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Living Out Of A Suitcase
東北 Tohoku Region
Smalltown Life
Nov 4th, 2009
Every Wednesday evening I have to work outside the city in a small town called Tagajo. Basically it’s a suburb of Sendai, but it’s also home to many factories for big companies like Mitsubishi and Sony. I walk through the main entertainment area on my way to work, so I thought I’d keep trying out the prime lens and take some low-light photos.
Like most countryside towns in Japan, there’s only one main strip where most of the bars and tiny restaurants reside. Easy to go bar hopping and grab some eats afterwards. Of course, afterwards can be 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7am…
Dinner in Furukawa
Nov 3rd, 2009
Took a Shinkansen north up to Furukawa to visit some friends and co-workers from my days there, and made a couple new friends as well. 120 minute “nomihodai” (all you can drink!) ensures getting the night off to a fun start. The food at this particular “izakaya” (Japanese restaurant) however was pretty crappy, in particular the grilled squid was dry and bland. Afterwards a few of us made our way up the street to a darts bar, but packed it in pretty early. I crashed on my friend’s couch at around 3:30. I’ve never actually closed that darts bar down actually… and probably never will!
Photo of the Indeterminate Time Period #2
Jun 16th, 2009
Near the outskirts of Sendai, where the city slowly reverts back to farmland, you’ll find lots of interesting old vending machines. Here’s one of them.
Local farmers sell eggs and vegetables out of these bad boys. Interesting side note, these eggs, along with the ones you’ll buy at a supermarket, are unrefrigerated.
Riding the Mangatrain
Jun 2nd, 2009
On mornings I go running, I take the train to work. The station is right next to my place, and the station I get off at is like 50 feet from my office entrance. The train I take is on the Senseki Line, which goes from Sendai all the way out to Ishinomaki out on the Pacific Coast. Sometimes I get to ride what I call the Mangatrain. I don’t read comics anymore so I wasn’t sure what characters these were, but it always made me a little happier when I saw it rolling down the tracks.
Upon doing some research, I found that the actual name of this train is the “Mangattan Liner”. Since Ishinomaki is home to the Ishinomori Manga Museum this train is undoubtedly an homage/advertisement to Shotaro Ishinomori and his famous work.
The train has four cars, which you can see in the illustration below. First is the “Cyborg 009″ car, featuring characters from this famous manga/anime. Next is the “____-jidai (____-period)” car (I can’t quite make that last kanji out), featuring characters from various manga, including Sandarabocchi さんだらぼっち. After that is the “Comedy” car with various silly characters. Finally there’s the “Hero” car, featuring the famous Kamen Rider!
Many thanks to Chimihen for the illustration and the additional info (Japanese website). When I first rode the train, the interior was plastered with comic book pages, not regular train advertisements. I guess however that the economics of it all won out; the next time I got to ride the Mangattan Liner all the comics were replaced with the usual ads.
Check out the brief slideshow below to see the Mangattan Liner up close and personal, and also check out this post over at Pink Tentacle to see some other beautifully painted manga-themed trains throughout Japan.
A Trip To Wakuya Castle
Mar 21st, 2009
Friday was a national holiday in Japan, Shunbun no hi (春分の日), also known as Spring Equinox. I needed to buy some duct tape, and tools to dismantle my home gym as the packing slowly rounds into form. I figured I’d also make it out to Wakuya and check out the remains of its castle since the weather was so nice.
From the JNTO Website:
Watari Shigemune, a military commander, became the governor of Wakuya Castle (Wakuya-jo) in 1591, and for 277 years from that time the castle remained in the possession of the Sendai Clan, which governed this region. Backed by a hill and guarded at the front by the river, Wakuya Castle was a natural fortress. It had no castle tower but instead a row of buildings resembling manors. It was completely destroyed by accidental fire in 1689, then rebuilt over a period of several years. When political power shifted from the Edo Shogunate to the Meiji Government in the mid-19th century, many castles, symbols of the samurai’s political power, were destroyed, including most of the buildings of Wakuya Castle. Only the stone walls and the taikodo turret now remain. A three-storied tower-like building stands adjacent to the castle, exhibiting related materials.
