Karaoke

One thing I will certainly miss about Japan is singing karaoke with all my cute schoolmates from Japan, China, the Phillipines, and Brazil!!!

My Little Smurfs

This past weekend Mizue, Dominikus (from Kansai IOC), and I lead a winter sports trip to Ontake-san. Saturday's weather was snowy and cold, and half of our big group went snowshoeing and backcountry skiing to see the frozen waterfalls KiyoTaki and ShinTaki. I lead the group, and they followed in file in the tracks of my skiis, reminding me of the way the Smurfs would follow Papa Smurf in file on their long treks through the forest, often touting "Are we there yet Papa Smurf?"!
Upon arriving Kisofukushima station before our snowy adventures, we were greeted by a bunch of snow sculptures, as this was the season of the town's snow festival. On the left is a sculpture of the express train Shinano, which stops at this small valley town hourly and connects it with the rest of the country.
The frozen Shio-Taki (fall of nice clean water), above, provided the backdrop for a popular shrine of dedicated to the mountain's diety.


Shin-Taki (New Waterfall), froze in front of a cave. The cave behind had an ice floor, where the pond at the base froze, and was decorated by classical pillars of ice, formed by water which had seeped through the rock and then froze.

Early spring in Odawara

Yesterday Ikuko's folks took me on a nice walk over Mikan-yama, the mountain that separates Odawara from Ninomiya, and which is blanketed with Mikan farms and Plum tree groves. The view from the mountain was great, looking over sleepy Odawara with snowy Fuji-san hovering above. A scene like this, with nature and city all mixed together, is representative of Japan.


Surprisingly, the plum and cherry trees had already started blooming, even though it's still only January! This bloom doesn't usually begin until February or March, but this year it's extremely early. Ikuko's Dad thinks it's due to global warming. Of course it's hard to attribute such an annual and local trend to a long-term process like global warming, as other physics like El Nino, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the long-term meandering of the Kuroshio have as much or more effect on local weather than does global warming. But he may be right. It's interesting how most Japanese, even the older and more conservative ones, attribute much change to human-induced global warming, because they trust what their scientists and educated elite tell them, whereas most Americans, especially the less-educated, think that global-warming is a conspiracy constructed by the not-to-be-trusted educated elite (for what purpose though has not been explained to me).

Endless snow

On saturday morning I boarded a train bound for the northern province of Niigata, about 200 km away, but only 1 hour at the speed these bullet trains travel. The trip began in Tokyo, which in winter sees clear skies and relatively warm weather, with no snow anywhere to be seen. After reaching the northern edge of the Kanto Plain, where Tokyo lies, the train passed through a long tunnel, bored through the mountains that separate the Kanto Plain from the northern region known as Joetsu, which borders the Japan Sea. After the 5 minute trip through the tunnel, the scene changed drastically from bright sun to snowy blizzard! We had reached the Japan Sea side of the moutnains, a land upon which falls endless snow from the storms which start in Siberia, pass over the Japan Sea to gather heat and moisture, and then dump this moisture here for the enjoyment of Japan's winter sports enthusiasts.

My attempt at Kung Fu Panda

At the Junko/Josh/Mayumi/Will wedding nijikai on Halloween in Kyoto, I attempted Kung Fu Panda with my old karate dougi, a pillow stuffed inside for fatness, and a mask from Tokyu Hands.

Intense maple colors back in November...

Back in November, I spent two days on Kumotori-yama, in Oku-tama on the far western border of Tokyo. The autumn colors were waning, but still spectacular in the valleys. Hiking with me were Kota, Sohbi, Yumiko, and Mikako, a fun group.

Upon the mountain, however, trees were already iced, and snow was beginning to fall.

Winter break in Kyushu

Over the winter holiday, I toured the southern Island of Kyushu with good friends from home, Richard & Yoko, and Minhao & Rumi. The southern prefecture of Kyushu is Kagoshima, which contains an island called Sakura-jima, an active volcano that usually erupts with a regularity of about once a day, spewing out flames and ash, the latter of which litters the island with ash. During my visit, the volcanism was unusually active, with eruptions on the order of once each hour, on of which I even caught in a photo.

Oddly, I was told that the region's delicious sweet potatoes (Satsuma-imo, or kara-imo) are due to the nutrient-poor volcanic soil that dominates the region. For some odd reason, these sweet potatoes grow well in nutrient-poor soil.


Richard, Yoko, and I visited the Miyazaki shoreline, once a prosperious vacation site for newlyweds, but now struggling with economic depression as Japan's newlyweds all opt instead for trips overseas to Hawaii and Europe. The abandoned hotels lining the shoreline were sad to see, but the nature of the coast was still impressive. The photo above is a place called Devil's washboard, where the volcanic shoreline is eroded by waves such that the rocks form spines parallel to the coast. Below is the Miyazaki coast as seen from atop a bluff.


We visited a historical village in Miyazaki as well, with thatched-roof homes showing what life was like during feudal times. Amazingly, the cultural treasures that these structures are stocked with are open for the public to come in an explore all the time; in the US, these places would be looted in their first five minutes open, with no security measures taken to prevent such.


Here Yoko poses next to an excavated Haniwa, or ceremonial burial figurine from the Kohun period (5th-8th centuries AD).


After visiting Richard & Yoko, I took a bus to northern Kyushu to visit Minhao and Rumi, shown here playing cards on their kotatsu, or heated table. In the wintertime, families gather around these tables, which have a heater underneath and a blanket around the edges.


We drove to Mt. Aso, a volcano in northern Kyushu, with one of the world's largest calderas. The caldera is dotted with towns, farms, roads, and railways now, but volcanism remains active on one of the peaks in the middle of the caldera. The photo above is from the southern edge of the caldera, looking over the caldera to the peaks in the middle. The caldera then continues opposite the peaks to the north rim, about 10 or 15 miles away.