egret island

Another kayak trip, this one a bit further from the coast to a rocky little island that has been made into a bird sanctuary and is off limits to visitors. It's pretty cool to coast right up to it, though, and though they're not very visible in the low-res phone camera shot, the island is covered with gulls and egrets and the odd kite and other birds. The waves picked up on the way back, and it was fun to try to figure out how to move with the waves most efficiently. Sardines were jumping in front of me the whole way back (maybe I should just get like an insect net and tie it to the prow and see if I can catch a few). Spent about two hours all together, paddling pretty steady. I'm starting to get used to this, I thought, and was promptly reminded I was a novice by being dumped in the surf right in front of the house. It's a lot easier leaving the beach than getting back when the surf gets high and the very narrow cockpit that takes time to squeeze out of doesn't make it any easier.

Yoshizu

The weather's been fine the last couple days, but it's surfer weather--windy, with high waves breaking close to shore. I ended up buying the kayak (I can't believe the owner let it go for so little, but I'm very grateful), and I'm itching to get out and spend as many hours as I can getting used to it.

So I took out my frustrations by going to the local guy who handles bamboo and other garden materials: stones, wooden gates, huge rocks, etc. For some reason we hit it off right away, and I got lots of info on which bamboo to buy (winter bamboo, not spring or summer bamboo), and which fertilizer product is big among the gardeners, and why he uses eucalyptus in his office wood stove, and why his yoshizu (bamboo screens) will last for four or five years while the ones you get at the DIY centers only last one or two.

I ended up buying more than enough stuff to build a frame over the deck (wood and bamboo) to support a yoshizu (a bamboo screen) roof. Got a ride home in the truck carrying the load, and was serenaded the whole way (10 minutes) by the driver, who--when he found out I was from Tennessee--insisted on singing two verses of "The Tennessee Waltz", in a very nice voice, I might add.

Wasn't particularly planning on getting into it right away, but the waves were still full of surfers and it was only 4:30pm, so I started putting up the posts to see how difficult it was going to be. It wasn't, and I ended up finishing the frame and most of the roof. I started out using screws and wire and wasn't at all satisfied with how it held up and how it looked. Started using hemp rope instead, and it was awesomely easy--everything held, everything looked good, everything felt right. So tomorrow I'll redo the screws and wire part and start with the rest.

I realized I could build walls of bamboo screen as well, ones that can be lowered and raised, and M can have an airy room overlooking the sea that will let the breezes in while blocking most of the light. Can't wait to get cracking at the rest of it. One more visit to get more hemp rope and some more yoshizu.

 

Coasting

 

Spent another couple of hours in the kayak, trying to get a feel for dealing with the wind and the tide. Went up the coast past Sajima, the next village which meant making my way past some nice rock formations, and the inevitable tetrapods which are meant to lessen coastal deterioration but end up doing the opposite. Got a wide-brimmed hat from the girls for Father's Day, so no more worries about ending up being a Redneck (well, more of one than I already am).

Jogashima

A local woman with tengusa, a kind of seaweed that goes into making a jelly-like dish called "tokoro ten." She had pulled clumps of it out of the tide pools and was cleaning it before washing it in fresh water several times and drying it. The process sounded incredibly time consuming for the small amounts she was going to end up with.

Went on a day trek to Jogashima with Sangawa-san of 3knot, the sabori specialist. (If you can't remember what "sabori" is, it basically means to goof off, or to escape from what you're supposed to be doing.)

Jogashima is an island at the tip of the Miura Peninsula, and it lies just across from the port town of Misaki. Misaki was once a booming port specializing in tuna, with three movie theaters, nightlife, inns, etc., but it's seen its heyday and now is marked more by closed shutters and empty streets than the hustle and bustle of a real port. Still, there's something very romantic about it: behind the crumbling facades of many of the buildings are the remains of beautiful kura-style architecture, and everything feels very slow and deliberate.

We took a taxi boat across the harbor to Jogashima, and started our walk past the signs of what must have once been a thriving tourist business. It's a short four kilometers around the island, but with all the climbing and making our way around narrow rock pathways, it took more than four hours, including stops for lunch and one stop at a spring that was supposed to have been used by Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199), the first shogun of the Kamakura Period.

The coast is striated with the various ridges of the lava from volcanic eruptions, and it seems like you're never walking on flat land. There was plenty of color, but for some reason, it felt more like a black and white world. Sangawa san's blog post of the trip is here.

