Hokkaido Photos 3

This is the final place I stayed, Rob's house in Toyosato. Rob is a builder and very creative so he produced a somewhat unusual design. The house is octagon shaped and the roof is a dome. Down the middle of the house you can see a concrete chimney that was poured one section at a time using movable formwork. There's going to be a masonry stove in the basement, it burns at a much higher temperature than a conventional stove and has a much bigger mass. This means that it uses wood much more efficiently, and most of the heat goes into the house instead of out the chimney.

Another view of Yuteisan.



The view from the roof, looking towards Annupuri mountain which is where Milky House is. The slopes are lit up at night and look very beautiful, but unfortunately I don't think I was able to get a good photo of them.

A mountain river near Hirafu. When I talk this photo I was walking to Hirafu with a Scottish lass called Eilidh.

Hokkaido Photos 2

This is the second place I stayed at, Chise Gardens. This is the house I lived in. You can't really see it from this photo, but it's being built in the traditional Japanese style, with huge beams. The wood they used for the beams was very old, possibly more than 100 years old. It had been reused (in houses) three or four times.



Here is my little shack inside the house. Home sweet home. It seems strange to look back on it now but I was sad to leave it. I had made myself quite warm and comfortable there by the end of my stay.

This is some of the wood I cut. There's a whole lot more pile up behind it.

This is the farm seen from the house.


This is Yuteisan, the Mt Olympus of Hokkaido (the top is almost always covered in clouds). The photo doesn't convey how impressive the mountain is.

Hokkaido Photos 1

Here are some photos from Hokkaido. This first set is from the first place I stayed, Milky House.

Here is the pension (what they call these small lodges). It's maximum capacity is about 35 customers. They probably have that many people staying there now, it's ski season and it's always very busy in ski season.

There are many mineral springs in the area, this is one of them.

This photo was taken on the day-long trek I did. You can se the path going through a field of bamboo.

This is Fumiko san, one of the people who work at the pension. She's the wife of the owner.

This is Micchan, another friend at the pension. We could communicate prety well despite only limited shared language ability (neither my Japanese nor his English were particularly good).

Leaving Hokkaido

Hi folks,

The holy fool writes again (I always wanted to call myself that. Anyone else remember Tripitaka from Monkey Magic?). I've been staying in half completed houses for the past five weeks, and between working, studying, and trying to get warm, I haven't had much time for writing. My access to the internet has also been extremely limited.

For the last three weeks I've been staying at the house of a guy called Rob. In his own words, "don't ever call me a fuckin' American. I'm from Alaska." He's married to a Japanese woman called Natsuko. Marriage seems like the only way for a gaijin to get into the country, and if the marriage ends, you have to leave. I've heard of a guy who lived here for seven years who is getting kicked out for that reason.

But it's all fun and games here at the dome. We've been taking it really easy, Rob worked very hard during the summer and he's resting now. Today we watched part II of Lord of the Rings, a great movie, I'm glad I've finally gotten around to watching it. If I hadn't grown up on Star Wars, it might have become my favourite movie ever. Nothing like a little make-believe to stir the imagination.

It's really cold here. I'm not sure exactly how cold, but it's below freezing outside pretty much all the time. I'd estimate temperatures ranging from -2 to -7. I must be close to freezing in my room at night after I turn the heater off. Fortunately I have a nice warm bed. For some teason condensation forms underneath the mattress every night, so I have to keep drying it out. The food here is very good, and the scenery in the area is incredible. I've taken up cross-country skiing, which has been a lot of fun. The locals have been very friendly to me. The people of this country are great.

I'm in a town called Niseko which is one of the premier ski resorts in Japan. There is a nearby town called Hirafu which is a Little Australia. There are also a lot of Australians moving into Niseko. They buy up hotels and holiday houses Some of them are Australian business people who live in Tokyi. There are also a lot of Japanese business people who do the same thing, coming up here for a couple of weekends every month.

Yesterday I went into Sapporo (the capital of Hokkaido) with a very genteel local couple, the Enomotos (Akira and Aiyeko). They are members of the Home Stay association, they host foreigners visiting the country, and they go to other countries as guests of other members of the association. They are friends of Rob and Natsuko. It was a lot of fun but utterly exhausting, I spoke a lot of Japanese over the course of the day and it tired me out. In Sapporo we went to a cooking lesson hosted by the homestay association. It was also a social occasion, everyone gave a quick talk to the group, talking about themselves. I found it pretty hard, the audience was underwhelmed, but it was a pretty good effort for someone of my level of ability and experience.

I've got some photos ready but I don't have time to post them, so they will have to wait.

