Hanging lunch out to dry

A common sight in fishing villages on the Iwami coast is squid hanging up to dry.

I believe Iwami exports a lot of squid to other parts of Japan.

Dried squid jerky is actually a tasty snack with beer. I often take along some when I am hiking.

The squid boats use very bright lights to fool the squid into thinking its a full moon when they rise to the surface to mate.

The lamps are so bright that they can be seen through cloud cover when flying over Shimane at night.

The strangest looking one I ever saw was on one of the Oki Islands. This one had been preserved and was hanging in front of a seafood restaurant.

Vacation 2010 Day 4: London

I spent the afternoon and evening in London before spending the night on the floor of Stansted Airport ready for a cheap flight to Stuttgart.

I grew up less than 100 miles from London, yet I have spent little time there. I don' t think I've even spent a night in London , just short visits, usually on the way to and from the airport. So I don't really know London outside of a few of the major tourist sites.

One surprise for me was Westminster Cathedral, Not to be confused with the famous Westminster Abbey. Its a very ornate Catholic Cathedral not far from Victoria Bus Station, and unlike its famous namesake, entrance is free. It was built in the first years of the 20th Century and has some interesting mosaics.

In my memory, London was always an expensive place to travel around, but nowadays there are plenty of ticket options that make it much more affordable. Of course The Tube goes pretty much everywhere.

A different perspective of the Millenium Bridge....

I usually try and visit the Tate Modern when I am in London. The biggest museum of modern art in the world, housed in a recycled power station, a world-class museum with free entrance. One can easily spend a week or more in London just visiting great museums that are all free.

I tried to go to the National Museum just on Trafalgar Square, but got there too late, so spent some time sitting among the fountains counting the number of different languages I could hear being spoken by the tourists passing by....

Flood update.

3pm and the river has come up over the bank and is inching its way towards my millet, chingensai, carrots, tomatoes, corn (what was looking to be my best ever harvest), butternut squash, sweet potatoes, black beans, taro, and peppers....

5pm and the river has claimed my garden.

7pm and I am now an aquaculturist as my garden is covered with a meter of water that is flowing faster and faster. Bits of garden sheds from gardens upriver speed by on their way to the sea.

The village paddies behind the levee are getting deeper and deeper, though I am assured that the rice will survive and be fine. It continues to rain a little, but the rain here is not the problem. Hiroshima is getting heavier rains and half the watershed of the river is in Hiroshima, so it depends on releases from the dam upstream whether the river rises anymore. Tomorrow I will find out what, if anything, in my river garden has survived. My village garden is above the flooding so really its only half my garden that has been damaged, and once the river recedes it will leave behind a layer of rich silt for next years planting :)

Flood!

Flood

It's been raining heavily for a couple of days, and yesterday I noticed the river was high, so last night as it continued to pour down all night I worried about my riverside garden flooding, like it did 4 years ago.

As soon as I got up I checked the small stream that runs through the hamlet. Normally this is virtually dry, but when it rains it runs quite heavily. This morning it didn't look bad. I've seen it a meter and a half deeper.

Down in the paddies, the lowest of them were flooded. Underneath the water is my neighbors rice.

Down at the riverside my garden is safe. The river was up to the edge of the bank, so my corn, millet, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and black beans were about a meter above the water.

100 meters downstream my neighbors were not so lucky... the gardens were under a meter of water. The community PA announces that the dam 30k upstream is going to release more water, followed by the siren. They expect the river to rise at least one more meter with the extra water. That should just about wash my garden away. The local rail line has closed due to a landslide upstream, and the police told me they are going to close Route 261 upstream aways .

The village is protected from the river flooding by the levee that route 261 travels over. To stop the river backing up through the stream, huge steel floodgates are closed. But, you may ask, what happens to the water coming down the mountains and through the village?

It backs up of course, which is why the paddies are starting to flood and people with low-lying gardens now have ponds.

Kurashiki Heron

Tenryo Maru

The Tenryo Maru is one of the many tour boats that ply the canals of the Bikan historic district of Kurashiki in Okayama Prefecture.

Kurashiki is a fairly typical industrial city on the south coast, but the Bikan district is a little oasis of traditional streets and buildings that is a very popular tourist destination due in large part to the famous Ohara Museum of Art.