The boat that takes you to Jogashima from Misaki. It costs ¥200 for an adult, and it leaves whenever you're ready. 

This marlin with it's broken off sword kind of captures the atmosphere of the island's tourist industry. It's still there, but it's a bit worn at the edges.

The walkway up to one of the island's many lighthouses. Don't ask me why there are Ionic Greek columns supporting nothing leading up to a Meiji-period lighthouse. It's very Showa, very "bubbly", very cool.

Another view of the lighthouse.

Sorry, I was kind of captivated by this place.

Some of the rock patterns were almost hallucinogetic.

The captain of a small boat that takes customers around the coves and inlets. I don't think he'd had any customers in a long time, but he seemed perfectly content sitting on the calm waters among the rocky crags.

This is the lighthouse on the Tokyo Bay side of the peninsula. Whoever built this whimsical cement pathway to it had a sense of humor; it twists and turns for no rhyme or reason. For some reason, all the tide pools were filled with sardines--dead and alive--who were acting like salmon, throwing themselves up on the rocks.

A happy crab had managed to grab some lunch, and though the flopping fish got away in the next tidal surge, the crab managed to get more than a few bites of sashimi before it did.

Even the deserted police box came in the form of a lighthouse.

Kayakety-yak

 I was starting to give up hope of finding a kayak that wouldn't break the bank. The shops near here have very few used ones, and while I thought the internet would be helpful, I haven't found anything that would solve my problem. I contacted K-san, a friend who lives down the coast and someone who seems to have connections everywhere and told him my dilemma. He called me back two days later and said he had a friend who might be willing to sell one of his old kayaks. Yesterday we went over to the friend's house, loaded it on to his van and brought it back to Akiya. We stopped at the local kayak center and asked the shop owner to give us his opinion and see if he could help me come up with a good price to offer without screwing myself. He looked at it and right away said it was a Mariner kayak made by the British company Northshore, and it was a very good fiberglass kayak in spite of being a bit banged up and missing the hatch covers.

By the time I brought it home to try it out, the sea, which had been very calm in the morning had gotten very choppy, and it's stayed that way the rest of yesterday and all day today. I've got a life vest but I'd like to get used to it in calmer waters, so I've been trying to stay patient. . . .  but this is getting seriously frustrating. Spent a day doing chores, including shopping at the newly opened farmers' market, which is very decent, making some Spanish marinated sardines, and getting an old motorbike tire for the rope swing I've made for m. 

Tomorrow's supposed to be better; rainy but with little wind so I've got my hopes up. If I like it after trying it out, I have to find a way to talk the owner into a decent price for letting it go. K-san said the owner seems to be living in Tokyo and doesn't come down much anymore, so we'll see.

Undokai

 Last weekend, m's schools' undokai athletic meet was cancelled due to the typhoon passing through, so it was rescheduled for Tuesday. Thanks to my present unemployed state, I was able to make it anyway. Compared to last years event, there were much fewer parents attending, so it was not quite such a competition for good seats around the school ground. m appeared in several events: the class dance (above) which had something to do with eating rice and the words "rock'n'roll." I never figured it out because she refused to practice in front of us because it would ruin the surprise.

 She didn't get picked for the special relay event which mixes kids from all the grades this year. But she did well in the 40 meter dash, and came in second in her heat (above) against four boys.

And her red team came in first in this event, which I don't know the name of, but it involves having relays of four kids run a slalom course while hanging on to this pole.

The school is split between a red team and a blue team and unfortunately, the blue team won the games 412 to 395, which left m in a disappointed funk for about 30 minutes.

I didn't get a picture of it because I had only brought the telephoto lens, but there was the oddest sky: a circular rainbow surrounded the sun, and then there was just a straight band of rainbow (rainbar?) across the eastern sky. The wind was strong all day, kicking up the dust from the field, but the sun was out strong and we got a bit sunburned.

Chiruchinbito

 Our house is featured in this months edition of Chiruchinbito, a magazine about traditional Japanese house building methods. The article is all about how we worked with the contractor and their own architect to design the house so that we could use all the various interior parts of the old traditional house that we tore down in order to build this. It was exciting to have them come and do the shoot, because the magazine was our bible when we were planning this place.

 M's mom had at least 20 or so back issues of the magazine, and we'd pore over them looking for things we liked (or disliked), and ways that we could incorporate them into the design. They also had lots of articles about the various types of wall plasters, natural wood stains, wood stove use, etc., etc., and it helped a lot to be able to turn to the magazine when we needed more information on something.

