Yuzawa, part 2: You Look Like You Need a Monkey

~Greetings, citizens! It's been a long, hard week over here in Nagaoka, especially since my work week is Tuesday->Saturday, so unlike the rest of you bums, I had to work today. Of course, I do get Monday off, so I can't really complain.

Today concludes my travels in Yuzawa. Before that, however, I want to share two exciting discoveries in the fields of taxonomy and cryptozoology: two newly-discovered animal species. First we have the Kipunji, a new kind of monkey discovered in the mountains of Tanzania in East Africa!

^ The kipunji is the first new genus of monkey discovered in 83 years. Check out that mohawk and bushy mane of fur! The monkey was first spotted over a year ago, but its verified existence as a separate monkey species has only recently been announced. The kipunji is closely related to the baboon (although its skull is very different), and communicates with a distinctive sort of honking bark. The reason that it has remained hidden for so long is that it is very reclusive, living in the treetops of high-altitude forests:
Additionally, the Kipunji is extremely endangered: only between 500 and 1000 of these monkeys are left. The Wildlife Conservation Society has set up a fund in an attempt to protect the Kipunji from extinction.

~Next, we have a grizzly-polar bear hybrid, discovered last month in Canada by a big-game hunter, who promptly shot it (that bastard!):

^For a polar bear and a grizzly bear to have a child is genetically possible and has been done in zoos (much like Napoleon Dynamite's liger), but until now their actual existence in the wild has been theoretical. So now the question is, what do we call it? Suggestions include a "Pizzly Bear" and "Nanulak", after the Inuit names for polar bear (nanuk) and grizzly bear (aklak). My vote goes for "Groler Bear".

~Getting back to Yuzawa, where I unfortunately did not encounter any groler bears:

^ I took this picture from the cable car on my way down the mountain. This town will be nice to visit in the summer, when Nagaoka gets very hot. I'll head up to the mountains and chill out a bit. As you can see, Yuzawa is a tourist town, dependant on massive hotels and ski resorts. They're mostly empty now, and offer very good summer rates. Here's one of the more interestingly-named hotels I found:

^ I'm guessing this is where Ms. Heyl stays when she vacations.

^ More mountains hitting the cloud ceiling. I think this would be a great place to do some hang-gliding; I was actually planning on visiting a shop that gives paragliding lessons near Yuzawa, but I was unable to locate it. Maybe next time...

^ A sign apparently warning of telephone interruptions due to construction. It wouldn't be nearly so funny if they hadn't anthropomorphized the EVIL CRANE MONSTER and the whining little telephone.





















^ An advertisement [left] for fake children's beer [right]; the idea is to get them drinking at an early age! At least the dog in the ad has the grace to look shocked.

~Okay, folks: since moving to Japan, I've seen a lot of strange things, a lot of weird stuff that just makes me stare and go, "huh?". Now, I present to you what may just be the strangest thing I've seen so far:

^ The label reads, "Niigata Bust Pudding", and for once, it isn't Japanglish; it's technically correct. Disturbingly correct. A rough translation of what the girl is saying is, "Please eat gently." The friends I was with purchased two of these; I'd say I was tempted, but I'd be lying.

~And to round out the trip, here's a dose of real Japanglish, spotted at the top of the ropeway:

^ Luckily, the resort is human-scale, so I was able to walk up the steps and open the doors. I wonder what a non-human-scale resort looks like. Giant-scale?

That's a wrap for the Yuzawa trip. Stay tuned for more from David Does Japan. Oyasumi~

Yuzawa, part 1: Snowballs in May

~Hello again, loyal readers! Before I post the first part of my travels in the lovely mountain town of Yuzawa, I'd like to share a concern of mine. As some of you know, I'm a bit of a media junkie (I hit BBC.com around ten times a day), and all indicators that I see point towards the U.S. launching an invasion of Iran in the near future. From over here on the other side of the planet, it all seems so remote...and it's all too easy to just ignore the bad news.

If you're shaking your head right now, consider the fact that many Americans, myself included, were really surprised when we invaded Iraq (for the second time). In the months leading up to the invasion, I mostly ignored the political whining that was spewing out of Washington; after all, we were already occupying Afghanistan, right? This was just the usual election-year BS, right? When we actually DID invade Iraq, I was shocked...and disturbed. I suppose someone has to stop Iran from developing those pesky WMDs! Sounds familiar, dosen't it...



Before you get worried, I don't plan on turning David Does Japan into my own news and political forum (to be honest, politics bores me to tears). This blog has and always will be primarily about Japan. Now if only we could borrow some of their ninjas and "remove" the right people, we could avoid another messy war...okay, enough with that, on to Yuzawa!