The small park where the castle resides looks like it would be really nice in the spring when the cherry blossoms bloom. I will be somewhere else during Hanami however. Shiroishi or Kakunodate are on the short list this year.
Running Up The Coast, Part 3
Mar 16th, 2009
As we were leaving the Daikannon at Kamaishi, I gave Lester a call in Morioka. I think the last time we got together was back in November and I figured that since we would be in the general vicinity we’d stop by and have some dinner. After asking his girlfriend if he could come out and play with his friends, I said I’d give him a call when we arrived in Morioka. Before that though, Craig and I had to make it to our 3rd and final stop on our sightseeing tour of Iwate, Jodogahama Beach in Miyako City.
After stopping by a Lawson’s to get some quick energy we hit the road again. By this time we’d been on the road for 6 or 7 hours. I was a little worried that we wouldn’t have enough light to check out the beach, but there was really nothing we could do about getting their any faster. We cut through the mountains, going through 15-20 tunnels of various sizes and lengths.
Jodogahama Beach (the green marker) isn’t your typical sandy beach, rather a brief respite from the rocky cliffs that line Iwate’s coast. The park surrounding the beach looked nice; large with lots of small trails going in every direction. You can also rent boats and navigate the bay. Surely it’s a beautiful place to visit in the spring and summer.
Jodogahama Beach, Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture
Having taken our fill of photos, we set off for Morioka, and dinner. We followed the Shimohei River back into the mountains, encountering quite a bit of snow as we progressed inland. I would’ve liked to make it up to Ryusendo Cave, but we just didn’t have the time.
Finally making it into Morioka, we met up with Lester and Rie and feasted on some yakiniku. Yakiniku is probably my favourite dining experience in Japan. The only thing that would’ve made it a perfect meal was a nice tall frosty beer, but alas I was the driver.
Feeling adequately recharged for the drive home, we said farewell to Morioka and headed south back to Miyagi Prefecture, this time on the expressway. Craig helped keep me awake by talking movies, and before we knew it we were back home. The longest 600 kilometers I’ve ever driven, we were on the road for 14 hours, driving 11 of them. I slept well that night!
Running Up The Coast, Part 2
Mar 14th, 2009
Next on our epic 1-day journey through Iwate Prefecture was the Daikannon at Kamaishi City. As we left the outskirts of Ofunato City we saw a sign for Ryorigawa Dam. Why not? We veered off the main road and snaked our way through an unnamed village, possibly going the wrong way up some one way lanes, eventually ending up at the foot of the dam. Got out at the top, snapped a few pics, then we were back on the road again.
Ryorigawa Dam Resevoir
Kamaishi City (the red marker) is famous for a couple of reasons. From Britannica Encyclopedia (remember them?):
Kamaishi was a small fishing village until magnetite was discovered in the area in 1727, and Japan’s first European-style blast furnace was constructed in the city in 1857. In 1885 a government-controlled iron foundry was built using coal from Hokkaido and later using ore from China after the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). Heavy damage was suffered during World War II, but mining revived after 1945, yielding magnetite ore. Iron and steel, mainly from Britain, are imported through Kamaishi’s harbour, which is also an important fishing port and part of Rikuchu-kaigan National Park.
Apparently Kamaishi is the main supplier of Japan’s pachinko balls as well. The main draw to this seaside town however is the Daikannon statue. We made our way up the spiral staircase to the top and took in the view. Legend has it that those who visit the goddess and ascend the 204 stairs to the top will be filled with a great happiness. I don’t feel terrible as I type this, so maybe it worked!
Some additional information, this time from the Japanese Buddhism Photo Dictionary:
“Originally a girl of T’ang China, who was selling fish on the market. She asked Kannon Bosatsu [Goddess of Mercy] to grant her a good husband. The wish was granted, and later the girl herself was considered an incarnation of Kannon Bosatsu. This form of Kannon (#10 out of 33) is now, in this area, considered the deity of young men looking for wives.”
