▷ First the wonderful news: I have a new digital….electricity meter. Wow!…..🤣 the Langen company have promised that now it will be some much more convenient to calculate my bill.
新しい電気メーターはあまりにも巧妙なので、誰も理解できない
▷ Fast forward a few weeks and there is my landlady and myself peering at the ever-changing information on the monitor. For heavens sake. Which display is the right one? ☹️
▷ The latest: A young man in a hi-viz jacket arrives. Oh. Apparently so many people have submitted the wrong information that he is going round reading the meters. How about that for progress…….
▷ I know you are just as excited 🙄 as myself to see “my” building site. Last week I caught a good schnapps moment for you. They work hard. But when I see the crane almost disappearing into the gloomy mist I know it’s time to skidaddle…..
この暗い天気にはもううんざりだ
▷ So I have skidaddled. With a little help from the SAS flight out of Copenhagen…..no guesses where to.
Mid-flight I went to the galley to ask for a glass of orange juice. On handing it to me the purser commented on the colour….”here’s you urine test sir…!” Trust the Danes. Merry bunch.
▷ For the first few hours we have to wiggle around conflict zones…notable Ukraine….
私は逃げた………
Let’s hope that little cabin pressure light never turns on…time for Spotify...”…….ground control to Major Tom…..” seems suitable….
▷ I love the way that, as the aircraft tilts, evening sun moves over the cabin….
夕方の光
▷ Although it’s only marginally warmer than Europe, the big difference you notice when arriving in Japan at this time of year here is the light. There is lots of it…….
日本は涼しいですが晴れています。青空が広がっています
And it’s blue. Ginko trees in Yokohama……..
横浜のイチョウ並木
If you are not blinded by the sun, you will be dazzled by the clean floors of the train…..
太陽で目がくらまなければ、電車のきれいな床に目がくらむでしょう…..
▷ Crossing the charmingly dilapidated bridge over the Tsurumi river…..to reach Yokohama…..
▷ I am befuddled by Jisa Boke – jet lag – on my first day. So the first place to go is the steamy, timeless world of the onsen – in this case the mineral spring baths of Hoshikawa……for just around 1.500 yen ( 8€. ) you have a wide variety of pools of different temperatures, indoors and out. Or you can lie in the water massage. Wonderful🫧
天然温泉 満天の湯 Kamihoshikawa
Every onsen has a rest area……
Today is a lemon-floating day….
▷ The visit to the onsen is followed by a walk through Yokohama’s Chinatown. As well as the 250-odd Chinese shops and restaurants, there is a magnificently gaudy temple….a wiff of incense wafts across the street….
横浜中華街
▷ The next morning it’s a walk on the promenade. My Whatsapp pings 💥My daughter has passed her Masters’ exam. Whooppee!
▷ Breakfast is pancakes, blueberries and cream accompanied by coffee…
山科公園での朝食
The coffee is“Koi”, which sounds the same as “love”, but when you write it you use a different Kanji Chinese character. Just one of the ways Japanese trips up Chatgpt et.al. Ha ha!
▷ Japan is safe, they all say. Yes it is, but there are some other challenges which are not in the travel brochures. Let’s say you want to park your bike and go into a restaurant. Park your bike? Try again. There is nowhere. Literally. Unless you are lucky and find a paying slot……it clamps your bike and then notes the time….
レストラン街に自転車を停めるのは難しい
But it’s worth the effort……The menu in the Izakaya is curious. No, I did not choose this….
▷ but this……
Grilled pork, washed down with a nice beer…
▷ But there is more to life here than just skewered pork. There are are so many art venues in the whole area I would challenge anyone to visit them all. I decided to investigate the Tokyo Station Gallery. It’s actually above one of the grand entrances, and celebrates the restoration of the station after the bombing of WWII.
東京駅では駅舎の修復に関する展示が行われている
You get a fine view of the entrance lobby…
With its Art Deco lighting…
The gallery space has been left with curiously chipped brickwork….
…and some of the original girders have been transformed by some deft iron cutting….(a half moon – of course – how Japanese!)
The station today…..
東京駅の現在 Photo: By Maeda Akihiko
The actual exhibition was from about a young Showa-era painter……
▷ Later, on leaving the station I headed to the Imperial park complex, surrounded by the old moat of Edo Castle .
….
▷ Although it is December, people are sitting outside. Time to appreciate one of the many modern water features….
…..and examine the purchase of the day…
▷ I’ll leave you now with with one of my Japanese icons. No, it’s not a Samurai warrior or a Manga figure. It’s a bottle of green tea. Thirst-quenching, ubiquitous and guaranteed to give you a lift….
私の日本のシンボル：緑茶！
Thank you for reading, and feel free to forward on to anyone who might be interested.
Warning! This is a long read. You may need two cups of coffee….
Random Notes: Do you chew your toothbrush? don’t. You never know what you might be eating…..
歯ブラシを噛まないでください！
Do you like fermented Natto for breakfast? (er….no) Grab the offer whilst it lasts….