As with most of the major tourist destination in Japan I suggest exploring it very early in the morning. Japan doesnt use Daylight Savings Time in the summer so the days begin ridiculously early, but the tour buses and the hordes they bring don't usually arrive until 9

I found Kurashiki a little bit too touristy, a little bit too theme parkish. Most of the buildings are no longer in use except as tourist sites. Nearby Takahashi and Tomonoura I found to be more authentic.

Anyway, the combination of early morning light and still water makes for easy photography....

Kami no Miya Kojin Shrine

On the nearby guide map this little shrine is called Kari no Miya Kojin Shrine, but in the torii and shrine building it is called Hachidai Aragami Shrine.

Many shrines had their names changed in the early Meiji Period, to remove any buddhist influence from the shrine ( a process akin to unscrambling eggs), and to add an Imperial identity.

After WWII when the states grip on shrines was loosened many shrines chose to revert to their earlier identity.

Aragami is a term often translated as "rough deity", but I have come to prefer the word "turbulent" over rough. Aragami are often "Earth" kami, ie natural forces that can be dangerous and violent. Kojin is certainly an aragami, though at this shrine there was no rope snake typical of other kojin shrines in Izumo.

The shrine is located on a small hill in Taisha Town between Izumo taisha and Inasa beach.

There were a couple of small Inari shrines in the grounds.

Not Jabba the Hut

I am almost certain that this is not a statues of Jabba The Hut, though the resemblance is uncanny. I am almost certain that it is a statue of Daruma, the Japanese name given to the Bodhidharma, known as the founder of Zen.

Bodhidharma is believed to have been an Indian monk who took new Buddhist teaching to China where it became known as Ch'an. When Japan appropriated Ch'an they called it Zen.

Daruma dolls are found all over Japan. They have no arms or legs as the Bodhidarma spent so many years in ascetic meditation that his limbs dropped off through lack of use.

Daruma dolls are usually sold without eyes. They are used to help achieve your goals. After purchasing one a single eye is painted in as you set your self a goal. When you achieve your goal you paint in the second eye.

Though Daruma is technically a buddhist symbol, most of the photos on this page were taken in shrines.

Yattai

This rather funky looking contraption looks like it may be some sort of mobile home for a homeless person, but once the sun goes down it transforms into......

...a street stall dispensing food and drinks on the streets of Fukuoka. Known as Yattai,　they are probably the most well known symbol of Fukuoka and high on the list of things to do for visitors there.

There are about 150 yattai scattered across the city, but most are clustered around the Nakagawa and Tenjin districts. A variety of foods and drinks are available, including the local speciality Hakata ramen.

It seems that the first Yattai was created in 1937 by someone returning from China who wanted to sell the style of noodles he came to enjoy in China, and by 1941 there were already 80 yattai in business.

Izumo Taisha JR Station

The old JR railway station at Taisha, on the main road leading to Izumo Taisha, is unusual in that it is built in traditional Japanese style rather than the hybrid of japanese and western styles that most stations of the period were built in.

It was built in 1924, architect unknown, to bring tourists and pilgrims to Izumo Taisha.

The line and the station were closed in 1990, but the station has been kept as a museum and attracts thousand of visitors. It is a registered Important Cultural Property.

The ticket office and station office contains mannequins dressed in period uniforms

and other items are also on display. Entrance is free.

Access to Izumo Taisha by rail now is via the Ichibata Electric Railways Taisha-Mae station on the same road as the old JR station but closer to the shrine itself.

Hasedera Temple in Izumo

After passing through the Niomon (gate with guardian statues), the shady, banner-lined, path leads up to the main buildings of Hasedera.

When I was there a few weeks ago the shadows framed the statues of Kannon, which seemed very fitting as this is Temple number 1 on the 33 Temple Izumo Kannon Pilgrimage.

The main building was covered in strips of paper with what I guess to be prayers on them from pilgrims. I know very little about Buddhist practices and terminology in Japan.

Hasedera belongs to the Koyasan Shingon sect, and I did read that it is the oldest temple in Taisha Town (the name now given to the town around Izumo Taisha, formerly known as Kitsuki.

There is a small shrine to Inari, though it may be Dakiniten, the Buddhist version of Inari.

I like Hasedera. Its quiet, and in a natural setting. Its located west of Izumo Taisha, up a small valley from Inasa Beach.