, which the contractor uses to bring potential house builders and others who are in the midst of their building process to come by and see what the results might look like. We had to go down anyway, because not only were the refrigerator and washing machine being delivered, and the air conditioning people and cable TV/internet/phone person coming by, but we had to empty the car of all the cut firewood that M's father had given us so we can pass on the car to its new owner.

Because it was open house day, this was the first time they removed the covering of the wood floors. They also had cleaned the whole place and put up several displays, including posters showing how the wood was harvested in a sustainable way and how the wood is cut using old joinery techniques. They had laid out a display on the floor of all the types of wood posts that were used in the construction and the president of the company was there showing people who dropped by what had gone into making the house. It was a very laid back, relaxed kind of salesmanship, and the president had a great sense of self-deprecating humor that had us appreciating once again our choice of contractor.

It was a long day with a lot of things happening, and we were lucky to have dropped m off at her friend's place. But with the electricity and water and everything working (M was the first to use the toilet), and the warmth that we felt from the setting sun even long after it had receded into the Izu peninsula's horizon, it was very, very hard to leave.

shock and awe

 I FORGOT TO mention. The move is three weeks away. From today.

bowl-a-rama (II)

A rare faux pas by the contractor: for some reason the faucet was stuck in front of the bowl that was created by M's mom, which kind of detracts from the whole (in the tiny upstairs toilet). They didn't imbed the bowl into the wood, which is what we first asked for--but after looking at it, we decided we like the whole bowl sitting there in all its glory. The only problem is that faucet blocking the bowl, so they'll move it behind the bowl in the corner, and fill in the wood with a plug. I guess we can find something to hide the scar, like a soap dish or a hookah.

them apples (II)

We had one of very few free days away from the beach house site that we've been able to have recently, once again making the drive up to Hotaka, Nagano prefecture, where M's parents live. It was, unfortunately, a very short visit, but the occasion was the annual apple picking day, and just like last year, we had a picture perfect day: warm, clear, and full of laughs and apples.

Once again, we were all baffled by the number of apples that can come off of one small tree about my height (177.5cm) but a lot wider by several meters. No one counted them but there surely were close to 500 apples, including the one or two bags of fruit that had been a feast for the birds. ("Those are the best ones," said the orchard owners. "Birds never eat the bad apples.") Of course, it's easy for us, the pickers, who just go up to harvest the ripe fruit. But the orchard people have spent hours with the tree, worrying about the bees polinating them, culling the number of flower stems so the remainders have a chance to be full-blown, fat Fuji fruit, and protecting (most of) them from birds and worms.

The photo above only shows half of the harvest. We were lucky enough to be given a couple of boxes of these crunchy, crisp apples by M's mom and dad, and then got an extra prize: an all-we-could-carry load of apple tree wood and cherry that M's dad had sawn and split to the right dimensions for our wood stove. (Being at the foot of the Northern Alps, his stove takes logs twice the size of what we need, but he was kind enough to cut them to the size of our Intrepid II.)

So we drove back to Tokyo with a Spike full of firewood and Fuji apples, the car hanging low on its axles as we drove through the glittering lights of Omotesando and the new Nike store celebrating shoes as a liberating experience. And M and I had a good laugh on a bet that any of the other cars driving through this area would have the same cargo. I've no idea how we're going to settle that one.

panes in the glass

THE ELECTRICIAN WAS finishing up installing all the fixtures when we got to the site yesterday. And with the washi paper lamp shade (ball?), the tatami room just continues to look more and more like the room in the former house, as in this photo below by friend Ben.

We were also really happy to find that the light we'd picked for the genkan entrance was in place. We'd been told by the architect that it couldn't be put in because it had to be inserted in the wall, and we'd have to pick another one. But we begged and pleaded and there it was. The electrician told us he'd had to cut into the wood beam, but he'd checked with the carpenters and they'd told him it was okay. He looked as happy as we were when he saw how happy we were.

The ashiba scaffolding towers, both interior and exterior, are now gone. The atrium is finally visible in its stained, plastered, finished state. But we haven't finished cleaning the windows after the staining, which reminds me that we're going to have to get a long ladder, first to install the blinds on the upper windows, but also to keep all these panes of glass clean.

see spike go

Just got a call from the dealer saying he was looking at our new (used) car that we bought off the internet. He wanted to confirm its condition, and told me that it had a number of scratches, but no dents. This was not good news: dents were the one feature we had specifically asked for since neither I nor M wanted to be the first person to put one in it going in and out of that damn narrow driveway.