納豆は好きですか？
Same day service. Mr. Quick-san will fix it…..
Quick-san. Hodogaya. 自転車の修理
Saw these in Ena city – best described as “container hotels” !?
エナの小さなホテル
Need a nostalgic TV to fit into your bag?
🌏
It was seven years ago when I made my first trip to Japan⛩️. I did it the hard way – alone, and determined to practise the language. As I don’t like tourist spots I decided to stay in an ordinary town in Gifu Prefecture. It had an interesting river gorge nearby. Ena (恵那市).
Nobody had heard of it, and when I mention it to my Japanese friends now I always get this quizzical look, like “where’s that?” or “why would you want to go there?”.
Never be put off by a railway station. Even on the Chuo Line……
恵那駅
And never be put off by “significant delays”. In Japan this means the train might be 3 mins. late or something. But don’t mess with earthquakes. Get the earthquake app.
It was a unnerving but eye-opening experience 🤔 (I mean the trip in 2018, not the significant delays): The shock of entering the breakfast room of the hotel to see everyone tucking into noodles, fried fish, salads and goodness knows what else; the sense of achievement in borrowing an old bicycle from the local bike shop (no bike apps then) and sailing off on two wheels 🚲 down a country lane without an internet connection.
So this year I decided to revisit the scene of my former adventures. Even using the same hotel.
The hotel has been smartened up a bit, but there are still no cereals for breakfast, and I had to ask for butter (what a wimp!) . The view from the room has not changed – a “western” clothing store sign….
素晴らしい景色
But how much more relaxed I feel, with some command of the language! I even find the bike store. The couple who run it are pleased to hear that I was a former customer, and point out the dog, who is now snoozing in the corner. The guy gives me an old but perfectly good 3-gear town bike and charges me 300 yen for the afternoon. That is about 1.85 Euros. Taking the same route as I did in 2018, I head for the Ena gorge and its dam. I am seeing so much more this time, not being worried about getting lost or making some faux-pas or other.
A rural postbox…..
田舎の郵便ポスト…..
The route to the dam….
恵那ダムへのルート
It has been an unusually dry spring here, so the water levels are low on the Kiso river.
水位が低い
A pause to think thoughts….💭
考え
Years ago, when I first started doing calligraphy classes in Germany with Rena Kato, one of the first characters she taught us was this:
石
it’s a simple character, so I recognise it immediately here on this sign. Stones.
危険
Being in red, the warning of falling stones is a little disconcerting. Further on I discover the remains of the old suspension bridge crossing the Kiso river. That was 1907.
木曽川にかかる古い橋
In 1926 they built the dam, then much more recently: this road bridge. Confident and inspiring…..What about that for a nice piece of civil engineering…….take note GdLL 🙂.
素敵な新しい橋
On the subject of engineering, there are impressive road improvements underway nearby…….
日本のエンジニアリング
Riding back past a screen of bamboo…..
竹の壁
This is hot work. I park the bike and take a well-earned slug of green tea……
一時停止
They don’t seem to sell postcards here any longer. So on the way home I am denied the fun of slipping one into this postbox……(“Greetings from the paddy fields of Gifu Prefecture. Wish you were here……”)
ここではポストカードを売っていません。残念です。
The next day I board a local train to get to the start of my planned hike. But first it’s time to charge my transport card. The platform machine quite clearly displays the notice: 1.000 yen only. As if 1.000 yen would get me very far. Oh what the. I’ll stuff a 10.000 yen note in and see what happens…….
ナイジェルはミスを犯す
Naughty Nigel! A red light flashes🚨 and a piercing alarm goes off. Out of a nearby door a uniformed station master pops like a jack-in-the-box 💥 Boing 👨✈️ !
With a degree of self-assurance which I never had before I just say “don’t worry – I just put the wrong note into the machine….”. But he has to open the machine, type a code in and clang the thing shut before peace can then descend on Ena station. Honestly. These foreigners.
I have to alight at a place called Nakatsugawa, where a bus takes me up into the mountains……..
“Welcome to Natsugawa” is written in a local dialect. Better not tread on it…..😂
行きます!
Off we go. It’s a local bus, but it is modern, comfortable and air-conditioned with, I noticed, UV protective glass. It goes without saying that the windows are crystal clean. Not a spec.
We wind up into the hills, getting higher and higher, until at least we grind to a halt at Magome- juku. This little town has retained much of its Edo-era charm, however it feels a bit sanitized. There is no horse dung in the street, the loos are automatic and there are no prostitutes in the back alleys. But it is still a hotch potch of wooden houses and shops clutching to a steep winding street. It was a post town on the Nakasendo – the trade route built by the feudal lords in the 18thc. The Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868). “Nakasendo” – it sort of rolls off the tongue, conjuring up a wild mountain pathway in the age of the Samurai. Haha. Today it’s mostly tourists. But it is fantastic.
