happylife

Rowan trees

When I was climbing Mt. Kurodake, I often saw rowan trees with a lot of red berries. Some of them had a frozen water drop which reflected the sunlight. It was really beautiful. I found in my dictionary that rowan trees are also called mountain ash in American English. We Japanese call it Nanakamado which means seven cooking stoves. It is said that the name comes from the fact that the tree is so hard to burn that it has to be burned seven times in a stove. It's interesting that both American and Japanese have the same word origin; ash is one the most fireproof substances in the world as you know. Ancient people must have known the physical characteristic of this tree both in America and Japan and they might have made good use of them in their life. Unfortunately the berries are inedible at least for human and I don't know how to utilize them, but it might be enough because they are beautiful.

Mountain Climbing

It was a beautiful day and I climbed Mt. Kurodake which is 1,984 meters high located in the center of Hokkaido island. To tell the truth, we can go up to the fifth station of ten on the path to the summit by a ropeway and to the seventh station by a ski lift, so I only had to climb the last 30 percent on foot to reach the top. The mountain had the first snow two days before and I knew it from a TV news in advance. I expected to see a patchwork-like mountain surface with red, yellow and white gradations. The trail was steeper than I had expected and there was no flat or down part at all. I really realized my lack of exercise. The higher I climbed, the colder the temperature became and it was minus zero on the summit. Although the seventh station was full of people, there were only three besides me on the top. Unfortunately the top was covered with cloud and we couldn't see the panoramic view from there. The return path was so easy and fast that I could come back to the starting point in less than half hour and my knees were shaking by that time. We say "laughing knees" instead of "shaking knees" in Japanese. Both my knees and mind were laughing when I came back to the goal.

Reversal of the exchange rates

The exchange rate between Canadian dollar and the U.S. dollar has finally reversed; Canadian dollar is now more expensive than the U.S. dollar. I know that the exchange rate depends on the law of supply and demand and a lot of factors affect it; it's too complicated for me to understand, but as for me, I simply feel that the higher the currency, the stronger and richer the country. The U.S. dollar is getting lower and lower because of the war while Canadian dollar is increasing its value. Euro is keeping its value high while Japanese Yen is unreasonably low affected by the cheap U.S. dollar. European countries are like matured people who are older but wiser. Young American have more energy but they are wasting most of them for stupid wars while Canadian, who is a little bit wiser than his neighbor, is growing into the adult group of European countries. How about Japanese? Well, he is getting weaker as the follower of American. You might think this is a stupid idea full of bias, but I think that the international relationship is just the same as the human relationship in a small school class.

Digital print service

Seven Eleven is one of the largest convenience store chains in the world and it is especially successful in Japan. As you know, this type of store, lots of items and services in a small store, is extremely popular in Japan and we can find a couple of convenience stores every block in a small city and on each national road in the suburbs. Making good use of this popularity and universality, lots of new services are offered almost every week. This digital print service is one of them. We can get prints from our digital camera then and there by using this service. All we have to do is whipping out the memory card from the digital camera, inserting it into the copy machine in the store, selecting our favorite shots and number of prints and waiting for a few minutes. It's really easy and speedy. The cost of printing is 30 yen per print and in terms of the printing quality, I can't distinguish from the traditional DPE service. If you go on a trip with your friends and take a lot of pictures, you can exchange your pictures in the end of the trip before breaking up.

Bath-hopping

Bath-hopping is as popular as barhopping in Japan. I love it so much that I have once hopped ten times a day. Sure ten baths in a day is too much because taking bath requires more energy than we estimate. We can't help feeling dizzy after so many baths. If you are not Japanese, you might think why I need to change baths so often. The reason is clear for us Japanese; each bath has its own taste and we enjoy the difference. As I mentioned before, there are tens of Sento in the small city and each of them differs from others. It's interesting that every Sento has its own color, smell, temperature and ingredients. The Sento I took today for the first time was really good. It was rather a small Sento with a small bathtub which would be full with four to five people, but the hot water was the best as far as I know; lots of fresh hot water was fountaining and covering the floor of the small bath room. It was amber in color, a little bit slimy with a slight sulfur smell and what was special was that once I soaked in it, my body was covered with numerous very small bubbles. It was really a fantastic feeling; we might feel in the same way when we soaked in hot Coke. 60 days have passed since I came to Obihiro and more than tens of Sento are waiting for me. I must be busy if I tried to cover all of them before going back to Tokyo.