We decided to skip lunch and make our way even farther north to Miyako City. Originally I had planned to go to Anatoshiiso only, but in all honesty I’m probably never going to be in this neighbourhood again. We would soldier on…
Running Up The Coast, Part 1
Mar 12th, 2009
One last chance for a road trip before the big move, I headed up and over to the Pacific to check out a few famous spots along the Iwate coast. I only had one day to make the trip, and I knew it was going to be a stretch to make it, but I dragged myself out of bed, hopped in the car and headed north, trying not to think of the 11 hour drive ahead. The first stop? The M-shaped rock formation known as Anatoshiiso (the blue marker).
My co-pilot today would be Craig, an American working at a school near mine. To shave a couple hours off the trip we took the expressway up to Ichinoseki. You gotta pay to drive the expressway, but if time is an issue there’s no better way to drive. Unfortunately the local roads are painfully slow, especially deep in the countryside. “True” (extra lane) passing lanes are virtually non-existent, not that it would help avoid all the grandmas and grandpas attempting to drive their shitty little trucks along the windy roads.
We crawled our way east to Kesennuma, where I saw a very underwhelming fireworks show last summer. Reaching the coast, we began our journey north along the local road that winded along the water.
A couple wrong turns later, we arrived at the first of our five stops. As you can see it’s a pretty beautiful scene, and a great way to start off the morning. I’d like to come back and visit again in the summer when the water is nice and warm. Part 2 to come soon…
A nice place to do some cliff jumping, perhaps...
Mt. Odogamori
Mar 8th, 2009
Here’s the next installment of “The Remains of 2008″. From what I can tell I still have 7 more slideshows from last year to upload. Today finds us looking back on our aborted attempt to investigate the earthquake-damaged Mt. Kurikoma region. Like I mentioned before, we were on the top of Mt. Kurikoma just one week before the 6.9M quake rocked Tohoku. We waited 3 months before venturing back out there. Unfortunately the Miyagi side of Kurikoma, the area most heavily hit, was still closed. Consulting Tony’s trusty hiking guide we decided to hike up a (hopefully) less dangerous mountain, Odogamori-san.
Skirting around Kurikoma we saw evidence of the earthquake everywhere. Besides the blocked off roads, we saw many hills where sheets of land had just slid away. Roads were cracked and twisted, with single lane traffic in many sections. It’s all automated though; I guess it works on the Honour System or something.
Along the way we encountered absolutely nobody. Not a single car. Granted we were in rural Miyagi, but it was still pretty eerie to drive through this devastated area and not see anyone out and about.
Following Google Maps on my iPhone we broke off the pavement and started along a single lane gravel access road into the mountains. As much as I rave about the GPS on my cell phone, the only bad point is that once you’re out of cellular range you lose the map. Your path will still be plotted, and the little icon will still follow the path, but you’ll just be moving along a blank page. But I digress.
Over a sketchy bridge and through a sketchy tunnel, we finally arrived at the parking lot, which was a little space beside the rocky road for a couple of cars to park. We surveyed the map, chose our route, and filled out the logbook just in case the three of us were attacked by bears or zombies or whatever. Like my dad always said, “Safety first, wear a condom.” I’m just kidding, he never said “Safety first”.
About halfway up the very unmaintained trail becomes pretty steep, so there are a series of ropes to help you negotiate the sticky parts. Nothing really dangerous though.
The view from the top.
Kyoko, Tony, and I ate our lunches at the top and enjoyed the cool breeze that rushed up and over the mountain. We still haven’t made it back to Kurikoma, but rest assured it’s on the list for this summer.
