happylife

Why Kushiro?

More than one month has passed since I came to Kushiro. This is my third anniversary staying in this dark and cool city. I stayed here for about three months every summer in the last two years and I'm thinking about staying here until the end of this summer, too. Why do I stay in this city so often? The first reason is its cool weather. The temperature here is mostly under 20 degrees even in midsummer while everyone is going mad in the muggy days in Tokyo. It's rare to see blue skies because Kushiro is one of the most foggy cities in Japan, but that is no problem for me as I am staying here not for sight seeing. I'm mostly staying in my hotel room and facing towards the computer all day long. The foggy weather is rather good for me because I don't have to surrender to temptation of traveling around. The second reason is the atmosphere of this city. It's like a ruined city in a word. All the shopping buildings around the central station are abandoned and few people are walking around especially after dark. The suburb area is rather busier, but I am staying near the station. I often feel like that I am the last man in the world when I walk around my hotel in the midnight. What an  eccentric and mysterious experience! Sure it's not convenient to live in such an environment, but I can get any books, gadgets and whatever I want from the Internet . All I have to shop is daily foods and I go shopping to the nearest supermarket or go eating out by bicycle couple of times a week. I think it's a good age because we can enjoy convenient life in an inconvenient city owing to the Internet.

 

Drifted Away

I have been in Abashiri, one of the north end cities in Japan since the day before yesterday. It's not that I am drifted away in this cold city, but the reason I have been here was drifted away on the right day I arrived here. It's drift ice. About a week ago, I heard a news report that drift ice arrived alongside the coast in Abashiri area and a few minutes later, I booked the flight and hotel to watch it. However, I have not seen it yet. Drift ice is created at the mouth of River Amur and literally drifts on the sea to reach Japan. Though it once reached here last week, it is offshore now because it is always drifting. It comes to Japan in this season every year but the number of its staying days has been decreasing especially in the last decade. Global warming might be the reason. I hear that only ten percent of short stay visitors here can watch it. It's a challenge, but I have a perfect chance to win. I'm thinking about staying here until I see it.

 

From South To North

This picture depicts my GPS tracking in the last couple of weeks. After watching the total eclipse of the sun on the Tokara Islands -- actually and unfortunately all I could see was the sun not hidden by the moon but covered with thick clouds -- I traveled up through the islands of Japan from Tokara via Tokyo to Kushiro. The temperature has come down more than ten degrees and it is way more comfortable here for me. I'm in really cool and calm conditions both in weather and mental. I can't believe that the hot and hard cruising days seeking for the special astronomical show were less than two weeks ago. I remember that someone once mentioned about a law in which the further we travel, the longer time elapsed we feel even if the actual time is not so long. I'm thinking about staying here for months and not moving around so much. If the law is true, the long days might feel shorter.

Shinkansen Super Express

When I came back from the sailing in Wakayama, I used a Shinkansen Super Express for the first time in these almost ten years. I used to board Shinkansen very often when I was an employed business man and to tell the truth, I didn't like it very much because of its business like atmosphere. It used to be full of businessmen who were doing business conversations or document works in the morning and who smelled alcohol at night in the car. All those things were packed in a blocked space and I sometimes had light claustrophobia. However, the train this time, whose nickname was Nozomi, was a little bit different from what I knew as Shinkansen. Sure, the time when I traveled was off the business hours, but the car itself had developed much from older type of Shinkansen. As you might know, Shinkansen runs on a special wide rail system which is independent of normal railways. Making the best use of the wide rail, the Nozomi had ultimately spacious cars. I could fully stretch my legs on the seat. Also I could connect to the Internet in the car and enjoy video on my MacBook. It was so pleasant that I wasn't bored at all. I think that Shinkansen is the best way to travel around major cities in Japan.

"Adolescence 18" Ticket

When I came back from Osaka to Tokyo, I bought an interesting train ticket named "Adolescence 18." It is a kind of super discount ticket sold by JR (Japan Rail). With this ticket we can take any JR's trains except for express and super express trains as many times as we like in a day. It consists of five sections and we can use each section on five different days or use all of them at one time with our four friends. It costs only 11,500 yen (US$120), so each section comes to 2,300 yen! I came back from Osaka with one of the five sections of this ticket. It means that I could come back from Osaka to Tokyo just for 2,300 yen although it took more than eight hours. This ticket is a seasonal ticket and we can purchase it only in spring, summer and winter vacation seasons. Sure it is popular among young students, but mature people can use it while lots of people misunderstand that it is limited to under 18 students. I'm now wondering where to go with the rest four sections of my ticket.