Our good friend who is the salesman for the contractor often brings people by who want to see something that the contractor has done. Yesterday was pouring rain but after they checked out the house we sat down for tea and the cat Mario leaped up on the woman's lap and went to sleep and we sat around chatting for a long time. It's what we like about the house: people seem to find it very comfortable and are never in a hurry to leave. And the more time we spend down here, the slower our lives become and we can find no reason why they shouldn't hang out.

ever seen a purple rose?

 

I just spent the whole day . . . well, five hours, anyway . . . in a sea kayak plowing the waters between here and neighboring villages. It was my first time, and I'm now in great pain, (and expecting even more tomorrow), but elated by the experience. Never realized how much the sea changes at that surface level, and we had it all. It was almost lake-like when we started, but by the end of the day, we we fighting a wind from the east and a tide that was against us, and it was a real trip to try to find the right rhythm that would let you make any headway through the choppy waters. But we did, through rocks poking out of the water, past wind and wave-shaped islets, past schools of stand up paddlers. (The SUPs have become the hottest thing on the water this year.) Stupidly, I didn't take a camera, so all the great and unusual views of this area from the sea are all just in my head.

Oh yeah, the purple rose. It's officially a "blue" one, and was developed after many years of difficult research by a subsidiary of the sponsor of the radio show that I do. It was to commemorate the 1000th show--at one a week, that's 20 years--though I've only been doing it for about 8. It was a nice gesture, though I received it at 10:00am and had to carry it around all day before going home. So when I handed it to M, she noticed that it was a little frayed. What can I say? How often do you see a purple rose?

the lumberjacks

 

Last Wednesday, on the front range of Japan's northern Alps, we formed a small posse that was intent on supplying our beachside house with firewood next winter. A 10-minute drive from M's parents' place in Nagano was a mountain that the forestry preservation association was thinning to improve the health of the forest. Up a steep slope just off the road, the forest was full of just toppled trees. M's mom scrambled right up the mountainside and with another friend, was soon flipping the logs down the side of the mountain. (That's her in what I consider to be the classic "beekeeper" mode above.) M's dad and I (that's him in his classic "victory over the Japanese oak" pose above) had the chore of sawing the logs into pieces small enough for me to be able to haul them back to Akiya.

Over the course of a few hours, we had the van filled high enough that it was starting to squat down on its shocks, but I could still see out the rear-view mirror. I wouldn't have minded a larger truck: we ended up leaving quite a bit of sawed logs by the side of the road for a future pick-up.

Thursday morning I drove back to Akiya, a fairly nice drive until I hit an accident jam close to home and spent two hours going 28km. It felt very good to get out of the car and start chopping the logs stove-size. Lots of nara oak and soyogo, Longstalk Holly, both of which are very hard and burn well. As always with M's parents, I ate well and had a great time.

Running on empty

As you can see, one of my two woodsheds is running low; the other is equally bare. Though this last winter was a mild one, my physical condition kind of interfered with my usual gathering of local wood, so I'm going on an overnight run up to Nagano for a refill. I don't feel like making the trip in our tiny 360cc van, so I'm going to trade cars with the contractor who built our house. (He bought my old car and said I can use it anytime. Can you believe how cool these guys are?) I'll be going up to M's parents place.

M's dad said the forest behind them has to be thinned, so I'm taking my chain saw and hoping to get some good wood in time to chop it and dry it for next year. I'm also looking forward to the good company of M's mom and dad, and the good food that is always on the table. It's a weekday: m's in school and M has to stay with her, so they're totally jealous.

Monday

Unemployment kind of hit me hard today.

This was the first Monday that wasn't a holiday, or a day full of things I had to do for others, or rushing to get my taxes paid, or whatever. It was just an ordinary Monday, and I still wake up before 6am, with faint intrepidation at the long train commute before remembering that I DON'T HAVE TO. I know I should be thinking about my next job, and I do a little bit, but I'm not in a rush, considering this fine season for living on the beach. So I fill my days: I ran three laps of the beach (only 3km, but I'm feeling my lungs expand, and it's on sand) and plan to build up the distance, watched the Chicago Bulls take apart the Miami Heat, walked to the next village and the kayak shop, where I picked up a catalog.