The new (old) car is a nine-year-old Honda Vamos, one of the tiny minivans (600cc engine) that were made originally for commercial use, but have increasingly been adopted by people looking for a cheap ride that's easy to navigate down narrow roads. (Every one of the carpenters who worked on the house came in one of these, as did almost every other workman, from plasterer to plumber to electrician. Sometimes the yard would be full of them, all utilitarian white, sitting there at all angles like tossed dice.) Unfortunately, the popularity has kept the price of used ones higher than expected. The photo here is of a new one, and is almost actual size. Ours is dumpier and funkier and dirtier, but tiny like this one.

Since the dimensions and economics are perfect for what we need, we went ahead and sold our two-year-old Honda Spike to our contractor, who needed a car to take his clients around.   I'm sorry to see the Spike go. It's one of the least attractive body designs I've ever seen on an automobile, and reminds me of one of those ugly fish with the protruding bottom lip, but the interior was huge for a small car, and we had no problem filling it to bursting point on the weekend runs to the beach house. It got great gas mileage, and a cult following, so of course they stopped making it this year.

countdown

FOUR WEEKS TO GO. We're to move on December 16, and it's starting to reach critical stage in many areas. Sell the car; buy a smaller one. Recycle all the stuff we won't be taking: bookshelves, beds, kitchen utensils that are duplicated by the stuff we had at the old place and are now in storage at the contractor's warehouse. We're sleeping on the floor on futons now, but it's cold without tatami. Most of the DVDs, books, etc. have been packed except for what I need for work. We're making final arrangments for appliances, since the ones we have now came with the rent (which saves on moving expenses, but means we have to get them somewhere). By next year, it's been announced, the entire country of Japan will have access to high-speed optical fiber cable--everywhere, I guess, except Akiya. So we'll have to have regular cable for phone, internet and TV.

The schedule is tight. We're giving up the Tokyo house completely on the 18th, so we'll have to make sure all the connections are in place in Akiya. The site foreman doesn't want us to have things delivered until after they clean the place thoroughly and have the official final building check, but we're going to have to override him on a couple of things. Like the refrigerator: all the new models have come out, and there's no model that fits our space perfectly. One of last year's series does, and they're disappearing fast and prices are rising, so, sorry Yoshimura-san. There's going to be a big box in the middle of the dining room pretty soon.

entry papers, please

The paper in the shoji doors has been attached by the tategu-ya, and though there's a difference between our old doors and the new ones they made to the old specifications, it's not that noticable. You can see we've used the shoji doors from the genkan entrance of the old house. They are about 177cm, (5'10" or so), and are a big contrast with the tall main door. You can see the high step next to M's feet, which we're hoping people will be making without too much head cracking. But I love the design of these old doors, with the horizontal rectangles and the inserted central windows.

This is the entryway from the interior. Almost everything here is from the old house: the shoji, the wooden closet door on the left, and the ranma lattices at the upper left.

The genkan is the one place where the insulation properties are pretty much the same as one hundred years ago. Both the main door and the shoji doors are sliding, so there will always be gaps--miniscule ones, but gaps--between the doors and the frames. Hopefully the two layers will minimize the effects, so when it came down to aesthetics vs. modern insulation in this case, it was aesthetics, hands down. Ask me again on a windy, gray, bitter January morning, and I hope I have the same conviction.

scott's lot

This is Scott and the house he and his wife Reiko built on a secluded, awesome piece of land they found in the hills of Chiba. They are the only friends I know who made their own place from scratch, and their house is a beautiful mix of Japanese and Western that matches the location perfectly. (There is a small lake out back, and theirs is the only home on it.)

Seeing this place convinced us of the worth of living outside of the city, and hearing about the struggles and joys of building made us believe it was possible. In the train on the way home we decided to go forward with building and moving (and since it was delayed, giving us a three-hour ride, we had plenty of time for it to sink in). That was almost two years ago, and I still have dreams about the slope of the tiled roof, the big living room, the expanse of deck and the water beyond.

goes the sun

IT WAS A VERY GRAY day today, pissing cats and dogs when we got up, and after a pantomime show that m's day care center had arranged (which wasn't as insipid as I expected), we headed down once again to see the on-site situation of the house. m passed out in the car, which gave M and I plenty of time to do some more . . . wait for it . . . staining. And if anyone who's reading this is not as tired of it as we are, they are not human.

