▷ Time for a dip before lunch. No, I am not on holiday. I hop onto the bicycle and ride through the woods for 20mins. They are just opening the gates of the Langener Waldsee. It’s just past 10am and only a few nudists are heading for their section of the beach. I am alone with some Brent geese and a huge expanse of water. It’s a good feeling ☺️
ランゲン：森の中の湖
▷ Tell me. Do you actually feel like cooking during this hot European summer?
What have I in the kitchen?….well…there’s some tomatoes, some carrots, some paprika, some cranberries….
クランベリー
some walnuts…..
クルミ
parsley, basil……
バジル
Fennel……
フェンネル
Sesame oil…..
…half a humble apple….
りんご
…….all are tossed into couscous. Result….
その結果、クスクスサラダができあがりました。
Not bad Nigel 😋
▷ At last the intense heatwave seems to be over – at least in Germany. So I was able to go on a hike last weekend. For me these hikes often start by boarding a train at Frankfurt station….resplendent in all its stodgy Prussian hubris. The forecourt of this station has always seemed a mess to me. Trams, taxis, prostitutes, drug-dealers, “normal people”, tourists and the homeless all jostle for attention. But now it seems a re-furbishment is underway….
先週、ハイキングのためにフランクフルト駅で列車に乗りました。
The train is only 10 mins late in departing. Quite a feat these days. The hike is nothing very dramatic, but just right for high summer. It’s a 14km walk through the shady woods east of Darmstadt. Our guide Mehdi has planned some strategic stops along the way……..like this shady hut by a stream to have a snack…
メディサンは、ダルムシュタットの森を抜ける怪しげな散策を企画していた。
And later, a welcome cup of coffee under a sun shade at the farm café Hofgut Oberfeld. This is just over the fields behind the Mathildenhöhe, that curious Jugendstil housing project….It merits another visit... I took these pictures in 2024…..…
私たちはダルムシュタットの有名なマティルデヘーエの近くにいました。
click or swipe…↔️
▷ I always find it interesting meeting new people on these hikes. This time I found myself in the company of an Iranian economist studying in Darmstadt. I realized just how ignorant I was about her country, so she kindly sent me this youtube link which I will share with you here….
Our book group has been running for over 20 years. For most of this time, Allison has been a reliable, valuable member, providing interesting book suggestions, organizing us and keeping a tally of all the books which we had read. Here she is (at the front right) three years ago at a meeting we had in a café in Darmstadt. Summer 2023. She was the youngest member of our group.
She succumbed to lung cancer last month.
Most of us were able to attend her farewell at the Waldfriedhof (a beautiful natural burial ground in the woods near Traisa, Darmstadt).
It was a dignified and simple ceremony. Knowing her interest in literature, I chose the one writer whose prose I knew would rise to the occasion: William Shakespeare……
ウィリアム・シェイクスピア
So, under the towering beech trees, Bye bye Allison. Your death is shocking. It pulls us all up short to make the most of life now.
…..to hear a song recital. Family business. I picked up the my car at Langen station, put some of those deadful hydrocarbons into the tank and set off.
💨 I was relaxed, cruising at 100km/hour 🚘… Nearing Zwingenberg on the Bergstrasse A5 motorway I stopped briefly to have a swig of tea. Then off I went again. But my gentle cruising was to get a rude interruption……
💨 What’s this? a series of very loud clanks 😕 and alarming breaking noises 💥from under the bonnet (hood in American English). I just managed to steer the car into the Seitenstreifen (the hard shoulder). Had I lost a wheel? I managed to get out via the passenger door. A merciless sun beat down, making thinking hard work. All 4 wheels were still there. The outside temperature was a grilling 35°c.
The air conditioning had stopped.
私たちは猛烈な熱波のさなかにいました。
💨 I had to act calmly. As lorries thundered by, I groped into my wallet for the ADAC* emergency service. That insurance service that I have so diligently paid every year to help me in exactly such a situation. I gave my location, the make of car etc…..all the while sweating buckets in the torrid heat 💦 (35°c…I repeat). In this picturesque scene you can just make out my car parked on the side of the motorway…..
*ADAC = Allgemeine Deutsch Automobile Club e.V. (Amen)
高速道路で車が故障しました。
The ADAC man on the phone was charming.
“What? you have left a trail of oil behind you? I cannot help you until you ring the Police and the Fire Service. Then I am allowed to pick you up!!!!” You know , this is German Gesetz (law). It is your Pflicht (duty) to ring the police!!!!!”
