Reflections on Mountains

 

Japan is an entire country of mountains. I think the thing that makes Mount Fuji so iconic is that it stands alone, not in amongst loads of other mountains. Everywhere we went on Shikoku we were surrounded by mountains. We drove up them, down them and through them. We stopped and admired them. We gazed in awe.

This was our view from the restaurant the first full day when we stopped for lunch:

So many mountains ... so we just had to climb the biggest one.

Mount Ishizuchi is the tallest mountain in western Japan, just short of 2,000 metres.

A seven minute cable car ride takes you probably about half way.

then you hike up to a shrine, and back down into the dip. This chart shows that point at 1300m, from where you go almost straight up:

This friendly sign give the 'rules for hikers', stuff like taking your litter home and being careful on the mountain:

In places there are these climbing chains that allow you to cut off some of the meandering route (if you're up to the climb):

It was very early April. We did not anticipate how much snow might remain on the mountain. The wooden steps were buried in places:

... until the path disappeared altogether. This is the point at which we admitted defeat and turned back. We were not well equipped, the last cable car was at 5 and we were not going to reach the top:

It was an exhilarating adventure just to look down from what felt like the top of the world.

View from the castle across the city of Matsuyama:

Go for the food ... stay for the mountains.

Reflections on Japan

When you plan something for as long as I planned my trip to Japan the comedown was always going to take a while. We packed every day with interesting and delightful experiences and I came back knowing it cannot be the only time I visit. As a place Japan manages to feel both familiar and utterly different. I was very keen to follow Monkey's advice so as not to be seen as a 'bloody foreigner' by doing stupid, disrespectful things. I confess, I did not manage to speak much Japanese.

Some things will get their own post but this one is an overview of the trip, not necessarily highlights. We tried not to be distracted from what we were doing or seeing by taking too many photos, allowing ourselves to just look and enjoy. 

After a couple of days in Kawagoe and Tokyo we took the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. This was the one place I had very much wanted to visit and really the only tourist stop, though it feels weird to call the Peace Memorial that. It was utterly overwhelming to see the shell of the building and to learn more and understand the impact, both immediate and long term, that the bomb had on the city and people of Hiroshima. The building was iconic even before the war and it marks pretty much ground zero of the explosion and was one of only a few brick structures that remained standing, and after much local debate the city decided to retain this stark reminder of the bomb's impact as part of their commitment to strive for a peaceful future. The Peace Museum tells the background history and then tells the stories of many of the people whose lives were affected, some who died and others who survived. Some of it is quite graphic and not for the faint hearted or those who want their history nicely sanitised. 

From Hiroshima we travelled to Onomichi which is the start of the Shimanami cycle route across the inland sea. This was taken from the top of a small cablecar and looks across the sea towards Shikoku (though I think all the islands are in the way). Mountains were quite a big feature of our trip.

Over two days we cycled about 100 kilometres stopping off half way on Omishima at the Miyaura-Goten hostel, eating wild boar curry and watching the sunset behind the mountains. It was a wonderful traditional old building with 'shoes off by the door please', sliding doors, futons and tatami mats. It was just the kind of place I had hoped to stay since the rest of the time we had boring modern hotels.

The final stretch across to Shikoku is the Kurushima Kaikyo bridge which is 4km long:

We then travelled to Matsuyama to hire a car and spent the next week exploring the island of Shikoku.

We had meals in random roadside restaurants:

Saw the Pacific Ocean (from the other side):

We took tea in the teahouse in the Ritsurin Garden:

Made udon noodles:

Made paper at the Paper Museum:

Crossed the vine bridge in the Iya valley:

Got used to the squatty toilets:

Learned quite a bit of Japanese history, such as the significance of Sakamoto Ryoma:

Saw some castles ... and learned more Japanese history:

Saw lots, and lots and lots of cherry blossom:

... and very much admired the lack of rubbish anywhere that people happened to be gathering:

Walked the very narrow pavements without incident

Travelled by Shinkansen, train, bus, tram, bike, car, cablecar, chairlift, 

riverboat and ferry (back across the Seto Inland Sea to Naoshima):

Spent the night Japanese style:

and visited lots of onsens ... but you cant take photos inside so here is the outside of the Dogo Onsen, one of the oldest hot springs in Japan, claiming a 3,000 year history:

And I didn't use a knife and fork for a fortnight ... but more of that to come.

100 Days - 36th day : pink hair joy

For the last couple of years I have had a small patch of dyed hair at the nape of my neck, that makes a lovely plait. 

I decided I am ready to wreck the whole of my hair with bleach for the joy of pink hair.

Brown hair:

Bleached hair:

Pink hair:

Three osprey chicks also bring joy:

Stay safe. See you tomorrow.

#100DaysToOffload

#30DaysWild

Butt Kapinski at the Edinburgh Fringe

Wandering down on Cowgate on the Tuesday lunchtime we were handed this weird looking flyer, for what claimed to be 'the riskiest show in town'. I asked the guy if it would involve audience participation and he said 'not much, just making noises and stuff'. He lied. After loitering for a while in the courtyard the audience of a dozen or so entered a darkened space where chairs were arranged in an untidy semicircle. Butt Kapinski is a private eye, in the old fashioned sense, he aims to solve crimes, and there have been a lot of crimes, murder victims will shortly litter the room. He comes dressed in a scruffy raincoat from which protrudes a spotlight that is used to focus attention on whichever of the audience members is currently being engaged in the plot. The small audience meant we all ended up taking on multiple parts, and as the action speeded up we had to jump from role to role each time the spotlight was trained in our direction. The execution was mindbogglingly slick, adapting to the responses and input of new people each time must make this a really challenging performance. It felt chaotic at times but I am sure it was intricately choreographed and prepared, even down to what felt like spontaneous mishaps. I left feeling utterly exhilarated. If you are looking for a show that really is 'like no other' then this is the one for you.