This trip also marked the demise of my beloved Sony DSC-P73 digital camera. I used it for 5 years; it was frikking bulletproof I swear. It had been rained on and dropped more times than I can remember, but it kept on shooting great photos. No BS, I must’ve shot over 25,000 photos with this baby. It had virtually full manual control. This was probably a pretty standard feature back in it’s time, but these days full manual on a point and shoot is getting increasingly rare. For this reason only I didn’t replace my camera with another Sony, opting for the great Casio EX-V8 instead. My Sony was a really reliable camera and I was sad to see it go.
Round 1 is coming to Sendai!
Mar 5th, 2009
Driving back from Sendai last weekend we passed by one of the many construction sites in the city. Usually they’re for apartment buildings or pachinko parlours, but the big sign I saw immediately caught my eye. This was going to be a Round 1. It’s gonna be right next to Nigatake Station, which is only 8 minutes from Sendai Station.
So, what is Round 1? Basically it’s a giant multi-floor game center. One of these behemoths was built shortly after I moved to Akita City. I hope the one in Sendai is at least as good as Akita’s.
What can you do at Round 1? Let’s see… one floor is devoted to slot machines and gambling, another floor has like 30 or 40 bowling lanes, a different floor has a race track to ride mini motorbikes on. There’s a floor full of video games, pool tables, karaoke rooms, massage chairs, a mechanical bull, catch and release fishing (wtf?!). There’s another floor with basketball, soccer, and badminton courts, batting cages, archery, mini golf, and a curling rink (double wtf?!?!).
(L-R) Basketball, Soccer, Archery, Frisbee, Mini Golf
(L-R) Curling, Batting Cages (background), Badminton
There’s food, you can drink alcohol, and from what I remember it’s open 24/7. I’ve been there for various parties in the evening, and at 4am after the bars. It’s pretty cheap as well; I don’t ever remember paying more than 3000 yen for a long night of fun.
Here’s a link to a PDF file from the Round 1 website; it’s in English and shows all of what they have to offer. Here’s also a couple low quality YouTube videos I uploaded a couple years ago. One of the mechanical bull, and one of the mini motorbikes.
A Hidden Gem
Mar 4th, 2009
Two days ago Kyoko and I took the drive west out to Onikobe, an area near the Akita/Yamagata/Miyagi border. Probably known best for its terrible ski hill, Onikobe is also home to many hot springs (onsen). While nearby Naruko Onsen gets most of the hype, being accessible by train and a popular place to view the autumn leaves, there are some great hidden spots along northwestern Miyagi’s winding backwoods roads. On Monday we visited Hounkaku Onsen.
Although we’d been to this region before this was my first time driving there, so I punched in our destination into my iPhone, letting Google Maps plot our course for us. My company car has no navigation system, so the iPhone has been an absolute godsend in helping me not get lost driving around rural Japan. However, it definitely does NOT account for road conditions, weather, time of year, etc. I had already narrowly averted a near disaster back in January, when my phone told me to drive through the still earthquake-damaged Kurikoma region through a blizzard on a one-lane road into uninhabited rural Yamagata in the dead of night on my way up to Akita City.
This time wasn’t nearly as perilous, just a small snow-covered country road heading up into the hills. It was right near the end of the trip so I thought we’d give Google the benefit of the doubt and see if we could make it, in our little Nissan March. The snow became deeper and deeper, and about half a click up the road we came to a stop, unable to make any more forward progress up the hill. “This is why we have to drive backwards in a straight line on our driving test.” I told Kyoko, as we slowly made our way down the winding road in reverse. Strike two Google, strike two… We found a better route to take to the onsen, the turnoff being about 100 meters after our deadend.
Eventually we reached Hounkaku Onsen. I smiled to myself as we parked in the empty lot. One of the best things about having Mondays off is that you can go to most recreation places (onsens, driving ranges, game centers) and they’ll be nearly or completely empty. Kyoko and I try to go to mixed onsens (where the outdoor bath is for men and women, together) if we can. Going to non-mixed onsens, while relaxing, can be pretty boring. Sure, I could strike up a conversation with some random naked dude, but I’d much rather hang out with Kyoko or my friends.
