Dead Cormorant and Boiled Sardines

Okay, I'm doing this a little bit at at time, teasing with the Standing Rock photo. At least here, it's clear--there's even the pine tree on the other rocks in the background. Next time I may throw Mt. Fuji in at the horizon, where it would be on a clear day. Sunday was an incredibly warm and windy day, and m and I spent a lot of it climbing around those rocks and trying to keep from slipping and getting soaked. There was a dead cormorant washed up on the beach. I've never seen one of those up close, and the neck was incredibly long. Some tourist kept picking it up by the head, swinging it like a lasso and flinging it into the surf but it kept washing back up at his feet. He did that four or five times before getting bored.

Our friend Mark came over later in the day, and we ended up going to one of the local restaurants that I've stayed away from because it looks too touristy. But it was surprising: local ingredients and healthy portions. The big treat was shirasu, the tiny baby sardines that are about half an inch long and as big around as a toothpick. If they're not fresh, you need a mouthful to get any taste at all, but these were local--they dry them on big screens in the sun--and flavorful, both as the topping on a bruschetta and on top of a green salad. They're transparent when raw, but these were boiled, so they had turned white.

You can tell there was some wind on Sunday from the picture above, and it got worse during the night, rattling the windows and doors even after I'd closed the storm doors. m slept throughout it all (M stayed in Tokyo for school), but I'd wake up and try to think of ways to lessen the noise--such as jamming boards against the door frames. Nothing worked. It's nights like these when I realize that however nice these old doors are, the way the winter winds blow, not to mention the typhoons of late summer, we're going to need double pane aluminum doors if we're going to live (and get some sleep) right on the sea. It's dramatic and exciting, and I don't mind feeling the earth shake when a particularly large wave crashes, but when a strong gust hits just right, it sounds like someone is hitting the doors with a baseball bat. It gets so bad sometimes that you can see sand blowing in through the cracks in the old flooring.

May I Interest You in a Delightful Cliché?

I was flipping through the photo file, and realized I really haven't ever taken a picture focused on Tateishi, the "Standing Rock" of this blog. The only one where it even features in the frame is this one, and it's completely black. There's a parking lot right next to it, from which you can--if you're so inclined--shoot it with Mt. Fuji and those pine trees that appear in the background, which is probably an activity as close to orgasm as some photographers can get. So, as the sunset makes its way across the horizon each year to backlight Fuji. there are certain days when the tripods sans cameras will be sitting there like squatting insects from early morning, as the shooters stake out their ground to capture a shot that would make the cut for any ultimate collection of postcards from Japan. At sunset, Britney would be pleased at the number of shutters going completely mad. And all I've got is this sad example. Sorry.

Standing Rock

"Standing Rock" is the literal translation of Tateishi, the name of a fifteen-meter tall rock formation leaping out of the sea just a hundred meters or so north of the house site. (You can see just the edge of it on the far right of the photo at the top of the page.) It's been there long enough for Hiroshige, the famous Edo-period woodblock artist to do a print of it (no doubt with Mt. Fuji in the background). I say no doubt, because although every mention of the rock includes that fact, I haven't been able to find a copy of the print anywhere. Not even on the internet, so I'm beginning to doubt it exists.

The name of the village where the house is located is Akiya, or more poetically in English--"Autumn Valley"--which is not an image that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of beachfront. Phonetically, it can also mean deserted house, which does come to the mind of many people when we tell them we have an old place in a former fishing village or show them this picture.

The front windows face southwest. A little to the right, over the water looms Mt. Fuji, which can be disconcerting, since all our senses tell us we should be looking toward Hawaii when we're actually gazing in the direction of Shanghai. Across the bay lies the long arm of the Izu Peninsula, where I first fell in love with beach life back in 1972, while working as a day laborer on a construction team digging huge holes in the jungle floor for resort hotel hot spring tanks. (¥3000 per 10-hour day with all you could drink--and a bath. Not a hot spring bath either, but a cold hose and a barrel half.)