When we arrived we found that the glass had been put in the main entrance door, the paper had been applied to the shoji, and we were looking at a completely different house than we had left last weekend. We closed down our staining operation due to darkness about the same time as the chimes of the village loud speakers rang out. The waves were high and still dotted with surfers andM and I took our respective cameras out to record the end of the day.

And suddenly the sky exploded throwing light all over us. As we walked to the car, I looked back at the house and found that the horizontal light had lit the interior as if someone had flipped a switch. (No, the electricity is not even hooked up yet, even if there were fixtures.)

sardinia

AS OF MIDNIGHT tonight, we have five weeks to go before Moving Day, and the beginning of our life in a place where more of our neighbors will belong to the fish community than the

village social structure.

And since today was one of those days where I'd rather be "with the fishes" along with Luca Brazzi than be working "with the humans" at the office, that's something to look forward to.

the "looking down boards"

WE FINISHED A huge part of the staining yesterday--all of the shitami ita clapboard siding that makes up the base of the mountain side of the house. It really soaked up the stain, but we're happy that it still shows the grain of the wood as well as the color shadings. It has the deep reddish tone that I was hoping for, and it really goes with the slightly off-white mortar and the dark brown of the roof, the gutters, the eaves, and the windows, not to mention the main entrance door. We're really happy with how it turned out, and Yamada-san of Kagatsuma said, "It really makes you want to look back at it when you leave."

 

Our fingers recently have been in a perpetual stained state, but there's still quite a bit to do of the interior, so I'll leave my cuticles in their "old brown" condition.

bowl-a-rama

BEFORE WE LEFT TO go down to the site and finish staining the clapboard siding today, we were gifted with the perfect timing of a delivery we've been waiting for. We had asked M's mom some time ago to make a bowl that we could use for a hand sink for the second floor toilet. Last month when we visited M's parents in Nagano, we went by the ceramic workshop and kiln where she makes her pieces and she showed us a number of different works, all done in different glazes, so that we could chose the tone and color of the bowl. (Of course, she let us know that we'd be at the mercy of the firing, since even the same glaze has all kinds of permutations depending on the winds, tides and number of fairies present at the time.) But we picked a glaze that we liked very much for its blue-gray ocean tinge, and gave her the measurements that the small toilet could handle.

And this is what the courier delivered. 

When we got down to the site, we unpacked it and placed it on the wood shelf that has been waiting for it the last few weeks, and saw immediately that it is a beauty! The carpenter will carve a hole  and set it just slightly into the wood, the plumber will attach the fitting for the drain and the faucet. And we'll have a very unique basin to wash our hands in. Guests, of course, will have to use the very pedestrian Toto sink downstairs. (I'm not being unkind, there's just no room in the narrow toilet on the first floor.)

plastered

THIS IS THE INOUE family, sakan-ya (or plasterers) of the finest order. After finishing the outside mortar of our house a while ago, they're back to do the interior walls in keisodo, which--as I think I've explained several times--is a plaster made of clay rich in volcanic ash and fossilized plankton. It been used for centuries as a fire-resistant clay for making stoves and burners. Recently it's been increasingly used as a wall plaster.

It's not an easy application, at least for an amateur. This is one of the son's tool box, where he keeps his entire collection of trowels of all shapes and sizes, and next to it is the palette with the small, narrow size trowel that he let me try. I was able to do an area of a couple square feet, but the plaster is gritty and digs into the edge of the tool. So he stepped back in and took over and the three family members finished about half of the house in one day. (They end up doing two layers, although when finished, it is only 2 or 3 millimeters thick. 

The keisodo absorbs moisture when it is humid and expells it when it's dry. It cuts down on noise, smells, mites, is fire-resistant, and is full of holes 4 nano meters wide that let the walls breath. I'm sure there's something bad about it, but I haven't found any reports yet. 

It has a very rough texture, almost like adobe, and it looks great against wood. It's bright white, but when the late winter sun hit it this afternoon as everyone was cleaning up, it turned the walls into yellow gold.