Entering the Dragon

The entrance to the cave. Note that the dragon is
spewing mist while gripping a displaced chunk of
broken flowstone. 

One of the first places that caught our eye in the tourist brochure was Ryugashidou, touted as one of the longest and most famous caves in Japan, with a kilometer of caverns visitors can walk through. It is a bit far away, and we weren't sure if we could get there on the bus or not. The tourist info lady assured us there were two buses per hour, so we were game to try. We love bats, active geology and tourist traps. This appeared to have it all. And, delightfully, it didn't disappoint. Even better, since we hit it on a fall weekend before the leaves had changed, it wasn't too crowded, either.

Caves have always fascinated me. I've ventured into all sorts of commercial, tourist caves and even gotten to do some spelunking in wild, natural caverns. The commercial caves are interesting, but depressing because of the destruction ignorant cretins inflict - both the operators and the 'guests'. For most of us, though, it is the only chance we will get to see this underground world.

Bat girls and a few small stalactites and stalagmites 

Not sure if this inspires confidence or not. 

The 30 meter golden waterfall. It drops into a pretty impressive
pool at the bottom. 

Lots of areas were netted off to prevent vandalism. There were cameras, too.
It sure hasn't stopped anyone. Anything that could be touched or broken off, had been. 

Calcite ribbons on the ceiling

Flowing flowstone. This feature was called
 'Waterfall Climb of the Jellyfish"

This is still an active cave, very wet and drippy. 

This was taken in the Phoenix Hall, where we also saw bats
flying about. 

More calcite ribbons, my favorite feature.

broken off dead chunks of cave on display in the 'museum'. 

Fortifying ourselves for the 45 minute bus ride back with
green tea ice cream and some flavor that looked like,
but was not, cookies and cream. Learned
not to trust the white flavor with ground
 bits of something (the something was kind of burned or toasted.)
Only Jane got what she intended (strawberry) by picking
pink ice cream, of course. 

We Try to Experience Japanese Culture and Become Celebrities Instead

Complete insanity at Man'yo no Mori

We seem to have developed a routine. All week, the kids go off to school from 7:30- 3:00 and John goes to work until about 5.  Jane and I putter about the apartment, go for walks, grocery shop, clean, read, make meals, etc. It gets dark here by about 5, so we don't usually go out at night. On the weekend, when we are all together, we try to have adventures by going to interesting places and learning about Japan. We have a street map of Hamamatsu in Japanese. A bus map of Hamamatsu, in Japanese. Several copies of various visitors' guides to the area, in both Japanese and English-this is our Rosetta Stone. We also have some information from the Web (WikiTravel) in English. We pick a place to go form the English description. We can get a rough idea of where it is from the tiny tourist map. Then, we take the Japanese tourist map and figure out the Japanese words for the place we want to go. From there, we look for it on the street map. This map also lists the bus stops, but doesn't tell you what bus line you need. Now we have to turn to the bus map to try and find the name of the bus stop (in Japanese, of course,) and from there, figure out what line it is on. Wouldn't it just be easier to speak and read Japanese?

Train passengers

On the Entetsu train

This weekend, we had read about a festival at Manyo no Mori Park in Hamakita. This would be the farthest afield we have tried to go, and it meant we could try taking the light rail line that runs from the city center to Tenryu, on the northeast side of the city. We found the park on the street map, but the bus lines were tough. If we took the train, it was really unclear which bus we would need to catch to make it from the station to the park. Luckily, Hamamatsu has a Tourist and Visitors office at the main train station downtown. We had to go there anyway to catch the light rail line up to Hamakita. The nice lady there told us that it was not the Entetsu bus line that we were familiar with, but a local line just for Hamakita. She seemed to think we could figure it out. She gave each of the children a nice bag with some souvenirs and tissues (they are big on tissues here!) We treated ourselves to bento boxes (and bagels for the kids!) from the station and we were ready to go.

One of the fascinations of Japan is that big companies have so many disparate businesses. One of the biggest, fanciest department stores downtown is Entetsu- they have a Tiffany's branch IN THE STORE-little blue boxes and all. They also run a chain of high end grocery stores, like Whole Foods, and inexplicably, they run the city bus line, and one of the light rail lines. Today from the Entetsu train line, we went past the Entetsu driving school. I wouldn't be surprised if they ran nursing homes, appliance manufacturing or factory farms, too. I would gladly fly on Entetsu Air, if it existed. All the Entetsu businesses are clean, effecient and well run. The bus and train are affordable, too.