馬籠宿。中山道
There was another route down in the plains called the Tokaido. But this one, as its name suggests, went over the mountains. But it wasn’t just a road. It spawned a cultural phenomena. Artists arrived to draw it – The famous woodcblock illustrator Utagawa Hiroshige, for example. In his prints you see labourers struggling along with huge loads, and the occasional daimyō (feudal lord) on horseback. The surface of the road was mostly stone slabs, which must have made it hard work in wet weather (a bit like the Appian way in Rome). This print rather romanticizes the whole thing.
歌川広重
It’s all very picturesque (かいがてき 絵画的). Somehow these mountain villages avoided the Japanese post-War economic boom and subsequent construction mania. Power lines have been hidden. However, there are strict rules for residents. Even if a historic building is decaying and you as a foreigner offer to restore it, you will face immense bureacratic hurdles.
素敵。でも、きれいすぎる
I pass a colourful field of clover further up the hill,
クローバー畑
a Buddha or two to help you on your way…..🙏
仏
The trek is easy for me, with my modern hiking boots, bottle of green tea and iphone in the rucksack….
著者
Soon I had left the village behind me. Along the way some eccentric local was actually inviting people to come into their garden…..
ニース 🙂
Where whimsical things abounded…..
offerings invited….
I climbed up higher into the forest towards the boundary of Gifu and Nagano Prefectures. Those cedars….phew!
中山道の杉
Those bears……(you ring this to warn them off)…
🐻!
Ocasionally the modern road bisects the path. The mirror is there to help you. Except that this one was totally opaque. I’m sure Hermione Granger would have known the spell…….
Those flowers. It’s as if a god has picked up several National Trust Gardens in the UK and scattered them around the mountains here. Of course in history it was the other way around.
….cherries are still blooming up here (the’ve long since disappeared from Tokyo)
in so many varieties….
…this looks like a wild orchid…..
…and then, just after the Magome pass…(which is actually not very dramatic)….
790 metres
…. those waterfalls…..there are two quite near each other…
Medake Falls
Odake Falls
It was a hot day. Needless to say, the cool water was delightfully refreshing…..
素敵な冷たい水
The route is not really a wild hike and is always clearly marked.
Japanese families with their teenagers were ambling along in what looked like nothing more than town shoes. I met a father sitting on a rock, mopping his brow. He said his wife and daughter were faster than him………I think he had been persuaded to come, and would have preferred to be on the sofa at home watching baseball….
🔩
I often see a pride and fascination with all things mechanical here in Japan. As I left Ena in the morning I had passed a monumental steam engine parked outside the library……
Then later in the day whilst walking I discovered this strange foot-operated machine. I hope one of my violinmaking colleagues (Paul? John?) can work out what it did. I couldn’t….
これは何ですか？
And later on at the end of the trail, after I had passed through Tsumago en route to Nagiso station, there was another steam engine. An even bigger one this time…….just sitting there.
南木曽駅。帰りの電車。
The notice explains…………
蒸気動力
Back to the Nakasendo. They “do” decay well here. There was no hope of a coffee at this establishment….left to rot in the woods…..
ここにはコーヒーはありません…
メールもなし
About 9km later I entered the post town of Tsumago. Could almost be a film set. Except that it is genuine. An elegant family drift by…..
This has been a long post, but there is so much to write about! I will leave you in a Japanese lane…….
As always, thank you for reading, and if you know anyone who might be interested in this blog then do send it on.
This is the third in a series of posts which was previously hosted by WIX, a server based in Tel Aviv which has been the subject of an international boycott.
April 25th 2025年4月25日
As you can see below, the city of Nagoya has a very convenient circular metro line. Easy-peasy. Like in Tokyo or London, it’s the line for lost tourists. It has a clockwise service, and an anti-clockwise service (called the counter-clockwise service in American).
Wow, this is easy I thought, and hopped on. Ah no, Nigel. Just to keep tourists alert, the line sometimes branches off….and of course that’s what happened to me. I branched off. To the port of Nagoya. It wasn’t painful, and I did get to where I wanted in the end. The end being a famous Shinto shrine called Atsuta Jingu (at about 7 o’clock on that purple line). Now there will be no carry-on there, understand?
もう一つの翻訳の失敗
Bad translations here are a constant form of amusement (or irritation) for me. I was using Nagoya as a convenient jumping off point for the Nakasendo, an old 18thc. road that runs through the mountains.
But before going into the mountains there was time for sightseeing and a concert. I had picked up the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule link and was going to hear Maine Takeda (soprano) sing in the Aichi Arts Centre. Three other prizewinners were also performing.
As I approached the ticket desk and gave my name, a certain ripple of worry seem to flit across the face of the elderly man in charge. But the moment was saved by the stage manager, who recognised my name and led me up personally to my seat (not before he had primed the seat attendant to look after me….). So it was that I was able to sit back and enjoy Maine-san sing two songs from Mahler’s Das Knaben Wunderhorn; Handel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga”; an aria from The Marriage of Figaro “Deh, vieni, non tarda” and “Nun eilt herbei” from Carl Nicolai. Very enjoyable. And, as is so often the case in Japan, in a smart new concert hall with excellent acoustics.