(Hello, I am sitting in a field next to a busy motorway with a broken – down car. The ground is hard and uncomfortable. There are insects crawling over my legs and sweat is pouring down my face. The noise is incredible. It is now 38°c. For what have I paid for in all these past years?…and do I need a lecture on German law at this moment? )
💨 I realized with distaste that I had one of them on the end of the phone. The petty, unimaginative little people who pedantically follow rules and almost any leader. He was treating me like an ignorant Ausländer (foreigner). I could feel the bile of anger rising in my throat. Unfortunately you meet this mindset in most cultures. And the three cultures I write about in this blog are no exception……….
💨 I got him off the phone as quickly as possible and rang the police 🚓 They drew up at the side of the motorway 15 mins later. Calm. Friendly. Air-conditioned.
“Qwatch” (rubbish) they said. “Tell the ADAC that Regional Officer Müller tells them to pick up this man’s car immediately! Have a nice day” 👋🏼
The man who actually came in his truck to pick up my car was sympathetic but worn out.
“I’ve been driving since 5am” he said.
Just leave me at the next station I said.
“Have a nice day”
💨 I mentioned air-conditioning. Apparently in France this is a hugely divisive issue. And in Germany? This is my living room. Never in my life have I experienced this heat indoors.
家の中でこれほどの暑さを経験したことはありません。
I, for one, thought that a mobile air-conditioning unit would be the answer. But when I tried it out, with all its tubes and ducts….and loud noise….
エアコンがあれば解決すると思ったのですが、役に立ちませんでした。
….I realised what my Japanese friends were all laughing about 😅
“What is this funny thing that you have bought, Nigel san?”
💨 In Japan, all those messy tubes and ducts are hidden away- built into every house from the word go. But in an old German house? No way! Wake up Europe! This will not be the last hot summer 🥵
I very soon returned this ridiculus contraption and bought a really fine ventilator instead. It is wonderful, and even has a quiet “sleep” mode to run during the night…..
その代わりに、良い扇風機を買いました。
…..and can send a nice breeze into the workshop…..
ワークショップに心地よい風
💨 Do you ever see these things on social media and think …oh..I must try that! Well I did try it, and its not bad, except the cardboard wilts under the condensation…..
エアコン（廉価版）
💨 Wisdom I have gleaned from friends and family……
Put your pillows in the freezer
put frozen bottles in front of your fan
hang a damp towel around your neck
don’t get irritated by little people from the ADAC
don’t even try working
ring your neighbours doorbell to check she is still alive
If you are learning Japanese, learn the vocab for heatwave (熱波- neppa)
If you are talking to somebody in Japan, tell them they are lucky just to have a few typhoons and the occasional earthquake….
Check out the cool spots in town. For me this includes…Bockenheimer Warte Metro station. Not only is it cool and spacious, but has nice pictures on the walls….
フランクフルトのこの地下鉄駅は、爽やかな涼しさです。素敵な写真があります。
💨 Is it not art and culture that helps us in times like this 🎭? True, the `cellos are taking a rest from the heat at the moment….
💨 But ｗe are learning a new a Cappella programme in our choir. When I saw this song, though, I thought………now that would sound good on the `cello…..
..as indeed it does…..
…..and who can sing Poulenc’s “Un Soir du Neige” without dreaming of some nice cold snow ❄️ and how about those Flower Songs by Benjamin Britten?
私たちの合唱団アカペラプログラムの一部です。プーランク、ブリテン、フォーレ
Flowers indeed! Here is a random selection from Langen…..not exclusively flowers either……(swipe or click on the arrows)…….
Flowers emerge in other strange constellations…..Our house entrance has a weird example…….
……as does a tomb in Chichester Cathedral…..
Photo> Vivien R. (edited)
…and not forgetting the rain – drenched perlargoniums at the Darmstadt Fischerhütte…..
💨 But let’s get up to date. Before bowing down to the holy German Rite of Sommerferien (Summer holidays), you might consider hearing some imaginative young musicians in Frankfurt. They call themselves the BaroqueLAB, and are flexible enough to play at some unusual venues whilst the rest of the Hessen is sitting in a Stau (traffic jam) on the Autobahn.
Screenshot
Take note and have fun.
As always, thank you for your interest, and if you know anyone who might be interested in this blog then do forward it on.
Wie immer vielen Dank für euer Interesse. Wenn ihr jemanden kennt, der an diesem Blog interessiert sein könnte, schickt ihn gerne weiter.