Later,

James

James and Pierre's Excellent Adventure

Hello again,

I left Milky house on the 4th, and went to a new place called Chise Gardens. At this point, the status of my trip became that of 'Caper'. Look for an upgrade to 'comedic misadventure' later in the wek.

Chise Gardens is a farm without a farmhouse. There is a kitchen building (where a farmhand called Furukawa lives), a yurt (where the family who owns the farm live), one nice room where seven cats live, three or four buildings for chickens, goats and vegetables, and a partially constructed farmhouse, which is where I live along with Pierre. The walls and floors aren't finished so there are lots of little cracks that the wind can blow through. Plastic sheeting is used to provide some sort of shelter, so there is no insulation. This being Hokkaido in the onset of winter, it's pretty cold in here. There is no shower, we go to an onsen to have a bath. We've done it every night so far but it's starting to be a problem, because it's quite expensive. And all I want is a shower, onsens are fun but it's a bit much to go to one each night.

There is no running water inside, but fortunately there is a toilet. Pierre and I share a little shack inside the house, it is reasonably warm inside. We can sleep OK.

Pierre is a French WWOOFer. We are helping build the house, and also occasionally chopping firewood. Pierre is a professional carpenter, which is good because he knows what to do and the work is going quickly. Living in the place you are building is a big incentive to work quickly and do the job properly. I'm going to be a dangerous amateur carpenter by the end of this, I'll have enough knowlege to be ambitious, but not enough to prevent disaster. A disaster of the 'shonky furniture' kind, that is. As accident prone as I am, I don't think I will have an accident with the power tools we are using, because I am genuinely afraid of them. The father of the family that owns the farm cut his hand pretty badly using a circular saw that they had jury-rigged into a mounting arrangement. It's a sobering reminder of the seriousness of the situation. But I will be fine. And I'm learning how to properly pronounce French swear words, which can only be a good thing.

Pierre doesn't speak Japanese, so I've been translating between him and Chizuko san (the mother of the family), and Furukawa san. It seems I can actually communicate quite well. Even though I don't know half the words they use, communication takes place eventually. I'm glad that I have learned enough Japanese to be useful. At this point I feel like all the work I've done has been worthwhile. I really badly need to learn more words, and I'm doing so, but I've already reached the level where I am noticably better at communicating than someone who doesn't speak the language. At the beginning, I wasn't.

I am proud to say that I have helped sully the good reputation of Australians over here. Onsens are public baths, you wander around naked with a bunch of strangers. But you're not completely naked, you're supposed to carry round a small towel which you drape over your bits. Which I did at first. But I observed that keeping yourself covered at all times didn't seem to be a big deal. If it was, they would use more than a towel. From this I concluded that nudity wasn't a big deal here, so I did away with the towel. But today I was watching what people were doing more closely, and I think I was wrong. I think you are supposed to make the effort to cover your bits, even if it clearly pointless and futile. It's OK if people see your bits, as long as you made a token effort to hide them. Japanese psychology still seems pretty strange to me but I think I'm starting to get to the bottom of it.

Well, got to go. Hope everyone is well.

Bye,

James

At Milky House

Hey folks,

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. I've been very busy here at the hotel, I work 8 hour days and then I try to enjoy my spare time as much as I can. Life has been good here, if hard at times. Lots of boring repetitive jobs but I've learned some useful things too. I've also become good friends with my colleague Micchan, and greatly improved my Japanese.

So I'm in Hokkaido. My girlfriend Miho told me the word 'Hokkaido' means something like 'magical frozen world' (if I remember correctly). The word magical is pretty apt. From an Australian perspective it all seems a little other-worldly. At the moment there is snow falling past my window which is a new experience for me. Today is the first snow we've had here, although a week ago it fell on the mountain about 1km away. From a distance the hills here look very nice, covered in rolling greenery. However, when you get closer, they turn out to be covered in an unbroken thicket of fleshy rope-like shrubs (which are actually a kind of bamboo if I understand what I was told correctly). These thickets are for all intents and purposes impenetrable, I had a go soon after arriving and walking through them is very tough going. You basically have to stick to the paths.

However, I discovered that there are some incredible walking trails nearby. I went up to the top of a nearby mountain and had the unique experience of looking down at clouds. It was very imressive until I realised they were coming my way, and I would have to walk through them on the way back. At that point I beat a hasty retreat, as hasty as you can get down a 45 degree slope (only a minor exaggeration, it was pretty steep). On the way up I met an Australian, apparently in this part of Japan you can't throw a stone without hitting an Australian. Lots of houses around here are owned by rich Australians who work in other parts of Japan. There are also many ski lodges owned and/or run by Australians. Most of these people are Australian men married to Japanese women. It's very hard for a foreigner to run a business here without a Japanese partner. 'Here' is a town/region called Annapuri, there is another region called Hirafu which has an even greater density of Australians. Australians have introduced to the Japanese the practice of drinking alcohol at the hot spring baths (onsen), good old Aussie innovation at work.