Lake Shinonome

My old friend visited my place in Obihiro and we enjoyed a short trip to the mountain area this weekend. Unfortunately the weather was not good because he is a rain man. I don't know why but he was eager to visit Lake Shinonome which is located deep in the mountain and I followed his plan at last. We parked the car by the Lake Shikaribetsu and rented a row boat after taking a lunch. After a 30 minute sail and 30 minute hiking, we arrived at the lake. We had to push through the bamboo thicket at the last 10 minute part of the hiking. The lake view was fantastic covered with fog and it reminded me of Beaver Lake in Stanley Park. We were soaked and cold when returned to the parking and we enjoyed three hot springs and dinner in the rest of the day. I'm thinking about visiting this area again someday soon when the leaves change the color. They must look great in the blue sky.

Sento

"Sento" means a Japanese public bath which we could find anywhere all around the nation, but now a days, the number has been reducing year by year because of the spread of a private bath in each house. While the normal type of Sento keeps on reducing, there is an exception; it is "Onsen" which means hot springs in Japanese. I have visited some hot springs in New Zealand and Canada, the ones in Japan are totally different from all of them. Onsen in Japan is a kind of culture in which we enjoy it without any clothes on and sometimes drink it. It is so popular that someone dug more than a few kilometers in Tokyo to get Onsen. Obihiro is a happier city than Tokyo because we don't have to dig so deep; there is a peat bed shallow under the city and we can enjoy special Coke colored, slimy hot springs. As it was so hot this summer, I couldn't enjoy Onsen very much, but now the fall has come and I'm expecting to enjoy it to get the loss back.

A delicate situation

I visited Camp Obihiro Sunday afternoon to watch the demonstrations of the Self-defense Force. Although it was reduced from a division to a brigade a few years ago, they still have a lot of arms including tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers and helicopters. It was an exciting demonstration and to tell the truth, I enjoyed it just like the fireworks festival. Most of the visitors were families with children and they seemed to enjoy more than I. Fortunately, we Japanese has not been involved in any wars for more than 60 years since the last war and most of us do not actually know what war is, but it is never guaranteed that this happiness continues forever. Against the will of most people and even the constitution, we have the 4th or 5th largest forces in the world and the government, which is now the hawks, seems to like to change Japan more militant. Sure, I know our delicate situation; we are largely counting on the U.S. which needs war to satisfy the domestic, wasteful oil demand and China is rapidly developing and may someday come into conflict with other countries including the U.S. It seems to be difficult to keep the present peaceful situations forever, but it mustn't be impossible to do it, or we shall be ruined altogether.

More about the Segway

The Segway experience was so interesting and exciting for me that I can't yet forget the control feeling. What makes this lawn mower like vehicle innovative is that it is mainly controlled by a computer and all the riders have to do is leaning to their heading. Sure, there are lots of computer assisted vehicles such as airplanes, trains, cars and so on, but they are all controlled mainly by human and primitive physical law and computers only work as assistants; the so called hi-tech airplanes actually can be flown without pilots, but they are indispensable as a back-up and the person in charge, and some ways are always left in which they can fly them without computers. As far as I know, all the vehicles can be controlled by human at least at the last moment in case of emergency. Only the exception is state-of-the-art jet fighters which have swing wings and cannot fly without computer controls. As I mentioned before, I hope someday Segway can run on the public roads in Japan, but I think it's natural that Japan's government is prudent to permit it because no one can assure that it is always safe. Computers and software are not so reliable that we can't commit ourselves to this vehicle.

Segway tour

I woke up early in the morning after a long break. It was to participate in Segway tour in Tokachi forest. As you might know, Segway is an innovative vehicle with two wheels driven by batteries. Though I sometimes saw it running in the U.S. and Canada, it is still banned to run on public roads in Japan. Therefore we can't get it for personal use and only companies with a spacious land such as golf course or factory can purchase it. Tokachi forest is a private forest which is 60 times as large as Tokyo Dome and is owned by a newspaper publishing company. The Segway tour is a popular program held daily in the forest and as far as I know, it is the only for usual people to experience Segway in Japan. It was so easy to ride it that all the tour members were riding it as they liked after 30 minute practice and we started the tour on it. The tour course was really great; running through a ranch, climbing up and down a hill and moving slowly on the rough road in the forest. The maximum speed, which is 20 km/h, may not seem fast comparing with any other vehicles, but it was fast enough to enjoy moving around the vast area in a limited time. I hope this vehicle is someday permitted in Japan and it becomes as popular as mini bikes.