🔴 It’s Spring in Japan and I find myself enrolled for a Suiboku (Ink Wash Painting) lesson in in Tsurumi, Tokyo…
The artist sort of assumed I could speak fluent Japanese, so I probably lost many of the hints he gave. However he was very complimentary about my bamboo drawing….
すいぼくが 水墨画 鶴見
That’s his drawing above, which he knocked off in about a minute. I started practising with just the stems, not the leaves…..
私の最初の試み
With a couple of deft strokes, he “improved” my bamboo. Stuck it up on the whiteboard and photographed it!
At the desk next to me Tomoko is poised to go….
🔴 soon after that I was in another part of Tokyo. A group of musicians (Aki さん – Cello, Takako さん- Flute, Ayakoさん – Mezzo Soprano) were “transcending boundaries” in their experimental Minorite concert in Koto City. They were not painting, oh no, they were tearing!
This piece (by Benjamin Patterson) was all about doing just that – with different sorts of paper. I closed my eyes and let my imagination run riot. The audience loved it.
🎵 The contemporary music scene is alive and well in Tokyo.
🔴 Cakes…..
Are always nicely presented here……..This Yokohama cheesecake is made after a recipe from the wife of well-known Yokohama author Osaragi Jiro……
おいしいチーズケーキ
🔴 I love going to the wilder parts of the coast. The sand can be quite dark, due to its volcanic origin. It’s soft underfoot….
砂は柔らかい
🔴 As for flowers, the first European botanists must have been astounded when they reached the shores of Japan. I was lucky to witness the cherry blossoms…..in town…
in the countryside……
at temples……
or just about anywhere in fact……
Then came the camelias. The pinkish-red flowers adorn the forests. You walk through carpets of spent blooms on the ground…..
Then it was the peonies turn…….
…..and in my last week as I walked in the park at Motomachi, Yokohama, these irises were on every corner – in all colours…..
….and walking around the football stadium in Hodogaya there were whole banks of Azalias…
…and if you are crazy enough to go to the Ashikaga Flower Park (Tochigi) in the first holiday of Golden Week……..Wisteria
あしかがフラワーパーク
Anyone for Wisteria Ice Cream?
藤のアイスクリームを食べませんか？ツトムさん、ありがとう!
🔴 What’s this? In 2019 a typhoon ripped up a tree on the “bluff” in Yokohama. Underneath was a very un-Japanese foundation. The local council decided to leave it there as a memorial, as it was evidently a western-style house which had been destroyed during the Great Kanto Earthquake.
The calm after the storm: Yokohama 1923
1923 年の地震後
🔴 History is everywhere here. Just south of Yokohama is Yokosuka, where the American Admiral Perry landed in 1853. Lucky he didn’t arrive 50 years later, or he would have been met by this: The warship Mikasa. It was built in 1902 and brought from Vickers of Barrow-in-Furness in the UK for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It sunk a few Russian ships in its time.
1902年に建造された軍艦三笠
In the event, Perry passed by Sarushima Island, and arrogantly re-named it “Perry Island”.
Not well received. It had been a gun battery for the Tokugawa Shogunate.
猿島
🔴 Meanwhile the old undisturbed Japan was going about its feudal ways in the hills of Gifu and Nagano. A house on the Nakasendo way…..
中山道
…and the burial sites of the prehistoric Jomon culture were yet to be excavated.
縄文文化
🔴 It is much harder to find the past in the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo. I took this picture from near the Tokyo Skytree. It shows Sumida Ward with the Sumida river: well known to KatsushikaHokusai ( 葛飾 北斎 ) the famous Ukiyo-e artist.
Tokyo throbs. It buzzes. It works.
隅田川の眺め
🔴 Back to Yokohama.
Along with Kobe, it was one of the first ports to open up to western traffic. But these first westerners were not artists or idealists. They were businessmen (“Merchants”). And there were lots of sailors who had been cooped up in steam ships for too long ⚓. Two cultures clashed. It was a chaotic and tense period. The British and American governments asked the Japanese authorities to build a “pleasure zone”, which acted as a buffer between the port and the town. Nowadays tourists arrive on cruise ships….
…..or by train🚅
The buffer zone (aka red light district) has since disappeared, in part due to the earthquake and the subsequent fire bombing in WWII twenty year later. Yokohama has been through a lot.
A Norwegian cruise ship docked at the Osambashi pier
大さん橋埠頭に停泊中のノルウェーのクルーズ船
🔴 An unusual memorial in Yamashita Park – the park itself being created on the waterfront with rubble from the 1923 destruction
…….