When we arrived in Hamkita, we were able to find a bus stop at the station that had Manyo no Mori on the sign. The driver said he was going there, and when he dropped us at the stop, made sure we were pointed in the right direction. This time, I was smart enough to cross the street and look at the times for the returning bus- there were only 2 buses an hour - none at all between 1 and 2. I had even remembered to wear a watch, so we were in good shape.

temple

Torri and stairs

Performers playing koto

It is easy to find the parks in Japan: Just look for the tall trees. We wound our way up the hill into the cedars. We found a path that led to a steep stair with but gate at the bottom. At the top was a temple. We followed the kimono dressed crowd around and behind and into the park. Like all things Japanese, it was cute. The main part was a beautiful contemplation garden with a meandering stream. For the festival, small wooden platforms had been decorated with colored clothes and lined the stream at discrete intervals. A group of women played koto. This festival is to celebrate Man'yo culture, poetry, art, and music. I don't know what that means, exactly, but this is the traditional Japanese culture of the Nara period.  Almost immediately, a group of paparazzi swarmed over Jane and Kate. They asked politely if Jane would stand near the koto playing ladies and have her picture taken. She did it, but refused to smile and gave them instead, THE LOOK. Thank you Grandma Kamer.  Japanese photographers are undeterred by Grandma Kamer's Look, unfortunately, so I had to rescue her. We poked around looking for a place to eat our lunch and ignored the photographer' pleas to come and get dressed up. Sometimes it is a good thing to not understand (or pretend to not understand) the language.

Fine, I'll stand here, but I won't look
at you. 

Finding just the right outfits

We become media darlings

Paparazzi leave and I finally
get a shot of happy
crayfish spotters

Katy joins the choir

While munching on lunch (eel, anyone?), we watched a hands on craft area where ladies were dyeing silk scarves. A choir began to sing over near the pond/stream, and we noticed children dressed in Nara period clothing wandering about. Katy and Jane love to dress up, but what would we be getting into? We wandered under a lovely wisteria covered arbor to an area with people taking koto lessons, fruit and vegetables for sale, a table with ladies in kimono serving soup, and a tent with satin clothes outside. Katy and Jane were herded over and asked to wait until another group of kids were finished dressing. The photographers gathered like flies on a fresh carcass. The nice ladies dressed up the girls and then they were told to go stand under the umbrella. I wasn't sure how they would handle the attention, and they did fine, but weren't up for smiling. After a few minutes, the girls were herded over to the stream and asked to sit on one of the platforms. They seemed fine with the attention, and once Will spotted a crayfish, Katy and Jane used their excellent vantage point to find more. I had a hard time getting a decent picture of them since so many people were in the way. It isn't any wonder that so many celebrities are wackos. This would drive anyone nuts. After a few minutes, we walked back to get the girls changed. The choir that had been singing at the lop of the garden earlier was posing for a group photo. They beckoned for Katy to come over and they were thrilled to have her in their picture. This celebrity thing was getting a bit much. Finally we made it back the 20 feet to the dressing tent and got the girls changed. They ladies seemed to think that they could stay in costume as long as they wanted, but enough already.

Will's tunnel

Rice!

Will found a neat tunnel arbor that led to botanical garden with display areas of crop plants. It was cool to see real rice growing, and cotton.
Finally we wandered out of the park in search of drinks. John feels that you are never more than 500 feet from a drinks machine, and sure enough, he was right. We found one at the gift shop near the parking lot. We also picked up some cool Japanese bamboo pinwheels.

Actual real rice field

Grey heron

After getting to the bus stop 25 minutes early, and a quick consult on the map, we decided to walk back to the train station. It took almost exactly 25 minutes. The train came, we made it back to the city center and made a quick stop into ZaZa City (big downtown mall) to hit a bookstore we had read about with an English language section (Twilight novels anyone? No, how about Harry Potter or John Grisham?) Remarkably, we met up with Christiana, a just arrived German woman who lives in our building. She rode her bike down to the city center (one hour) and wasn't totally sure where she had parked it- she had someone write it out for her in Japanese. We gave her our English language tourist map and directed her to the tourist office in the train station. We also told her about the bus card and how useful it was. Hope she made it back!

We made it back and found out what happens when you are out of funds on your bus card. You scramble about trying to count out change while people queue up politely behind you. Not too embarrassing, but, . . .  ok, it was pretty embarrassing. Oh well. Stupid foreigner. Like I've never done that at home before. . .

I am Madame *Social* Butterfly

First, it is 4:30 am here, so I can't promise how coherent this will be. It is really difficult to get a moment alone to sit and write anything. I'll do my best, so bear with me.

