Now I've seen it all

Spell with Flickr letters at this random website. Some people are clearly more addicted to Flickr than me. And some people are clearly a lot crazier about the web too.

昨日の日没と今日の疲れThe last few hours

My jet lag is killing me. Although I went to bed last night around 11 pm, I woke up at a bright and early 4:30 this morning. Rather, it wasn't so "bright," because the sun didn't come out until abut 7 am.

Again, I went hiking today in an attempt to wear myself out. I think it's working, because I'm beat now, and now that I'm back, I really want to hunker down for a nice long cat nap. Except it's only 2:13 in the afternoon. So, now I'm just buying time, trying to keep myself awake for at least another 6 hours.


The sunset last night was incredible. Here is a picture I caught of it from my room window. (Can you believe I live in such an incredibly BEAUTIFUL setting!!!?!?! ) It still amazes me that I am living in a place as gorgeous as this as a mere (underpaid and unrecognized) PhD student, living only 1.5 hours from Tokyo. Today, the weather was almost as clear as it was yesterday, so I got another great picture of Mount Fuji on my way into the dorm from my "hike." I took this at the outlook point just about 50 meters down the hill from our university. Enjoy... (I call this photo "Fuji in January") :-)


Actually, I should not really call what I did today a "hike" because I never found the trail. I was heading for Mt. Futago from the Nagae Intersection here in Hayama Town. A word to the wise (and the not-so-wise): do not attempt this hike by referring to the "Miura Hanto Hiking Course Guide" map. Although the map is pretty - got lots of beautiful glossy pictures and colorful details - it hardly gets you where you need to go. I discovered today that the map lacks complete detail. Next time I will do my homework. Thanks to this "course guide" map, I was walking around Nagae neighborhood for two hours trying to pick up back roads and trails to the Futago (Twin) Mountains. Impossible.

Although I really didn't get the hike that I wanted, I did have a few interesting experiences. First, by walking around aimlessly in people's back back alleys, I saw a rural (and poorer) side to Hayama that I had not been previously aware of. Some of the houses deep deep behind the main thoroughfares greatly contradict Hayama's pristine image as the emperor's summer resort. Some of these houses were made of tin and cement and had random collections of junk spewing from their windows and all over their yards. One house I passed had a collection of tractors, tombstones, and other brick-a-brack, waiting for the chance-by consumer, perhaps. The total lack of order around these poor hovels reminded me of an article I once read by a former professor, Andrew Gordon, that argued that despite their post-war image as industrious and efficient, "the Japanese" were not necessarily intrinsically orderly. (If I remember correctly,) Gordon provides examples of slothful and derelict work habits exhibited by laborers in the early 20th century to make his point that Japanese workers were not always as inherently diligent as the media might make them out today. For me, seeing such all-out untidiness and rusticism in the crevices of rural Hayama, I couldn't help but think that so-called (Western senses of) "modernity" and "industrialism" certainly do not yet pervade all of contemporary Japan.

Second, when I chanced into some of the back trails behind these old encampments, I was confronted with yet another side of Japan, which I must admit, did seem to measure up to some of the stereotypes I have learned about in school. What I am trying to described here is some sense of mysteriousness in nature. For example, behind one tucked-away hamlet, I found myself walking in a wild, rustling bamboo thicket. Amidst the thicket, there were streams of light and shadows and intermittent stirs of wind. The images and sounds reminded me of the forest spirits from Miyazaki Hayao's cute anime, Tonari no Totoro. As I walked around the bamboo grove, I nearly tripped on several offerings in the shape of a few flowers in and old jar of water, and a couple of rocks piled up on one another. After climbing a bit higher and deeper into the woods, I happened upon a decidedly small, out-of-the-way shrine.

To find such a site, barely larger than a doll house, I wondered to myself, who in the world must be tending to these seemingly unknown establishments. I've never met one Japanese who acknowledges a sense of religion or spirituality, much less someone who seems interested in caring for such homemade and hidden shrines. Surely I need to meet more Japanese people so I can figure out what is going on here. I imagine that these shrines might be being kept up by people from older generations - but, what has kept these shrines going so long, for thousands of years, apparently, in the first place? And are people my age and younger going to pick up and carry on these traditions? If so, I sure would like to meet them - to see how and when this (ancient?) tradition gets passed on.