~My final trip during the vacation was to Yuzawa, a small resort town in the mountains south of Nagaoka. The trip was only an hour away by train, but if you're short on time or high on cash, the shinkansen can get you there in less than half an hour:

Now that the ski season is over, the town was almost empty, the huge hotels vacant and the stores silent. Which suited me just fine. My first stop was a "ropeway", a cable car lift that took me on a ten-minute trip to the top of a nearby mountain. This gave me an excellent view of the valley and mountains all around:

^ For scale, most of the surrounding mountains are around 6,000 feet high. The long, rectangular building in the lower center is the Yuzawa train station, where I arrived. While hanging out on top of the mountain, my friends and I had a discussion about what this place must have been like a thousand years ago (hint: cold). We imagined what it must have been like to be the daimyo of this valley, being the absolute overlord of literally everything you can see from on top of this mountain.

We concluded that it might be pretty to look at, but the area must have been awfully poor back then; there's not much room to grow rice, which is how wealth was measured in the Feudal Age of Japan. Without trains and the tunnels they pass through, this area must have been quite isolated, as winter snows would completely seal the mountain passes (that's what happens to Tom Cruise in a certain overblown movie).

Still, for all its downsides, I think that if I had been standing in this exact spot a thousand years ago, surveying my domain, I would have felt literally on top of the world.

^ On top of the mountain, clinging to the slope, was a single cherry tree. [INSERT POETIC METAPHOR OR HAIKU OF YOUR CHOICE HERE]

^ Note how this picture has the taller, snow-covered mountains in the background, with a smaller, snowless mountain in the foreground. And of course, a single tree in the front...seriously folks, I'm not in the mood to be poetic today.

^ My friends and I dubbed this area a "cloud factory". The remaining snow was melting quickly, and where the sunlight was shining directly, the snow was sublimating into vapor right in front of us. The snow was also great for making snowballs (damn you, Scott!). Can you see the ski lift on the mountainside leading up into the clouds?

^ The melting snow has raised the water level of all the rivers and streams in the valley. These rapids look like they'd be fun for some white-water kayaking...for all of five seconds, before you slam into a rock.

^A mountain soaring above a cloud bank. Can you see the straight horozontal line on the right side of the picture? That's a snow-covered mountain road, that would probably be a lot of fun to drive on in a sports car...that is, after the snow melts.

^ Don't you just want to explore? Seeing landscapes like this, I'm seized with the sudden urge to just abandon the rest of my life and set out to the mountains, to climb to the top and see what lands lie beyond. That's why I love taking pictures like this, but I can't look at them for too long; I feel this weird combination of excitement and depression. I hope you enjoy it, though.


^A panoramic image I created by stitching multiple high-altitude photographs together. I'm very happy with the result, but unfortunately, the blasted Blogspot website reduces the image resolution of every image that I post (the real picture takes up 3 megabytes and is 12032 x 1476 pixels), so you can't see it here in its real size. Please click on the image above to see it in a slightly larger size,.

~And now, a dose of Japanglish!
^ Curiously, snowjunk.com seems to be down. Seems that business is not that good--I can't imagine why. I get this image of of the Snowjunk owner in the middle of the winter, watching all the skiiers go by, and wondering why his shop seems to be so unpopular with the gaijin tourists.

Next up: The Exciting Conclusion to my Yuzawa trip, with many strange things I spotted around the town.

Kanazawa, part 3: We Be Jammin'

~Before I conclude my adventures in Kanazawa, I'd like to make a small announcement. As "David Does Japan" implies, the blog has thus far dealt almost exclusively with my explorations and daily life in Japan, but that's not all I plan to post. I love taking pictures and writing about new and amazing things I've found, but there is more to my life than simply being a working tourist. I'll start off with some exciting space news: the European Space Agency's Venus Express space probe has successfully put itself into orbit around the planet Venus.

^Starting in June, the instruments of Venus Express will begin a detailed study of the hellish Venusian atmosphere, which is over 800º F, 90 times standard Earth pressure, and rains sulfuric acid. The resulting data will tell us a great deal about the greenhouse effect on a global level, and help humanity better understand climate change on Earth (natural and otherwise).

~Now that that's out of the way, here's a pretty picture for you:

^ Kanazawa Castle. What you see in this picture is actually a carefully-restored version of the original castle, which had a bad habit of burning down. As you might remember from 'Kanazawa, part 2', the original castle was built over 400 years ago by Lord Maeda, only to burn down several times in the succeeding centuries (most recently in 1881). All that's left of the original castle is the gate. I'd have liked to go inside the castle, but it was closed because of the festival that you can see in the picture. At least I got some ice cream for my troubles.

^This old guy was a one-man-band, and let me tell you, he was bloody amazing. Do you see that black headband he's wearing? To play the drums, he would bang his fist against the headband sensor (and by extension, his own head). He wasn't playing old-man music, either (no offense, Dad); he was rocking out really hard. He attracted a large crowd, and from what I could see, made quite a killing.