Yesterday was quite a day! Katy's friend Haruka lives in an apartment just behind the elementary school. Her mother Mikiko has been very kind to us. Their family lived in L.A. for five years, so they speak English fairly well and have make an effort to help us out and make friends. Mikiko invited us, and several other moms and their kids to a lunch party at her house yesterday since the kids had a half day at school. I never did figure out why they had a half day!

omiyagi

The kids went off to school in the morning, then Jane and I walked down to meet them at 11:45. I made a little bag out of some pretty fabric I'd bought at a shop, and filled it with chocolate.  In Japan, it is the custom to bring omiyagi - or a small gift - for the host. Not so different that back home, if you remember to be polite! When I arrived, Mikiko was there with one of her friends, Asako. Chiyoko and Masako arrived later. Chiyoke brought the most enormous japanese pear I'd ever seen as omiyagi, and Masako brought some homemade lollipops decorated for Halloween. This was also a potluck, and while I don't think I was expected to bring anything, I couldn't help have a twinge of Midwestern guilt. Then I got over it!

Makikio's table is starting to fill up. 

Makiko's apartment looked like a Halloween explosion! She had decorations everywhere, Halloween plates, tablecloth, paper-towels, placemats, sticky gel things on the windows, light up electronic haunted house. I'm thinking- this is a woman who likes to shop. She said she got a lot of it when they lived in the States and their kids love halloween. I am not sure how much other people celebrate Halloween, but there is Halloween candy in the stores, and special halloween packaged food everywhere. Bats, spooky gravestones, spiderwebs, pumpkins. I better ask soon to find out if I need to get the kids costumes or anything!

Kids tables Makiko standing

After we helped all the children fill their plates, (11 kids where there- Masako has a Jr. high schooler, too), we sat down and chatted and filled our plates. I watched and tried not to make pig out of myself. There was a lovely green salad, Japanese mac and cheese (just like ours, but with tiny shrimp), Chinese dumplings, rice balls, rice rolls, some sausage that Masako had made, gorgeous sushi (scallop, squid, eel, salmon, tuna, skate), several kinds of mochi, the Japanese equivalent of chicken nuggets, panko coated prawns, crab dumplings, nori wrapped rolls with roe. It looked so good. Before everyone dug in, everyone folds their hands and says "Itadakimasu"- it isn't a prayer exactly, but a way of saying thanks for the food. They asked if we do this in America and I explained that some people will say a prayer of thanks to God for the blessing of food, but some don't.  I was itching to try everything and really had to think carefully to avoid loading up my plate American style. My kids were not so sure about any of the food- Katy took a little of several things, but Will and Jane fled to a bedroom and said they wen't hungry. Later Jane came and tried a few things, but Will stuck to crackers.

Katy and friends

The ladies and I 

While eating, the ladies had a lively discussion about kids - two others also had three children and there were two sets of twins. I didn't follow most of it, but they did there best to include me. THey were very interested in hearing what we ate at home for breakfast. They (and other japanese people) have been amazed that we eat rice at home. When I told them that we actually owned a rice maker, they were stunned. Japan has its own cuisine, Japanese are being adventurous if they have chinese food. They had not realized that America doesn't really have its own cuisine- we borrow from all over the world. They could not believe that our little town of 10,000 people had a chinese, Japanese, Thai, Mexican and Italian restaurants. I told them how I knew how to make the dumplings we were eating (none of them did- they buy them) and the nori wrapped rolls. They made fun of me because they make them with a plastic mold- I learned to roll them on a bamboo mat. They said that with my sewing and cooking, I was a traditional Japanese! Much laughter at this point. But, I did not fail to notice that everyone brought something that they had made, something delicious, that they were proud of and that everyone complemented them on. Moms and friends are really not that much different where ever you go.

At 3, we had to head home for earthquake training.  The Japanese are very safety conscious and one way they do sometimes discriminate against foreigners is to deny them hotel accommodations because they say foreigners don't know what to do in an emergency and are a danger to other guests. So, in the spirit of being prepared, we were required to attend a mandatory earthquake, fire and emergency session, guidance, and party.

Party kids!

Here are some photos and a short movie. The level 5 earthquake was kind of fun, but I don't ever want to be in a 7. Ever. Period. While the kids thought it was fun at the time, I have 2 girls in my bed right now who had bad dreams. We didn't let Jane do the simulation- John said our heads were bobbling about like dashboard dolls. When John did it later, they ran it with the data from the big Kobe quake. It just kept going on and on. They made it very clear that a big quake will hit here- it even already has a name- it is just a matter of time. We had a big family discussion about what we would all do, if it happened at night, when the kids were at school, John at work, etc. Actually, I don't want to think about this anymore! Maybe that is why I am up at 4:30 AM!