I also went on a minor Hefty Death Mission through the bush here. I started at a Shinsen (a swampy wildlife region) called something like Numia Shinsen. I walked from there back to the hotel. It normally takes 5 hours, I walked for about 5 hours and only made it to Goshiki Onsen which is about two thirds of the entire journey. I spent a lot of time admiring the incredible scenery, so I didn't make a very good speed over the trek. Also it was raining for most of the time and there was a lot of water on the trail, which slowed me down.

The scenery was like something out of Arthurian legend, rolling hills shrouded in mist, an incredible stillness in the air. It was very cold, the hotel staff had a bit of a laugh when they saw me leaving wearing shorts, but I was fine after I got going, the walking warmed me up satisfactorily. I prefer to wear shorts when walking over hills and mountains, I think I can move much faster than when wearing trousers. I ate my lunch standing up at a lake that reminded me of the ending of the Monty Python Holy Grail movie. I took some photos, I haven't seen how they came out yet, maybe I'll post them later. Lunch was onagiri, rice balls wrapped in seaweed that I made with the assistance of the hotel owner (Nishio san). Very easy to make, and uner the circumstances, delicious.

Later I came to a region of dune-like formations of some kind of white mineral/stone. There was a smell of sulfur, so maybe there was a mineral spring upstream. That was a lot of fun to walk through, kind of like being on the moon. You can probably tel by now that my imagination get pretty active when I'm out walking in the bush! After that I came to a region of really cool-looking crags, some unusual rock formations that would be a lot of fun to climb around. Hopefully I will get a chance to go back there and explore, because when I was walking through there I was in a big hurry. I didn't make it back before dark and in fact sunset happened about an hour before I reached the onsen. The last part of the trek was going down a hillside, the path was very broken so it was difficult, it was fully dark at this time and rain was falling. But I'm used to wandering around the bush in the dark, I did it a lot in Australia, so I quite enjoyed that part of the walk. I wanted an adventure holiday, and I've got it.

Before I came to Niseko I went to Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido and a very modern city. I had a good time wandering around it at night, the tourist book says it's nightlife is the equal of Tokyo's. I still haven't been to Tokyo so I don't know if it's true, but there is definitely a lot going on there after dark. Last night the Fighters (Hokkaido's baseball team) played in the final of the all-Japan chamionships. They lost and everyone here was disappointed, but they played a good game. I even watched a bit, which is unusual because I hardly ever watch sports, but it was a final and there was a local interest, so it was pretty exciting.

Well, that's it for now. Catch you later,

James

Technical problems

It looks like half the photos have disappeared. I think I know why. I'll see what I can do about getting them back, but I can't see it happening any time soon because I'll be posting new photos soon.

Another week, another blow to the head

Hi everyone,

Blogging time again. I just got off the phone with Mr. Yasuhiro Nishio. He works at Milky House, an inn in Hokkaido. I've secured accommodation there from October 20th. I'll be working six days per week which is more than I want to do, but I'll be getting paid for my work, so I'll be able to build up my savings a bit. And I'll finally make my way to Hokkaido, where I have been trying to go all along.

I'm wrapping things up here at leaf farm, sorting through all my stuff and getting ready to pack. I'll be leaving on Tuesday. I plan to go to Nikko for two days. Nikko is a historic city near where I am. One of the people I met here told me about it. Apparently it has the feel of an old city, the streets are narrow and winding. There is a big shrine there and some other stuff, I don't really know what I will do there yet but it sounds interesting.

I had a good weekend. Today I went to the Tokugawa museum. Ieyasu Tokugawa was one of the warlords that united Japan after a long period of internal wars. The park I went to previously (Kairakuen park) was built by one of his descendants. The museum was kind of empty compared to what I was expecting, there are some other exhibits going in other cities (Tokyo and somewhere else) so not all the pieces were there. There were a lot of personal effects, stuff like a shaving kit, a calligraphy set, lots of books and papers. All thee things were crafted with great skill and were very impressive. A lot of thought went into the visual design, there was a lot of attention to detail in the subtle shades of colour that they used. The emphasis was on the craftsmanship, there was no gold or precious stones used.