^Kasumigaike Pond, located in the middle of Kanazawa's Kenrokuen Garden. On the right, you can see this garden's version of Horaijima Island, which means "Island of Eternal Happiness" and represents a paradise innaccessable to mortals (there is no bridge to it or structures on it). The island is meant to be contemplated at a distance while you meditate on your own mortality. A traditional Japanese garden always has three islands, one of which is always Horaijima Island.

^Sekireijima Isle, a small island in the middle of a stream in the garden. Like Horaijima Island, this isle has no bridge, but it does have a shrine (with a torii gate, remember?). On the right, you can see a stone pagoda. Google Translate could only do so much, but I think the four stories of the pagoda each represent a stage of life.

^The gigantic Neagarinomatsu Pine tree. Check out the massive root system! For scale, click on the picture and look at the people on the lower-left.

^A huge statue of Prince Yamato Takeru, a mythological Japanese hero. This statue was made in 1880 to commemorate warriors who died in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.

^The legendary Kotojitoro Lantern. Stone lanterns are scattered all over the garden, but this particular lantern is by far the most famous. There was a large crowd of people lined up to have their picture taken on a bridge in front of this lantern, with professional photograhpers obliging them.

^It may not look like much, but this is the oldest stone fountain in Japan. The engineering is ingenious: the water pressure is created by the difference in elevation between this small pond and the much larger Kasumigaike Pond nearby (the one with Horaijima Island). Pay no attention to the two clowns in front of the fountain.

^Remember how I said that some shrines have multiple torii gates? This small shrine is part of the Ishiurajinja Shrine, just outside of Kenrokuen Garden. The neat thing about this shrine was that when you walked up to it, a motion sensor (or a watchful spirit) turned the inside lights on for you. High-tech!

^A statue at the Ishiurajinja Shrine. Perhaps if someone attempted to vandalize the shrine, the statue would burst free of the stone and rip the intruder to shreds. Or maybe not.

~I hope you enjoyed my pictures of the castle and garden. To round out the post, here's an interesting bit of Japanglish I spotted near the castle entrance:

^So, you can park your car but can't stop it, or you can stop your car but not park it. One or the other; make your choice!

~That's all from Kanazawa. Coming soon: pictures (including a panoramic) and stories from the town of Yuzawa, high in the mountains south of Nagaoka. There will also be postings about other things that interest me, so stay tuned for more insights into the cloudy mirror that is the mind of David. I leave you with this final image of a sculpture outside of Kanazawa's train station, taken at sunset. I'm pleased with how it came out:

Kanazawa, part 2: Shrine of Fortune

~Hi everyone, I hope that you all had a good weekend. My vacation is over :-( , but I'm happy that I was able to do so much in the past week. Today is part 2 of my trip to Kanazawa, where I visit a famous shrine and the reconstructed castle.

After the Ninja Temple, my next stop was the huge Oyama Shrine, a shinto shrine dedicated to Lord Toshiie Maeda, who built Kanazawa in to one of the most powerful domains in Japan during the 16th century. This is one of the more interesting shrines that I've seen in Japan so far, because it contains a mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and European architecture. It was built in 1599 by Lord Maeda's successor, but it used to be closer to the ocean; it was moved to its present location in 1873.

^The front of the Oyama Shrine. Remember, every shrine has a ceremonial gate, called a "Torii". They all have the same basic design, but most are painted vermillon. Some torii, such as the one above, have scrolls on the top with writing, and some shrines have multiple torii. The original purpose of them is to serve as a perch for birds to rest on, because birds are considered messengers of the gods.

^The secondary gate of the shrine, from the back. This gate was designed by a Dutch architect in 1875, and would look right at home in Amsterdam. This gate was my favorite part of the Oyama Shrine, because of the very top part:

^Stained-glass windows, very beautiful with the sunlight streaming through them. Legend has it that this tower was once used as a lighthouse, although I don't see how this is possible, since it's nowhere near the ocean and was built after the shrine was moved. Maybe it was a "One if by land, two if by sea" kind of lighthouse?

^The shrine itself. If you go down to my 'Chinese Garden' post, you'll note the architectural similarities with the buildings there. This was easily the largest shrine I've seen so far. In the main entrance, you could get a piece of paper with a fortune on it called an 'omikuji'; mine had a lot of Japanese writing on it, but I was able to decipher the kanji for 'middle blessing'. Works for me.

^A fiercesome beast guarding the shrine! Ph34r m3!

^A statue of whom I can only assume is Lord Toshiie Maeda. Like most riders in modern Japan, he dosen't wear a helmet.

^Me, trying (and failing) to strike a cool pose on a bridge near the shrine.

^Another "interesting" statue. I think the guy on the bottom has wings(?).

~Since I've been skimping on it lately, here is some REAL Japanglish for you:

^Actually, I believe that this sign, which is for a clothing store, is logically incorrect. It should read, "Good Concept, But No Sense".

~Next time, on David Does Japan: Kanazawa Castle and gardens. Hopefully that will be something to look forward to as we all go Back To The Grind this week. Oyasumi!