(Tickets for all events can be booked through the Edfringe Website.)

Thinking some more

I recently had a copy of the awesome Tim Minchin's book 'Storm' from the library, and discovered that I was several years late to the party, and here it in animated form on Youtube. You can't beat someone with wit and panache dealing it out to people who spout crap.


In other news, this photograph:

from the Guardian's 20 photos of the week (13th December), has been on my desktop.
It had this caption:
"In a photograph by Siegfried Modola, a regular contributor to 20 photographs, a man holds a girl as she tries to escape an arranged marriage in Baringo County, Kenya. As Pokot tradition dictates, the future husband arrived at the girl’s family home with the last settled dowry of livestock and a group of men to collect her. She was unaware of the marriage arrangements that her father had made as her family said she might have run away from home."

It was a combination of the desperation of the girl and the determination on the face of the man that struck me so forcefully. It summed up so much of what I have been reading over the last year, on websites and blogs and in the news, about the struggles that women continue to face in the world, particularly about rape culture and rape as a weapon of conflict, violence against women in general and street harassment, and here is a young girl who does not even own her own life, and is being carried off to be traded for livestock. The Guardian (again) mused over the idea that women had 'won' in 2014, but as this witty video by Phoebe Greenwood points out, despite all the attention that 'women's issues' received in the media, things are not all they appear to be. And I am reminded that no matter how far women think we have come, there is so far still to go. 


And this, that popped up on Upworthy and just makes you go 'wow':
How Wolves Change Rivers from Sustainable Human on Vimeo.

Welcome to the Monkey House

We have been joking for weeks that it has all been just a game, but the deed is finally done. The last of my offspring has flown the coop. Yesterday I drove Monkey, with most of her worldly goods, down to the wonderful and exotic Golders Green, where she will be sharing a house with four other monkeys. She has a couple of days to herself and then the others will gradually be joining her in the metropolis. 

 She nobly offered to take the tiny bedroom; we have tried to make it feel cosy and personal but there will definitely be no cat swinging:

 After a trip to Tesco, a five minute walk away across the Hendon Way, we toured the delights of Golders Green high street, with its many delicious smelling kosher bakeries, and then came back and ate some tea with an episode of Gilmore Girls. It was very strange to say goodbye on the doorstep and drive away leaving her there. 

There will no doubt be regular updates of goings on in London once the Year of the Monkey gets started in a couple of weeks time. 

Reading etc has all still been happening recently but I have been a bit taken up with preparations for the move. Hopefully I will do a few catchup posts over the weekend.

Books, socks and all that

'The Faraway Nearby' by Rebecca Solnit was requested on the strength of 'A Field Guide to Getting Lost' that I read last year. I guess this is an example of how your own mood affects how you react to a book. This one was a similarly meandering mix of stories and reminiscences but I found myself irritated by it. Partly in a process of reflecting about our adventure in Costa Rica I have been thinking about what is adventure and why have we become so obsessed with it. It is as if the whole 'living life to the full' and 'YOLO' culture has become so pervasive; that if you don't go out and travel and do exciting things then you are not really living, that you are wasting your life. This really could be the subject of a whole blog post ... but I fear becoming too hectoring so I will just say that some days it makes me want to crawl under a stone and stay there and be glad of my quiet, predictable, un-spontaneous life, it has a lot to recommend it. And why is it that people who write these kind of books invariably have poor relationships with their parents. Is there something the matter with have a nice secure childhood and getting on well with your mum and dad as adults. Maybe it means I have nothing to run away from or 'search for' but I think I am happy without the existential angst to be honest.

The lovely socks that I started knitting for mum when we went to Costa Rica have finally been completed, it's only taken a mere three and a bit months. They were knitted to the Jigsaw socks pattern on Pink monkey Knits, but someone at knitting club pointed out that the design looks like waves so I decided to call them 'Pacific Ocean Socks'. So now I can give some serious attention to a fair isle sweater that I started equally long ago.

'Where Love Lies' by Julie Cohen was a bit of a strange acquisition, I picked it up from the library and had no memory of why I requested it, the cover image told me that it was not the kind of book I usually borrow. Having said that I spent the entire of my day off this week reading it, and didn't consider the day wasted. The plot was utterly predictable, I saw from the first chapter that she was going to have a brain tumour or something and that the whole thing was not going to be real. The relationship with the husband was very suspect, they were completely unsuited, he claimed to be trying  to make her happy but had changed nothing about his life to be with her and expected her to fit in with a life that he had prearranged; it was creepy even though his family all seemed so nice. But I was entertained by her rather erratic behaviour and decision making, and the rather wild and reckless upbringing she had did go some way to explaining her approach to life. I think Julie Cohen was trying to do something cleverer than she was capable of with the story: the idea that can you be 'in love' because your brain is triggering old memories, and are they 'real' feelings, and as such are any emotions real since they are all just a product of chemical reactions in the brain. The trouble was that this rather more profound idea was only dwelt on briefly in passing as she considers the life saving surgery that will probably take the feelings away again. So, sorry, I've spoilt the story completely for anyone who likes her, but a pleasant enough way to pass the time, well written and engaging. Now back to Middlemarch and the trials of Dorothea (who started off very pious and irritating but is growing on me).