There was also a suit of armour which was of great interest to me, being obsessed with samurais and ninjas as I am. Japanese armour is extremely well designed. I was looking at it trying to figure out how you could attack someone inside it, and there are not many options. You couldn't use a vertical strike to smash through the armour because it has huge shoulder and neck guards that would deflect that sort of blow. I don't think horizontal blows would have enough power, which leaves thrusts, and all the easy targets have thick plates of armour over them. So I think any battle between samurai would not have been over quickly. Still, people spent hundreds of years fighting in this way, so maybe they figured out some tricks to speed things up a little.

Yesterday I went to Aikido twice. I learned this brutal move called Gan seki otoshi or rock drop throw. You lift your opponent on to you shoulders and then drop them, very uncivilised, more like wrestling than Aikido, so it was a lot of fun, although I couldn't even pick my partner up. I don't think anyone did the full technique with the drop at the end, like I said, it's too uncivilised. I found this photo.

On Friday I helped Dorothy with a class of kids again. I made a little girl cry just by touching her hand. How's that for evil! I'm getting good at doing the dance for the "this little finger song", I'm going to try to get an MP3 of that one so I can share it with you. I enjoyed playing with the kids, they are utterly anarchic. As Dorothy said to me, "If a little child sits still and listens to you, they must be very sick". A little girl destroyed my pen in a process of scientific experimentation. I wish my pen still worked, but I'm glad she shares my love of science. Maybe one day she will learn to start fires!

Speaking of which, when I was finished with the kids I burned a big pile of bamboo. To be honest, burning stuff is not nearly as much fun as it used to be. Maybe the fact that I first had to move the huge pile of bamboo to dig a pit to burn it in may have something to do with that. And I also smacked myself in the head, I was breaking a length of bamboo with my hands and it snapped unexpectedly. I had a bruise like half a golf ball for a while, but it went away quickly enough. I was quite impressed that I managed to do that much damage using only muscle power. And with the cut on my forehead I look like a street fighter.

This is the Judo hall in the budokan, where we do Aikido.

Myself and Sakatani sensei

This is a Tanrenbo, "training stick". It weighs 13kg. You are supposed to swing it like a sword, I could barely lift it into a vertical position.

This is the Kyudo (archery) range at the budokan.

This is the Shinto shrine to Dorothy's father, inside the house.

This is a bug that came into my room. It was a good jumper.

This is another sports carnival. This one includes adults, and is open to everyone in the region. The teams are organised by district. Some members of my host family competed in the events. In this event, they are dragging two rubber balls aloing inside the rim of a bicycle tire. It's a relay event, the changeover is very funny because the balls usually roll over the rim and the players have to chase after them, very entertaining.

An Iroquois helicopter used as a monument in a park. It was top of the line military hardware in it's day, so it shows how much the Americans trusted the Japanese at that time. By way of contrast, the Iraqi army isn't even allowed to operate it's own crappy Russian hardware, let alone have access to the latest American gear.

A shrine I found in Uchihara, which is a town near Mito. I went to Uchihara to see an exhibit on a local army unit that was in WW II, which I will write about later. The pictures below were taken in the temple's grounds.

A house in Uchihara.

Looks like business isn't too good at this shrine, the grounds are completely overgrown, no-one has been in here for a while.

I wasn't very excited, I thought it was kind of a bland structure, but maybe I just didn't get it.

That's all for now. I hope you are all well.

Later,

James

Not much new

Hi folks,

I'm still in Tsuda staying with the Kawamata family. I've had a fairly quiet week, spent a lot of time studying. I've setup my computer so I can make music on it, and I'm working on a song. It's been great to do something creative again because I put that on hold while I was at uni.

The other day I was looking for the vacuum cleaner and I couldn't find it. It turns out that Obajaan (the grandmother of the family) is a big fan of the Giants (a baseball team), and the Giants lost their game. They've been on a bit of a losing streak recently, and Obajaan got cranky and chucked the vacuum cleaner out the first floor window. Apparently she has a history of doing this, and the vacuum cleaner has been to the repair shop many times. I'm told the father of the family also has a penchant for hurling the vacuum cleaner when his favourite soccer team loses games. I'm looking forwards to seeing it happen, I slept through the last episode, I hope to get some exciting photos if it happens again :)

Last week I built a platform for storing hay on. It took a long time because I have to do a lot of cleaning and a lot of digging, but I'm happy with the job I did. I also remodelled part of their garden. Living here is like a bogan version of one of those backyard renovation shows, everything is done on zero budget and so recycled materials are used exclusively (with the exception of the bamboo which we grow here). So there are a lot of things stacked up on bricks and tied together with twine. When I was a kid I used to like these stories about a guy called Rusty Rimkin, he was a pack rat trash collector, he flew around in a hot air balloon made from junk, lived in a house made of junk, etc. The work I've been doing reminds me of those stories. I'm bringing a kind of Mad Max aesthetic to this backyard, it's great. As part of the process I've also learned how to make a fire that shoots flames four metres into the air, using nothing but bamboo. It sounds like a gas stove when it's really going.