時差ぼけである私Back "Home" in Japan

After getting back to Japan on Thursday, I've been suffering from some majorly intense jetlag. This morning I woke up at 5:00 am - after only sleeping about two hours. After mucking around in my little dorm room for about an hour, I passed some time watching the documentary "OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" until the sun came out about an hour later. Then I decided to go hiking, in an effort to live up to my new year's resolution of getting more exercise on a regular basis. The hiking was also my attempt to thoroughly fatigue myself by inhaling lots of fresh mountain air so that maybe I might sleep better tonight.

(Incidentally, OUTFOXED is a must-see for anyone interested in better understanding why the FOX "news" channel is bashed all the time as a "right wing" pundit and the ruin of contemporary journalism. My favorite line in the whole movie was something like this: "I don't condemn Fox as a bastion of ultra conservativism. What I DO condem it for is for touting itself fraudulently as the source of 'fair and balanced' news.")

Finally around 8 am, I was ready to catch the hourly bus out of here, down to Zushi. I chose my destination, the highest peak in the Miura Peninsula with the help of an old book I keep around,Day walks Near Tokyo by Gary D'A. Walters (what a great middle initial!). Although I took Mr. Walters' advice (for Tokyoites) and started my journey to hiking trail from Shin-Zushi Station, I learned in retrospect that I could have saved about an hours' time by simply walking to the bottom of my neighborhood in Shonan International Village. Little did I know that the start of the trail at Maedabashi bus stop, was actually just right down the hill from me, just past Koyasu Village and a several blocks past the Kuruwa bus stop. As this map I lifted from the Shonan International Village website shows, the Kuruwa bus stop is just down the road, and Mount Ohgusa is just adjacent to Shonan Village! (The Maedabashi Stop is three stops past, or about a leisurely 15-minute walk away.)

Shonan International Village From Mount Ohgusa

Anyways, the bus rides gave me a chance to warm up while the sun came out. Finally when I got out of the bus at Maedabashi Stop, (on the Keihin Kyuhkou Buses #4,5,6,7, or 8 - this is different from Walters' explanation which has become a little bit outdated), the entrance to the hiking trail was clearly marked. As Walters writes, there is a lane to the left, just past the bus stop and a map sign board. After following this path straight for about 10 minutes, I was finally on the trail, which soon made a steep ascent toward the mountain top.

Radio Tower near the Summit

The highlight of the hike was reaching the summit, where there is a 360 degree panoramic view of the entire Miura Peninsula. One of the most exciting things for me was being able to see my own village, Shonan Kokusai Mura, in the distance. For the first time since living here, I was catching a glimpse of my own mountain-top residence from above! Now that I was finally there, I could also get a really great view of the Hayama Golf Course. I was also near a radio observation tower that I had viewed many times from afar, at Sokendai. I had always wondered how/if I might ever find that radio tower.

Once I got there, I read on a sign next to the radio tower that it is operated by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (国土通行省), the national bureaucratic arm that, among other things, administers drivers and pilots licenses.

The Ohgusa Observation Deck

At the summit there are a number of concrete tables and benches and a special observation tower which one can climb to get an unobstructed view of the peninsula. Fortunately for me, just below the observation tower, there was also a small little concession stand selling drinks and providing maps of other hikes around Miura, especially in Yokosuka City. During my roughly 70-minute walk to the summit, I had encountered only a handful of other Japanese. But finally, when I reached the observation area, there was a small crowd of roughly a dozen, relaxing, eating snacks and taking in the view.??

Looking down at other hikers from observation deck

Happy New Year!

We spent the first day of the year 2006 in Washington DC. The highlight of the day was getting a tour of the Washington Monument, including an elevator ride to the top where we could look out over all of DC, Georgetown, and Northern Virginia.

At lunchtime, I got to see my all time best friend in life, Angel. Also got to see my best friend from high school, Cari, who gets along really well with Karen. Cari came to meet Mom, Dad, me and Karen afer lunch to go up to the top of the Washington Monument. I love this picture of Cari and Karen - such beautiful smiles!