Paying our 500 yen fee we walked through the quiet inn to get to the change rooms. Empty. I quickly showered and then headed outside (The change rooms and indoor baths are segregated). Empty. We had the whole place to ourselves.
As you can see from the photos there is a large rotenburo (open-air bath), and a natural bath complete with a waterfall. The Okami-san (hostess of the inn) warned us that the natural bath would probably be a little chilly, as it had snowed the night before. It doesn’t really start to get nice and hot until June or July. The rotenburo is temperature-controlled, and also features a small cave. It isn’t really a steam room or sauna, but an “Ashi-yu” instead (Ashi = foot or leg, Yu = bath or hot spring). One end of the rotenburo is hotter than the other so you can get warmer or cooler as you please.
Perhaps the only negative was the quality of the water itself. The scent wasn’t filled with sulphur and didn’t make your skin feel soft and slimy, meaning the water was probably low in minerals and chemicals.
The natural bath was a little cool, but nothing like surfing off the coast of Vancouver Island in summer. Kyoko snapped a few photos of me unsuccessfully trying to climb up the waterfall, then we headed back into the heated pool.
The atmosphere was amazing. The splashing of the waterfall, the occasional chirping of the birds (cicadas perhaps?), the sound of snow melting and sliding off the roof… bliss.
My Good Deed For The Year
Mar 2nd, 2009
On our drive home from an onsen in Onikobe this afternoon we came upon this little fella sitting on the side of a road. Huddled up in a little ball, we weren’t even sure if he was alive or not until we parked and got out to take a closer look. Sensing our approach, the baby owl slowly looked up and opened his orange eyes. Obviously something was wrong.
Some clumps of ice were stuck to his wings and tail, and he was having problems putting weight on his left leg. The top left of his head was also a little ruffled. Although we’re now into March it did snow in this area last night. Channeling my inner CSI abilities, I deduced that the owl was probably sleeping in a tree, got all icy, then went crashing to the pavement below. Another 15 feet to the left and it would’ve been snow.
I got all the ice off (check the video) but he still couldn’t quite get up and going. By this point we were officially elbow-deep into helping this little guy, so we made a makeshift bed, put him in the backseat, and drove off in search of a veteranarian.
Since we were kind of out in the boonies we had to head back into Furukawa. Willy (Kyoko had named him) was just resting in the basket, gently nodding his head from side to side. We found a clinic about 40 minutes down the highway. After a brief examination the vet confirmed my earlier diagnosis, saying that he probably landed on his head and may have incurred some nerve damage, hence the head nodding.
The vet gave us two options.
- Take Willy into Furukawa to the wild animal clinic. If he recuperates, he would spend the rest of his life sitting in a cage at the clinic.
- Take Willy back to where we found him. Make him as comfortable and safe as we can, and hopefully his family would find him.
We decided to take him back. If his family could find him, great. If little Willy didn’t make it, that’s life. He’d probably provide sustinence for another animal, and besides that we didn’t want him to be trapped in a cage for the rest of his life. Animals, especially birds, are meant to be free, so we chose to give him a chance to fly again.
The doc gave Willy a steroid shot to help the recovery process, and gave us a small box and a roll of duct tape. He told us to tape the box to a tree about 3-4 feet up as close as to where we found him. This would help protect him from predators. He didn’t charge us for his services.
Returning to the scene of the accident, we found some brush to put in the box, and picked a suitable location to attach it to a tree, about 15 feet away from where we found him. As I was taping the box to a tree an employee of a nearby business came out to see what we were doing. He was a younger guy and seemed interested, so I hope he’ll check on Willy to see how he’s doing.
Finally, we put Willy into the box and helped him get settled. Goodbyes were said, some tears were shed, and we parted ways, letting nature take it’s course.
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Owl in Japanese is “Fukuro”. The word “Fuku” itself means happiness, and you can find many owl dolls in stores around Japan, for they are symbols of luck and happiness.