Got back to the house and weeded in the garden, and planted some ruccola and halapeno peppers until m got home. Had her practice piano, and then went outside to continue our bicycle riding lessons. She made the big jump today, finally understanding the balancing idea and took off. I'd forgotten how instantaneous that moment is. But I think the photo below has got to be a metaphor (symbol?) of her growing up and . . .

We went back to the garden and made our first harvest for a salad--three kinds of lettuce, basil, Italian parsley, ruccola and some carrot greens.

What am I going to do tomorrow?

where was I?

Oh yeah, now I remember. I was wandering around Jimbocho, looking at woodblock prints. Then a few things happened.
1) They closed my office down and laid off all the staff.
2) Japan's largest earthquake ever struck while all the employees were standing around like zombies.
3) That was followed by the horrific tsunami that took tens of thousands of lives and ruined so much of northern Japan's coastline of towns and villages.
4) And that was followed by a nuclear power fiasco that is still throwing people out of their homes and scaring a number of people into leaving the country.
5) In the midst of all that news of massive pain and anguish, I got the good news that my lungs are clear six months after the cancerous part was removed. I almost felt guilty at the rush I got from that announcement.

But life goes on, even if we've all been shifted to other locations on the surface of the earth. Frankly, I feel fine, but a little unbalanced, which is natural since I'm now living a few centimeters away from where I was previously.

Stumped

I had to go to Jimbocho, that part of Tokyo where the streets are lined with bookstores, old and new, and discount sports stores. So I took the opportunity to look in on the stores specializing in woodblock prints. Marlowe, a restaurant not far from our house on the beach, had put out a promotional postcard (above) that looks like a print by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), the awesome woodblock artist. I thought that it was be a very nice thing to have, since it's almost a perfect match for the view from where our house it.

Four owners of four of the slicker shops just looked at me blankly when I showed them the postcard. None of them recognized it, and three of them didn't even bother looking through their inventory. I was about to give up until I went past the little shop that specializes in very old books. I showed the man the card, and he didn't hesitate, "I think that's from the book, The 100 Views of Mt. Fuji."

He spent a few minutes climbing over piles of books and pulled an old one off one of the upper shelves, and started flipping through the pages. And there it was--only something was different. It was the same view but it was split into two vertical prints on facing pages. "I think that image on the card has been manipulated," he said. "I don't think it was ever made as a full size print, so someone must have stuck the two images together to make that." "When?" I asked. "Probably in the post-war period; maybe even more recently," he said. "People have done all kinds of things with old prints and the blocks."

But this was the real thing, and it was beautiful. The colors were brilliant, and the price was scribbled on a piece of cardboard attached to a string: ¥650,000. "How much can you afford," he asked. "Well, not that much." I answered. "We get lower quality ones sometimes," he said, and had his assistant fetch another one. ¥98,000. The page with Standing Rock on it was pretty filthy but still impressive. It doesn't really seem that expensive for a whole book of Hiroshige prints, but I really have to think about this. So I asked him to hold it, while I contemplate it for a few days.

I did get a picture.

What would you do?

Signs of M

 

After buying all the wood to build the deck, it's good to get back to using leftovers. I stuffed our shed with pieces of wood from the old house, and have been using it for various things like the firewood shed, garden dividers, etc. M wanted a stand for a chalkboard sign at the driveway entrance where she can put various announcements about the aromatherapy salon. Finally got to use some of the wood from the old shelves, and then got into it enough to make a small sign for the gate at the top of the stairs coming up from the beach.

This sign above is one of the floorboards from the old house. It was black and gummy when I first started working on it (while it was still a floor, of course), and after so much sanding and waxing I had a hard time seeing it all go. I still have a number of these floorboards stacked in the shed, waiting for a project.

The first sign we put up a year or so ago is standing up well, though it's getting a bit weather beaten. This piece of wood wasn't from the house, but was washed up on the beach. We used to get a lot of driftwood washing up, but it seems like less these days.

the parasitic pachyderm

m found this pachyderm hiding in the hills behind the house. There aren't many other animals left there. Lots of squirrels, who've really ripped a lot of the trees to shreds, some raccoons, pheasant, and other birds. Snakes: mamushi, the poisonous ones, which rarely are seen larger than a foot long or so,  and aodaisho, which get considerably larger (I've seen them five or six feet long and as big around as my arm) but are harmless. There's one other poisonous one whose name I can't remember, but its fangs are far back in its mouth, so unless it can really get a grip on a small part of your body--a finger, say--there's not much to worry about. But this dude in the photo is the largest animal I've seen around here, though I think m's got it trained fairly well by now.