Emerging from the concert hall, I meet Nagoya gleaming in the night……
…..and discover the Sakae area the next day…….
Sakae 栄 Centre
As it’s pretty flat, lots of people use bikes here. And there are handy bike lock zones – this one outside the NHK broadcasting house……
名古屋で自転車を駐輪する方法
This how you do it…..easy when you know how…..😉
名古屋の自転車駐車場システム
Nagoya is the home of many of Japan’s big names – Toyota and Kawai to name just two. But I am neither going to buy a car nor a piano. No, not even this one…..
名古屋の自転車駐車場システム ( 😂 )
I had a tip to follow – to that 7 o’clock on the metro map. Quite a trek to get there, but Nagoya is big.
The Atsuta shrine is one of Shinto’s most important shrines. And it’s huge. Big enough to warrant it’s own metro station….
It enshrines the Sun Goddess Amaterasu and stores the sacred sword Kusanagi – part of the imperial regalia. So in I tread with awe, bowing my head and clapping once under the huge Tori gate.
最初の鳥居
The vast complex of shrines are set in a thickly wooded park, so I often have to refer to the maps to orientate myself. The atmosphere is calm, the weather benign. Young couples wander hand in hand; a mother guides her little girl along. The child is more interested in making patterns in the gravel than paying obeisance to the gods. Quite understandable. A group of middle-aged women chatter away from under their sun hats. It’s a Sunday afternoon stroll after all, gods and all. Cameras are clicking 📷…..
And however secular society may seem in Japan, Shintoism and Buddhism sit naturally in daily life. There is no fuss about it. No hang ups. At the shrine office (Juyo-sho) it is obvious what is on offer here – an ideal wedding venue.
理想的な結婚式の場所
It costs of course, but every young couple want the perfect photo-op don’t they?
I’m not expecting to actually see anything at the shrine. There will be a set of closed doors and that’s it. But that’s not the point. You can’t see gods anyway, and it’s up to you how you manage them.
神社の正面 Hongu Main Sanctuary
It’s advisable to have time when you come to a place like this. None of that “be back at the coach in 1 hour” business. Oh no. I turned left and right in the shady woods, never knowing what to expect…….although I was aware of a restaurant behind the trees. What is this dish they are serving? Let’s try it…..
きし麺 😋
OMG. Seriously now. I cannot remember when I tasted such a delicious meal…..it’s called Kishimen, the kanji translating as something like “Go stone noodle” (the noodle used to be shaped like the stone in the game Go).These thick flat noodles seem to catch the flavour of the soup and…well…I think the gods were smiling down at me…..
Thoroughly revived by this simple but intensely satisfying meal, I sat on a bench and took in the scene…….
That’s what these gardens are for. For slowing down and contemplating. Under Shintoism, everything has a spiritual dimension: the rocks, the trees, even the cars…..
This old camphor tree has the Shimenawa (rope) wrapped around it for ritual purification, and is decorated with Shide (paper streamers) to demarcate it as a holy place and to ward off evil spirits…..
Around one corner the chief priest had parked his car (well, he probably had it parked for him)…..hmmm….Well, we are in Toyota’s homeland here. In fact I would not be surprised if the car was donated by the company. A goodwill offering if you like.
祭司長の車ですか？
An architectural curiosity here…heavy stone slabs have been used to support (?) or relay (?) the downward thrust of this hall’s roof….
興味深い建築技術
Before I left I noticed these Sake barrels………
酒
and a nice piece of modern craftmanship on the door of a smaller shrine…
Even today, the Japanese entrust their prayers for health, love or good exam results to small ema (votive plaques). This an old one which I saw in the Yokohama Museum…a wish for good breastfeeding….the gods are represented by a small cloud…..
Here in the Atsuta shrine someone had left a prayer…..“may the white bird carry my wish…..” or words to that effect….
goodbye Nagoya…..
名古屋 さようなら
I’m now off to the mountains of Gifu…….🥾….sayonara…..
As always, thank you for reading, and if you know anyone who might be interested in this blog then do send it on.
Sendai is about 360 km north of Tokyo – that’s about 21/2 hours with the Tohoku Shinkansen (bullet train). First, I give myself plenty of time to navigate Tokyo station………..
忙しい旅行者。東京駅
and find my platform……..
私の電車はどこですか？
A Shinkansen glides in smoothly……..
新幹線が到着する
The smartly dressed cleaners are ready with rubbish bags (holding them out to passengers as they disembark). One has a small hoover. Announcements are made. A civilised queue waits on the platform. When I think of Frankfurt Station….no…don’t..
If you are not sure which is your train just get on the one which is going at the time published. It will be the right one….
印象的な
A cool wind greets me as I step out of the train at Sendai a few hours later. I walk to my hotel, crossing the bus lanes and other traffic on high overhead pedestrian bridges. I’m not good at heights, but the hotel 8th floor is bearabIe. It could be worse……..