No new photos this week but I'll make certain I put some up next week.

Bye,

James

Hi everyone,

I'm still not registered as an alien. The last time I tried I got there too late, I had to wait 45 minutes for a train. So far I haven't been able to get a timetable in English, I will try again next time I'm at the station. Sometimes doing simple things is very hard.

I went to an Aikido class on Saturday. It was really good to finally do some training. The sensei was very precise about how to do the techniques which was nice. He has really thick arms, it makes grabbing them seem kind of pointless. They grip really hard in this school (Saito school/Iwama style), a few times it felt like the bones in my arm were actually flexing.

After the class I went to a 100yen shop (same as the $2 shops in Australia). It looked like it was about 1km from the dojo on my dinky little tourist map, as it turned out the map was not to scale, and I ended up riding for about 2 hours in the noon day sun. Since Ibaraki is currently in the middle of a heatwave, it wasn't much fun. However I did get to practice my pidgin Japanese when I was asking passersby for directions, which was good. I can only understand about 1 word in 10, but usually it is the most important words so I have a reasonable idea of what is being said.

Today I talked to Dorothy (the mother of my host family) about how Japanese farms are subsidised by the government. I think Japan is a country where socialist ideals are implemented via capitalist means. There seems to be a deliberate effort to create jobs for everyone. I think farming is an example of this. Because the main impact of the subsidies is providing jobs on farms for a whole lot of people. Without the subsidies the multitudinous small farms would be bought up and combined so they could be more efficiently worked with machines, and there would be far fewer jobs in the agricultural sector. This happened in Britain a few hundred years back, creating a mass of impoverished homeless people.

There are a lot of people doing jobs that just wouldn't be done in Australia. There are always heaps of people in uniforms at stations, shopping centres, the airport. There seems to be a deliberate policy of over-staffing. I think it's a good policy, because it makes the place clean and well-run. And it provides a lot of jobs. The people in these jobs don't have the downtrodden look that people in similar jobs in Australia have. I'm sure they work hard, but they don't seem to be treated too badly.

I cut some more grass today. I'm really getting into this agriculture business, I had forgotten how much destruction is involved in producing food. I'm getting in touch with my inner redneck. I think next year I'll go on a chainsaw holiday in Tasmania.

I hope everyone is well. Take care,

James

Yes, there is a section devoted to advertising jingles in the music shop. Japanese commercials are pretty loud and obnoxious, it's hard to imagine people listening to them for pleasure. Although last week I was in a supermarket and I heard a song about fish that I quite liked...

This band's name didn't translate into English very well. I think.

This is the infamous crooked tower in Mito. Old people hate it because it is new and strange. There used to be a clock in Hornsby that had a similar effect on people, but when I left it was in the process of being demolished.

I found this funny for some reason.

Miso shiru soup.

The infamous Natto, soybeans and okra. It has a stringy, gooey consistency and smells kind of rancid. Foreigners generally hate it. It's Japan's answer to Vegemite: the locals love it, and no-one else does. I'm growing to like it, it's a good breakfast food.

Stone-roasted sweet potato, delicious.

Breakfast

This is Matsuda, he's from Himeji near Osaka which is in the middle of the country. He's cycling all around Japan which is a pretty serious endeavour, he's been to Hokkaido and now he's heading south. In this photo he's leaving our house for Chiba, it's about 120km, he said it would take him about three days.

A house near where I live. Sort of a modern look.

An old shed.

A place on a hillside in Mito, built on it's own rampart like a little fortress.

Downtown Mito. The photo was taken from the toilets of the Keisei shopping centre, the toilets with the best view in town.

The family is performing a Shinto ceremony called Jijinsai on the site of the new house.

Here is Shoogo, one of the children in my host family, putting rice into the machine that will remove the husks. The machine is coin operated, all the locals share it.

This is the moat of Mito castle. The castle was destroyed by American bombing in WWII, so the Japanese left part of the moat intact and built a civic building on the site.

A bank.

A building in downtown Mito.

The main street in Mito.

Another building.

A street sign.

More buildings.

Some kind of tower.

More buildings.

This is what I'm reading at the moment, a children's book of the story of Momotaro. Momotaro means peach boy, it's a story that everyone seems to know.