happiness is a warm bench

I don't know the exact provenance of this bench, since it's been in the yard since I first started coming down fifteen years ago, and was still here even after the destruction and construction of the houses. The stands are completely rusted, and the wood is so old that it bends ominously when a heavy person sits on it, but it is that pliability and softness of the wood that makes it extremely comfortable. I decided to drag it down onto the beach in front of the house where it can be of the best use, aimed it directly at the spot across the bay where the sun sets and put up a sign hoping people would use it (and not steal it). Then I also dragged down part of a log and we put some brochures for M's aromatherapy massages in a bamboo basket. People seem to be drawn to it. The other day (a weekday), a guy ended up sitting there for more than two hours, engrossed in his book. That's a good benchmark for how welcoming it is.

Sabori

Sabori is a great word, one that I’ve always liked, though I never realized it could encapsulate a philosophy of life. It basically means truancy, or to play hooky, and that’s just what I did today—took a day off from work for the sole purpose of having a great time doing things as far and as different from the workplace as possible.

My partner in crime was Sangawa-san, who has totally removed any negative nuance from the word, and made a life of it. He lives down the coast, and he runs an outfit called 3knot with his wife out of his home. They do lots of stuff, but it generally is built around the concept of sabori. I mean, when you first walk into their house/shop, the first thing that grabs your eye is a pile of hammocks, not your average accoutrement for a Japanese home. He’s made a life of helping people escape from their daily routines, for such simple activities as climbing the hills, kayaking, even just enjoying campfires on the beach, or searching for a particular mountain herb.

The trail was overgrown but clearly visible when we started.

 Our hooky project today was to find the trail from the Koyasu side of the mountain to Akiya, one that I’ve failed twice to cover when attempting it from the Akiya side. S had a very basic map that someone had drawn—a few curves and one notation marked “field” and “row of large trees”—and that was pretty much it. He had hiked it a few years ago, but about 100 meters into the trail, it was pretty obvious that very few people, if any, had traveled on it for some time.

Very soon it got to be a chore to stay on the trail, thanks to the fallen trees every 3 or 4 meters.

We lost the trail once and just decided to forge ahead. It seemed that every other rotten tree had fallen right smack across our path, so we were constantly either jumping over them or crawling on our hands and knees.  For several hundred meters, we couldn’t even find the space to stand straight.

It was a perfect tree for climbing; the only problem was the limbs stretched straight off the side of the hill, so it was a good 100 feet down if any of the dead branches gave way. Damn, this was like playing hooky 50 years ago.

Then we came out onto a little clearing that had a huge tree growing out over the northern side of the mountain in a desperate attempt to find some sunlight. It was a perfect climbing tree, so we ascended out on the biggest limb and perched there, overlooking the forest and the farms further out, and the horrific housing area on top of the next mountain.

And what a view, even if it was the first cloudy day in a month. If we had bigger balls, I suppose we could have hung the hammock in this tree. Instead, we discussed which branch would be the best support for a deck.

Another bit of a slog to the peak, and we stopped for tea and beancakes that Sangawa-san had brought along. He also had a lightweight hammock that folds out of a tiny bag and we set it up and took turns putting our feet up and discussing the finer points of sabori, and its importance to the future of mankind.

I've got to get one of these hammocks. I can just imagine trekking up here, getting comfortable with a book, and taking a nap. I have to admit when I was stretched out in this, I thought about the office and my colleagues at work . . . for about four and a half seconds.

A bit further on we hit the one map feature, the remains of a farm field (I have a hard time imagining who would have made this hike to care for it), and a stand of huge trees that were lined up like the entrance to a royal garden. Then the trail disappeared in a thick bamboo forest, though I knew we were near the location where I’d lost the trail coming the other way, before we stumbled into the WWII-era anti-aircraft gun placement that I’d found before. The bamboo is so thick that a machete would come in handy. Ten minutes later—maybe three and a half hours after we’d started—we were just above Akiya and home. There's another month or two before the snakes come out, and another three or so before the rainy season, when what's left of this trail will get even more grown over.

This bamboo forest was a mother, maybe 30 yards deep, and there was no way around it. Sangawa-san is only 10 feet away, and I could barely see him. If this was summer and the bamboo was green, it would be almost impossible to get through, but since it was dry, we could just crunch our way through it.

And this is where the "jungle" ends and the trail opens up and starts to wind its way down to our village. You can just make out our house just behind the bare tree on the right.