インディアン記念碑の天井
🔴 People…….have to work. Although distance working (Zaitaku Kinmu 在宅勤務 ) has become much more common after Covid.
人々は働かなければならない
Peoples’ needs…….a vending machine, a postbox, and a launderette (“coin laundry”) . What more do you need?
このコインランドリーが必要な人もいる
🔴 Every year children have a special day :”Kodomo no hi” on May 5th. But the carp streamers (Koinobori) are already flying here in Nagoya. Originally Tango no Sekku, the day has been celebrated since the Kamakura period in the 12thc. The black carp (Magoi) represents the father, the red one (Higoi) the mother. All the others are the children…..
子供の日 (Nagoya)
But the children are not always happy……
Kotaro-chan : “what’s up big sister?”
「お姉ちゃん、どうしたの？」
Meiko-chan: “I want my violin!”…….
“ah…..that’s more like it…….👍”
「バイオリンが欲しい！」……「あぁ……それもいいな……」
People are helpful. Here a shop owner helps us find the way back to our hiking trail in Miyagi….
店主が道案内をしてくれた
🔴 Furry friends. “I will sleep where I will. For I am a cat”
吾輩は猫である (Wagahai wa Neko de Aru ) 🙄
“I will reign from here…..for I am the queen……”
ごろちゃん
🔴 Foreigners photograph the oddest things…….Behind the Tsunami wall on the Miyagiolle trail….A harbour no more….
The Anglican – Episcopal church in Yokohama. Apparently only 1.5% of the Japanese population profess to be Christian…….
横浜のキリスト教会
🔴 Buddhism: Jizo are the guardian deities for children and travellers. They are properly called “Jizo Bosatsu”, originating in ancient India where in Sanskrit they are called Ksitigarbha , which means earth womb…..bet you didn’t know that….
なぎそ 【南木曾】
Buddhism has many interpretations and factions… here at the Rinnjo Buddhist temple in Sendai. A Zen stone garden.
“………..Religion in Japan is manifested primarily in Shinto and in Buddhism, the two main faiths, which Japanese people often practice simultaneously. According to estimates, as many as 70% of the populace follow Shinto rituals to some degree, worshiping ancestors and spirits at domestic altars and public shrines. An almost equally high number is reported as Buddhist…..” (Wiki)
The entrance to the Aoba Shinto shrine in Sendai – tucked between the houses like a jewel in a nondescript urban landscape…..
仙台の青葉神社
🔴 Fuji-san 🗻 is certainly regarded as sacred. I go for a walk behind my house and there it is on the horizon. But the iphone camera with its wide angle lens does not do it justice. On another day I catch a surprising glimpse of it from the carpark.
富士山
It is so much bigger than anything else on the landscape, appearing like the backdrop to a stage. It is an awe-inspiring sight. And then it disappears again. Like some magnificent but fickle god.
🔴 I’ve been recording these manholes for a palaeographer at Göttingen University. However they are hardly phD material. They are what is called fun…..not often seen in the corridors of town councils…
Japan’s history is one of wooden buildings – 🪵 So it’s no surprise that fire-fighting has a long history. And how typical to use a cartoon-like figure to convey an important message. A nice thing to have in the pavement! (it’s a fire hydrant). I must suggest this to the Langen Bürgermeister……
🔴 And technology. Pride in the old…Another view of that pre-Dreadnought battleship Mikasa…
三笠 (戦艦)
and in the new….the monorail in Tachikawa, Saitama.
立川市 モノレール
Yamaha Music Store, Yokohama. Sound experiences……🎵
A synthesis of philosophy, art and sport: Archery 🏹.
弓
🔴 The tilting vessel: an illustration of one of Confucius’s principles where a bucket is suspended from two chains and needs to be filled with exactly 80% of its capacity in water to come to perfect balance — this is where the Japanese expression “hara hachibu” or “eat until you’re 80% full” comes from……..I took this picture at Ashikaga Gakko in Tochigi – Japan’s oldest university, which was founded in 832 using a Confucian syllabus.
Ashikaga Gakko 傾く器：孔子の原則の一つを示す例 . 友子さんありがとう。
That’s it from Japan. I hope you have enjoyed reading these blogs.
As always, thank you for your interest, and if you know anyone who might be interested in this blog then do send it on.
Das war’s aus Japan. Ich hoffe, euch hat das Lesen dieser Blogs gefallen.
Wie immer vielen Dank für euer Interesse. Wenn ihr jemanden kennt, der an diesem Blog interessiert sein könnte, schickt ihn gerne weiter.
The View from the Towers 塔からの眺め 