Sonja (in purple, from Hungary), Nicki
from India, beside her. Best friends,
studying here since April.

Some of Kikan's diverse residents
chowing down on sushi

We also had training in how to work the fire extinguisher- (just like back home) how to call 119 (yes, really, 119), but how we needed to get a trusted Japanese friend to make the call because the firemen aren't too good with foreign languages. What I found interesting was that this training was for all Kaikan residents- mostly graduate students here for a year or more, we are one of two families with kids. They divided us up into two groups- Chinese speakers and English speakers and translated from Japanese for us. Most people spoke some Japanese- they seemed to get the jokes I missed. On our English side of the room were a few Indians, Malays, Indonesians, a few Europeans, a guy from maybe Brazil? A real hodgepodge. After listening to the house rules (including detailed explanation of how to sort garbage), the party started. The residence hall staff brought in sushi, candy and cookies, pizza- I thought Will would expire from pleasure until they opened the box and it was a veggi pizza. It was very nice and we had a chance to make some friends. The kids were real magnets- everyone wanted to talk to them. We met women from India, Germany, and Hungary, guys from India, China, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It was pretty cool and everyone was friendly (except the sullen guys who we now think are Russian or Ukrainian, but, whatever- you can't have everything- maybe they just need time to warm up.)  Sonja from Hungary said she thought that there was a distinct difference between Japan and Europe, she wondered if it was an American influence? She has never been to the US, but we assured that it is very similar to Japan. I think the was hitting on something that I've been feeling, but not quite aware of consciously. I think Japan and the US do have a similar vibe, probably because they are so firmly modern. In Europe, no matter where you go, the past (1000+ yrs!) is right there with you. Not so in the US or in Japan. Both the US and Japan have a paleohistory, but in so many ways, their current culture starts in the mid 1700's and goes from there. Interesting to think about.

So, full of sushi and chocolate cookies, we finally came up and went to bed to dream of earth quacks and how nice it is to share pizza with people from all over the world.

A Sense of Scale

Before coming here, the largest city I’d lived in was Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’ve been to some of the world's biggest cities, and but never thought I’d want to LIVE there. Give me the woods, the open spaces, the quiet rustles of leaves, the tinkling of a brook over mossy stones. The happiest place I’ve ever lived was 10,000 acres of wildness with only 200 or so other people.

So it comes as a surprise to find that I am living in a city of 800,000 people and it is quite nice. It is all about the sense of scale, and understanding the effects of scale to make life more bearable (or not.)

A typical street in the 'hood.

Garden in front of fancy apartment
building in our neighborhood. 

Housing is a good example. The area where we live seems fairly upscale. There are many single-family homes, but lots of apartments, too, with small shops mixed in. The houses are not usually smaller than American homes, but much closer together. The yards are either non-existent, or compact. Some yards are well maintained, more like living sculptures than gardens, but there are a fair share of run down ones as well.

Walking to school 

What is the advantage to living this close together? Compact neighborhoods mean that children can walk to school. No one lives too far away. So, you don't need school buses, and all the kids go to school, and get out, at the same time. They can walk to all their friends’ houses and can set up their own playdates!  They can always walk to school and use the playground there. Preschools are in the neighborhoods, and I see the preschool teacher walking around in the morning collecting the kids at their homes, and dropping them off in the afternoon. That is practically a mind blowing concept to an American.

Extra pruned tree

If you have a tiny yard, there is no grass to mow, and no need to own a mover (good thing since there are no garages to store one!). If you like to garden, it is possible, but it can’t become too overwhelming or take up too much of your time, since it is of necessity, small. There are very few trees in the neighborhoods (no raking in fall, either!). Those that are there are trimmed and pruned within an inch of their lives.

City bus

A compact city also means that it is possible to have a decent, efficient, inexpensive public transportation system.  The bus line is plush, comfortable and relatively easy to use, even if you don’t know the language. I can get anywhere in the city, from the dunes on the coast to the mountains in an hour or so on the bus (I can probably get back, too). There are two light rail lines. Hamamatsu sits on the Tokido main line, and it has many long distance trains stopping each day.

The cars are generally small, but then, they are built to fit on the tiny roads (they must use less fuel and cause less wear and tear on the streets, too.) Most people have cars, and the moms at school are appalled that I don’t have one, and have offered to take me shopping. Given that we’ve reduced our credit card bills by two thirds since we have arrived- I’m better off without a car and without shopping!

Japanese candy- purchased for
research purposes, only!