仙台のホテル
It’s only early afternoon, so I decide to walk to the castle (or what’s left of it)…..It was a stiff climb, but well worth it……
仙台城
At the top, Masamune Date, the powerful feudal lord of Sendai, glares out imperiously over the countryside and the sea….
He chose a good site for his castle, I must say…..
街の素晴らしい景色
Add a few early blossoms and he doesn’t look quite so fierce…..
東京より遅い開花
At important historical sites in Japan you will often see these great cedars – more of them anon….
大きな杉
Sendai is not really a tourist destination, but the place is a-buzz. Come evening and the Izakayas (pubs) and restaurants are heaving with young people eating, drinking, talking animately and laughing. Whilst outside the buses and taxis and cars seem to weave past on a sort of smooth wave……..
仙台の夜
A shopping mall…..
The next day I used the circular bus route which links most of the historical sites around the city. The old feudal lords of Japan always found good spots to be laid to rest ( a prime example is the last Shogun’s -Tokugawa Ieyasu – shrine in Nikko, Tochigi ). The lord of the Tohoku region was no exception – Masamune Date. His mausoleum – the Zuihoden, originally built in 1636, is a blaze of extravangant colour unlike anywhere else in Japan. You start first with a modest temple in a small garden….
From here it’s a steep climb up to the mausoleum itself…..(the more important the ruler, the tougher the climb. Well that’s my experience).
You pass the Nirvana gateway (as all good Buddhists know, Nirvana means reaching a state of enlightenment where worldly desires are no longer an issue and you escape the cycle of birth and rebirth)………..
The mausoleum – front view
藩主の瑞鳳殿
派手な色彩
The adjoining museum, which has relics of the pre -1945 original…….
It may disappoint Europeans to learn that this whole complex is actually a replica of the original. But this doesn’t seem to worry the Japanese. There are colour postcards of the place pre -1945, and it looks exactly the same. Obviously the Americans wanted to destroy the port of Sendai, but fire bombing a 17thc. historical site, way outside the city?
Leaving the precincts of the areal I took a woodland walk back down the hill.
私は丘を下って森の中を散歩しました。
At one point I came across a graveyard for children of the ruling classes….
貴族の子女の墓地
…. some of these cedars are about 380 years old….
杉の樹齢は約380年です
Before I had left for Sendai there was a job I had to do. I have a little friend who has just discovered the joys of pulling a bow across a string. But she is still not yet 3 years old! So did I have a violin small enough for her? As luck would have it, yes – and it was easy to smuggle it into the overhead locker on the plane. Time to do a delivery in Sagamihara…
Making someone happy. Is that not one of the greatest joys there is?
幸福 🙂
Meiko-chan was soon grabbing the bow – none of that beginners’ pizzicato for her….
最初のステップ
…and her brother was not to be left out…giving me a cheeky smile across the table…..
小さな波
Of course you soon end up on the floor….
Kotaro-chan
音楽一家
As always, thank you for reading, and if you know anyone who might be interested in this blog then do send it on.
There is an expression here (in Germany)…..”mir fällt die Decke auf den Kopf ” (lit. The roof is falling on my head )……😣….in other words, I need to get out of my little town – now 💨 So…………………
off we go……..Two stops to Dreiech-Buchschlag station, then a bus to the airport…..
空港に行く
I’ve found a new route to go east. First go to Copenhagen and then get on an SAS flight. I’d never used SAS before, but was impressed. The aircraft was new and the crew were a friendly bunch with a very Danish sense of humour……
SAS
The food was excellent. However, I had to ask my fellow passenger what an upcycled banana was……. (apparently, instead of throwing away brown bananas, the Danes put them in cakes- an excellent idea).
「アップサイクル」は私にとって新しい言葉です
We “lost” a night, and caught up with the dawn somewhere over China……
…avoiding Russian airspace on the way….
Japan was rather cold and damp on arrival, but that at least meant that the cherry blossoms and camelias were somehow more intense in colour than usual.
星川
カメリア
My home base is always with the Kanakura family in Hodogaya Ward, just outside Yokohama. After I had complimented my host on the new tatami mats in the guest room, I wandered into town to do some shopping and get a simple meal. The local department store did the trick….some tasty mackerel in dark sauce…very yummy and as usual far too cheap for the quality….
イオンでの簡単な食事
Aeon department store…
It seems you never have to go far in Japan before you meet some little surprise or other. I smiled to myself when I came scross this little mini in a parking lot….
有名なイギリス車…..
Quite apart from it being a shining collector’s item, the Mini is ideal for Japanese cities….and what a nice colour……
I have never seen any tourists in Hodogaya, except for the students who stay at Misako- san’s house. The Katabira river separates the area in two, and has a nice promenade running down one side. There are no crowds here, so you can enjoy the cherry blossoms in peace…..
…whilst of course taking advantage of the numerous eating places en route. Like this Ramen shop, for example……..uncomplicated and good…..cabbage and bean sprouts in a yummy soup…..