Return Flight from Naha to Tokyo

After one month stay in Naha, I came back to Tokyo a few days ago. Soon after the take-off, the airplane leveled off at 2,000 feet because of the airspace limitation of Kadena airport which is one of the largest U.S. airbases. We were not surprised at the temporary slowdown of the airplane thanks to the captain's notice. The return air time was thirty minutes shorter because of the jet stream. It is always blowing from west to east and is so fast that airplanes are strongly affected by it. It is just like an escalator; you can easily go up on an upward escalator while it's very hard for the opposite direction. As my seat was right side, I could only see the Pacific Ocean because the airplane was mostly flying east. It was more or less regrettable that I missed Mt. Fuji when the CA announced, "Passengers, we can see beautiful Mt. Fuji on the left side." Different from the cloudy sky over Naha City, it was fine in Tokyo with this blue sky. It was blue but I can't call it "clear" because the haze over this city never goes away.

To a Domestic Tropical Island

I arrived at Naha, the central city of Okinawa Island a few days ago. I'm going to stay here for more than one month. As I mentioned before, the weather in Tokyo is too severe for me -- too hot and humid in summer and too cold and dry in winter. I think it's more reasonable and comfortable to live moving around the country if possible. Fortunately, I can do it and I'm just doing it. This is my second visit to this southern island and as I only dived several times in three days in the first visit, it's almost my first experience of this island this time. This city is not only comfortable but really interesting with a lot of differences from any other cities in Japan. I'm planning to write about those things in this blog later, but I'm now too busy because I have a lot of places to go and things to do in this strange city. Plus, I have to restart my work before the year is out.

Lost in the sky

"Shaku" is the old Japanese unit for length which almost equals to foot. Three shaku is the diameter of this ball. You can easily guess what this ball is from the fuse on its head. Yes, it is the original style of a firework before exploding -- actually it is a replica because a real firework is as dangerous as a bomb. In terms of the size of fireworks, 3 shaku or 3 feet is the largest in the world. It is launched into the sky at the altitude of 600 meters and the diameter of the open firework comes to 550 meters! It was supposed to be the highlight in the fireworks festival which was held last night in Kushiro. However, it was lost in the sky without being watched by any audience in the place. It's not that it was misfired. It was successfully launched into the sky after countdown of 10, but there was a thick cloud at the altitude of 600 meters. We could only see the flashing debris after the explosion and hear the huge sound with a vibration. Every one around me couldn't help laughing at the unluckiness and one old woman said behind me, "it's just a funny story." As I mentioned in this blog, this year's festivals in Kushiro were almost cursed. One of the dancing parades was canceled in a heavy rain and the other was like a Songgran (a traditional Thai festival in which people throw water each other). The other fireworks festival was not good because of no wind. May the luck come back to this city soon.

Kushiro Marsh

"What does Kushiro remind you?" Most typical answer to this question will be "fog" and "marsh." As I often mentioned in this blog, Kushiro is a wet and cool place and it has been so before the human age. Owing to this characteristic weather condition, the ancient bottom of the sea around Kushiro didn't fully parch and formed a vast, flat and wet land. This is the origin of Kushiro Marsh. I ride on a bicycle and go around the city almost every day and it's very pleasant because everywhere is flat. This is the picture of the steepest slope in Kushiro which doesn't seem steep to me because I know hundreds of steeper slopes in Tokyo. A postman's small motorcycle was just coming up the slope very easily.

A minimum parade

Kushiro is still in the festival season. Last Sunday, when I was working in my hotel room I heard a festival music out of the window. I watched out and found this small parade carrying a portable shrine. It was the smallest parade I have once seen. The portable shrine is usually so heavy that at least twelve people are needed to carry it, however in this parade, there were only ten! They looked so tired that they soon took a rest. I have never seen such a scene that a parade is paused on the way! Only the festival music was on during their rest because it was not a live but a recorded one from a car speaker. I wonder if this parade can be held next year. The population problem is really serious here in Kushiro.