Even the food comes in smaller quantities. The candy bags are re-closable on a size that might make one portion in the US. Most food stores sell things in small quantities: 3 carrots, 4 apples, a few ounces of chicken. It certainly makes me have to think more efficiently about how I buy food, but we’ve found it makes for far less waste, too.

These are positive scale effects I’ve noticed, but there are negatives, too. The most obvious to me is the suppression of nature.

Wave motif in gate.

The only tall trees we have seen are in parks. I don't know if this is due to an over zealous need to control nature or if trees just can't find enough soil and space to grow in the neighborhoods. Or, maybe since this area had a devastating earthquake in 1944 and was bombed in 1945, the trees were destroyed and just never grew back. I'm kind of going with the need to control nature idea since all the rivers and streams we have seen are channelized, too. Is this why nature themes play such a big part in Japanese design? Is it symbolic of a fantasized, tamed nature? One where a tsunami, volcano, earthquake or flood can't get you? Last weekend at the History Museum, we saw a squirrel in the forest and the Japanese people around us were so thrilled. They have terraformed, channelized and paved all the real nature away. There are few birds, and that one squirrel and a few bats are the only mammals we have seen. How very different from the forest where I live in Connecticut. The hills around Hamamatsu look green and lush- the areas too steep for farms or factories. Is it better to concentrate the people and leave larger chunks untouched? I don’t know.

Five people trying to
work/entertain themselves.

It is also very hard to be alone here. But this might just be my impression because I live in a 500 sq ft apartment with 4 other people!

One last positive note I’ve observed is that living in close quarters has made society more courteous than our society in the US. People think about the other person more and make an effort to be polite and limit their actions if they would cause others inconvenience.  In the US, we’ve gotten into this habit of thinking everyone has the right to voice their opinion, loudly, but we don’t actually bother listening to each other anymore. Think about that next time you listen to talk radio and hear some loudmouth spouting off their opinion as if it were fact. Rudeness has become standard, and civility looked down on as weak in the US. Walk across a college campus, or go into Starbucks and you’ll see everyone plugged in, but no one actually communicating. Here, people look at you and listen and expect the same courtesy when it is their turn to talk.  You see groups of people walking across campus talking to one another, not texting.  Everyone has a cell phone, but they don’t seem to use them as much as people do in the states.  I just read a statistic that the average Japanese Facebook user has less than 50 friends. They seem to be doing a much better job of having real friendships than we do. (I’m not dissing Facebook, that would make me a hypocrite, but I worry about how it seems to be inhibiting the building of new friendships for some people).

I think about scale a lot as an ecologist, trying to sort out what relationships are scale dependant and which independent. It has been eye opening to see how scale affects the way I live. How a simple change (closer housing) effects transportation, education, the natural world, energy use, and personal relationships. I’m starting to see the pattern, but there is much more to learn.

ACT City

View from John's office (7th floor) toward downtown.
This view inspired my "Hamamatsu is Bridgeport CT" comment. The ACT Tower is the tallest one.

Monday was a fine, clear day. Perfect for volcano viewing. We retraced our steps from Sunday and headed downtown to go up to the 45th floor of the ACT tower. This is the tallest building in Hamamatsu,  part of a complex called ACT City housing a concert hall, ultra fancy hotel, shopping mall, and office buildings. The Museum of Musical Instruments is housed in the the building, too. Various levels have public rooftop parks and open space. And, best of all, there is an observation level at the top. I'm lousy at writing travelogues,-I'm starting to bore even myself- so I'm just going to put up a bunch of pictures with captions. For the rest of this. WikiTravel has a nice entry on Hamamatsu if you crave details. http://wikitravel.org/en/Hamamatsu

Shot up through the small tower. Wouldn't
 have known from the outside!

This is the small tower (foreground)
 from the outside as you approach it
in front of the fancy concert hall. ACT
tower is behind.

One level below street level, this plaza is the entry way to the concert hall
ACT Tower is behind John

A piano fountain in the plaza

Going up the elevator to the 45th floor
This is a view of the main train line
towards Shin- Osaka

The ocean! 

A bride having pictures
taken on the
observation level.

They even have a 'Sky Wedding'
chapel up there.  

Looking out over Central Hamamtsu.
The foothills to the Japanese Alps
are in the background.

City center

We live right there! 

If it were clear enough, you could see
Mt. Fuji

Later in the ultra fancy hotel lobby, we
 ran into the happy couple again.
That dress deserves another look.

Playing on the sculpture at the
main bus terminal. Amazing,
with this much water, no one get wet. 

Under street passage ways from ACT
plaza to main bus terminal