天王町の美味しいラーメン
…….free water is a given, as well as lots of sauces to pep up your Ramen if you feel the need….
The street is a classic Japanese side street with lots on offer….(not only food…er…..)….
天王町
Nice to see my feline friends again……
4匹の猫のうち2匹だけ
So what’s new in Hodogaya? Well, more houses are being ingeniously squeezed onto the hillside….
巧妙な日本の建築
…..although odd relics of post-war housing still exist…..
古い家
…and house renovation firms are busy……
仕事がたくさんある
And whether it is a kindergarten play session, a baseball practice or old folk playing a sort of croquet, there is always something happenening in the local park…..
峰岡公園
Apropos baseball (野球 yakyu)……..in a local sports shop……
野球
There is peace to be found up the hill at the local Buddhist temple……
Koeisan Hossho Temple
光栄山法性寺
Around town.……The well known delivery service Kuroneko (black cat)
……Greetings from the Yokohama City Fire Dept.
It’s hard to describe, but everybody seems uplifted by the appearance of the cherry blossoms……….
Later in the week, when I had recovered from my jet-lag jisaboke 時差ぼけ, I meet up with my Sensei (teacher) in Tokyo. First we went up to a 32nd floor to a view point next to the Tokyo Skytree. Here you can look down on the Sumida district and further……
Fancy a bite? Someone does in these woods, but I assume they know what they are doing….
お腹が空いていますか？誰かが……..🤤
Because they always leave these guys alone….
Perhaps the black and white pattern is a warning sign…
誰もこれを食べない…..🤮
Of course none of this is noticed by the passengers sitting in the cosy seats of their Inter Regio train which roars by…..
乗客はこれらの小さなことに気づきません!
I’m on a little walk between Neu Isenburg and Langen. Right beside the railway. My archaeological training is spurred to life by the sight of this bronze age artifact….a weapon of some sort maybe?…..It is well preserved I must say…….
奇妙な物体
However, on reflection…..hmmm. Has a rather late 20thc. aura about it.
Back to those mushrooms. I prefer the fruits of trees. Like this one. The fig tree outside my door. The sensation of biting into that soft flesh – ever so slightly grainy and subtly sweet- so soon reduced to the mere stalk and then the need for the next one….
イチジク！美味しい！
Preceded by some Gyozas and a Kirin and I am in heaven…or at least in Takumi….(Mendelssohn Str. Frankfurt)
天国
Autumn………I must have been in an “flowing” mood when I drew this Kanji character…..
まあ、ここでは翻訳は必要ありません！😅
The turn of the season seems to affect different trees in different ways..The Acacia looks like it is getting a disease….
…and reminds me of the time I once drew the Kanji character for tree (Ki), but realized after the first stroke that I didn’t have enough ink in my brush……😮
ああ、まずい。インクが足りなかったんだ😐
It is also easy to get too much ink on the brush. The ink itself has this extraordinary tendency to create forms – here the silhouette of a man’s head (?)………
奇妙な形….
Being confined to home this weekend with some bug or other I turned my attention to my calligraphy efforts. Of which there are many…..(!)
今週末は体調が悪くて家にいなければならなかったので、書道を見つめ直す時間になりました…。
With a well-loaded brush you can make music…🎵..The first character means “sound”, the second one “fun/enjoy”. Nice!
🎵
In the meantime I have found another little “bit of Autumn” ちいさい秋みつけた [Chīsai Aki Mitsuketa]…..This maple leaf has drifted graciously to earth…..
~
What shall I cook today?
Certainly none of those mushrooms near the railway…..Maybe some hearty European stew…? after all, the parsnip was a rare find in Aldi…
Aha….let’s add a bit of Asian pep…..mmmm….
In fact a warm vegetable stew was just right for the chilly downturn of the weather this week….
寒い日には温かいシチューがぴったりです…
~
The other day a Chinese friend of mine called round to pick up a ‘cello case. With her 3 yr- old son bounding about with far too much energy, I decided to dig out some childrens’ books 📔📚 as a distraction. Of course they were all in English, but this didn’t seem to matter. However, later on I found the book which I had been looking for the whole time.
Lao Lao -🐉 is an old Chinese folk tale about a simple good person being maligned by a greedy emperor. The poor woman is forced to sit in a cold tower and produce paper cuttings ad infinitum (rather like the girl in Rumpelstiltskin who has to weave gold thread). However, in the end good conquers over evil through the intervention (Deus ex machina – rather like a Handel opera) of the dragon who roams the earth, who sees and hears everything.
子供向けの本当に素敵な本
The text is in Chinese and English and is beautifully illustrated…
…..following the main theme of the story – paper cuttings…….
切り絵
…with the chance at the end to have a go yourself. This is a very special children’s book. I thought the story was probably an old Chinese classic, but my friend had never heard of it. One wonders what they teach children in China these days….
~
Well, I’m told a typhoon is approaching Japan this weekend. And I see I once tried to paint the character. Not a good example of brushwork, but very fitting to the current season! Literally “great wind”…….🍃
あまり上手な書道ではありませんが…
And it also seems to be the season for that home-made plum wine…………..☺️
Photo> 友子
~
👉 Well, thank you for reading this, and feel free to pass it on to anyone you think might be interested. These days you can translate a web site instantaneously with A.I. or Google translate.
Welcome back to another episode of The View from the Towers in the UK…☺️
👉 I have drunk 3 bottles of very nice Whitby Bay Craft beer 🍺 since arriving here in Somerset. So what should I do with the empty bottles? Without much thought I bring them back to the local shop for recycling. There I am met with a blank look of incomprehension. “Don’t you recycle them at home?” they say. I had forgotten. You can’t bring bottles back to shops in the UK. This is just one example of: It’s a funny feeling being in the UK.
👉 I notice little things. UK instead of GB on the back of cars 🚘, impatient drivers in London, overseeing the fact that I am driving a foreign car. The fact that my 20 pound note is out of date.
私の20ポンド紙幣は期限切れで無効です
A lot of flags. Beers I have never heard of. And of course: I don’t have to use a foreign language to communicate, and people (who are generally very friendly) assume I live here.
👉 But let’s move on……writing as I do rather like H.V. Morton in his 1929 book “In Search of England”. Except that he drove a bull-nosed Morris, and myself a 15 yr-old Audi…..and that “England” has changed beyond recognition – or has it?
👉 Dunster castle is not for purists. Yes, It towers magnificently over the eponymous village, but all is not what it seems. It’s not just a medieval castle. Over the centuries the Luttrell family added to and changed the original structure, culminating their work in the 19th century with a vast comfortable Victorian residence.
From the rooms you get great views…..
ダンスター城は中世の城を改築した、快適な19世紀の邸宅です。素晴らしい景色が楽しめます！
In the dining hall the table is set for the Indian polo team, with a place set for the Maharajah of Jodhpur……this is all very British Empire stuff……
Or be grateful you don’t have this plumbing any longer…..
モダンな蛇口があってよかった
You can visit the horse stables…..(if you like that sort of thing). However there is no muck or smell here…..or horses for that matter….(you’d have thought they would have a token horse🐴 munching hay….?)
馬小屋
(but I loved the cobbled floor……)
床が気に入った
The house is all a bit gloomy inside. However, The National Trust are at pains to point out that this is due to the UV filters on the windows – there to protect the fabrics.
To be honest, I found all this heavy emphasis on conservation and preservation a little oppressive at times. It was at moments like this when I was reminded of the Japanese concept of Wabi-sabi – 侘び寂び – the beauty of imperfection and impermanence. A world view, an aesthetic and a way of life so distant from Western ideals. Both have their merits, but not when pushed to extremes…
👉 However there is a bright conservatory…….
家は少し暗いですが、明るい冬の庭があります
…and a fun hat and costume room…..
帽子を試着しました
……..and then the gardens. Well that’s a different story: ……..we are at a castle, so why not float into the sky with Laputa?
p.s. I hope they bring this piano in when it rains….
天空の城
…In the grounds a climbing project had been set up . Needless to say I was happy to remain a spectator…….Not so my tough Japanese companion….
私の日本の友達は私よりも健康です！
A short walk down the road is the water mill with its picturesque wheels and packhorse bridge…..
水車
which of course led us to the…..
二人でお茶
👉 The classicNational Trust tea shop. But oh what was this…..? “Sorry the dishwasher is broken” said the girl serving….”we are using disposable cups and plates today….” Now what would H.V.Morton have made of this? The coffee and cake were fine….it’s just that I had had this fantasy of a traditional English afternoon tea….not a McDonalds-type beaker and a cardboard plate……😢 We had charming company though…..
Apart from the castle, the village is a pretty place but not designed for those hulking fat SUVs which people feel the need to drive these days. We had a look into the church with its fine medieval screen……
地元の教会
….somber monuments trying to look permanent despite our impermanent lives….
古代の墓
…..towering arches……
…..and some rather tasteful Victorian stained glass…
素敵なステンドグラス
Well, that’s all for now. Thank you for reading, and feel free to forward on to anyone who might be interested.
👉 The view from my desk can sometimes be rather distracting. I don’t remember, for example, having ordered a coffee table……
コーヒーテーブルを注文した覚えがない😂
So I must retain some fudoushin ふどうしん( 不動心) and remain imperturbable . I read this word in Japanese today and didn’t know what on earth it meant. But seeing that character 心 at the end should have prepared me for something deep. 心 means mind, heart or spirit, and I even have it on my wall at home as a calligraphy exercise!
心
I would probably never use imperturbable here in Germany because I know I would have to explain it. Here is the Oxford English Dictionary…
難しい言葉 🙄
So there you go. Pearls of knowledge from a building site.
👉 There’s nothing quite like a spontaneous hike with friends. But with such a hot weekend a cool route is called for. So no to the open vineyards of the Rheingau or ruined castles baking in the heat. What we needed was a route almost entirely in the shade.
東京ほど暑くはないけど、十分暑い！
Those who can’t come offer you a colourful range of situations they find themselves in. The globetrotters: “I am in Brazil and flying to Chile tomorrow, otherwise would definitely join! The thinkers: “I am thinking about it”. The organized: “Sorry, I have a prior arrangement”. The unfortunates: “I feel worse and worse” (all sympathy here). The stay-at-homers: “I need a day at home”. The mysterious: no reply.
Well, in the end there were only two of us left. But there are advantages to that – flexibility is one of them.
👉 The route took us through the shady woods south of Darmstadt. It was very quiet – only the odd dog walker or jogger trudging by. Maybe everybody was doing their shopping. It was a Saturday morning after all. Nature stood still. Not a breath of wind :
レストランのある静かな池
At times the luxuriant vegetation was higher than myself….
花は私よりも背が高かった
One area of the woods was devoted to art installations. An imaginative “rain machine”……
アート。「雨の機械」
A dome which teased the eye – was this art or trees? It seemed especially designed to be photographed to produce a deception in your camera…..
👉 Climbing up a steep path, passing an observatory, we arrived at the Ludwigsturm (Ludwig Tower) on the Ludwigshöhe. From here you get a panoramic view of Darmstadt, and on the horizon, Frankfurt.
展望台からはダルムシュタットとフランクフルトの景色が見える
The rather impressive 19thc. tower has never been open all the times I have been here. And the adjacent restaurant was shut because the owners were on holiday (The summer holdays are a sacrosant period in Germany. My customers don’t pick up their violins, the Opera houses and schools don’t pay their bills…all because it is Ferien (holidays). Let’s not worry about that violinmaker who still has to pay his overheads. There is even a word for it: The Sommerloch (The “Summer hole”)).
👉 I forgot to mention one piece of art poised between two trees. It was made up almost entirely of oyster shells……curious….
カキの殻
Is this art?
それは芸術ですか
👉 Well, thank you for reading this, and feel free to pass it on to anyone you think might be interested. These days you can translate a web site instantaneously with A.I. or Google translate.
👉 I’ve been clearing out. Weeding out those books that I will never read again and adding them to the street library on the Bahn Str. in Langen. But this is one book I shall never throw out. Iona and Peter Opie were a remarkable couple who collected children’s rhymes and riddles in the 40s and 50s. And I have the definitive edition with illustrations by Maurice Sendak
So there you are 😅 No point in getting out the vacuum cleaner
私と掃除機
👉 In East Asia, summer is the time to remember your ancestors …your ancestors…. you may ask? In the west we may visit the graves of our grandparents (in my case in Ireland) or parents. We may pause awhile and leave some flowers. In Asia there is a widespread belief that you are connected to those who went before you. A strange concept for us Europeans maybe. But this concept of lineage is a part of Asian culture. So it is no surprise that, for example in Japan, the rituals are well established.
👉 Another late summer festival is the Lantern floating ceremony. In Frankfurt the fast flowing river Main would not be suitable for this. But usually, with those who have gone before you in mind, you write your message or thought on a lantern, which floats out on the water….Tomoko sent me this picture of one such ceremony which took place recently at the lake in Senzokuike Park in Ota city, Tokyo.
洗足池公園
Many who have taken part in this ceremony express a sort of relief that they have been able to commune* with their grandparents or parents, and have returned home with a lighter heart. The actual lanterns may be retrieved after the ceremony and used again next year, or burnt, as is the case here……(* the verb “commune ” is not easy to translate)
👉 The days are still warm here in Germany, and the really hot heatwaves have hopefully left us now. Torrential showers flood my local building site.. see that square in the middle? That is not a garden pond but the lift shaft!
ドイツはまだ暖かいですが、激しい雨が降ることが多く、向かいの建設現場は浸水してしまいました！
👉 However, nature only seems to use these showers as a chance to promote growth: Witness my walks in Langen and Frankfurt…….Honeysuckle seems only to send out its perfume in the early morning or evening….
スイカズラ
Otherwise it’s a free for all……clover in the meadows….
クローバー
Succulents at the botanic garden in Frankfurt….
フランクフルトの植物園の多肉植物
Hydrangeas relishing the rain…..
アジサイ
……………and the water lilies preparing to burst open…..
睡蓮
An Elfenbein Distel…..an Ivory thistle….
アザミ
And looks who’s here….the European oak…..
ヨーロッパのオークの木
And these will become walnuts, believe it or not….
クルミの木
…and as for the local squirrels….well…it’s either territorial issues or finding a mate…I’m not quite sure what’s going on here…..
フランクフルトのクレイジーなリス
👉 Well, thank you for reading this, and feel free to pass it on to anyone you think might be interested. These days you can translate a web site instantaneously with A.I. or Google translate.
The View from the Towers 塔からの眺め 