So, it's lunchtime on Sunday, and, after a short stay in Disappointment, err, Utrecht, I have a lead on a room at an IBIS hotel (semi-swanky) in The Hague. Not wanting to dork around with online screwiness, I find the bike where I left it (intact....bike theft is a huge problem in the Netherlands), and trundle bikily to the hotel. And, I'm in luck: there's a room available right now. So, Sr. Bag gets to hang out in comfort while I strike out for the Hook of Holland on the Wheeled Contraption (WC), this 50-pound lump with handlebars so curved they run into my hips if I turn too sharply. It's the ox of the bike world.
"Hook of Holland" is several things. For one thing, it's a little town waaay over by the mouth of the Rhine/Waal River. Note: "the Rhine" at its mouth is what's left of a river that splits and rejoins, like, 80 times on its way through the Netherlands: "Name This River" is not a Jeopardy category for the faint of heart 'round here.... "Hook of Holland" is also the little curl of land at the mouth, and it's ALSO a series of ports that have been here since before forever. Those ports are across the river from the immensity that's now the port of Rotterdam. Half the surface area of Rotterdam is port. That's not an estimate. It's half. They have a port museum (of course) called Futureland that closes at 5pm but you have to take this ferry from the Hook or catch the bus from the way other end of Rotterdam. "Boats as much as possible" on this trip.
So. The Wheeled Contraption and I set off on this quest, maybe 1 1/2 hours each way (ha). The first hour was fine; then I needed to navigate. 'Dutch signs' have become a bit of thing for me. I can't tell if they make sense to SOMEbody, but just have been placed poorly. Or if the red-lettered ones are for cars and the green-lettered ones are for bikes. Or maybe someone was simply having a stroke. Whatever the reason, at least one intersection indicated my destination in 3 very obviously different directions. Not always this bad, but often enough to keep you wondering all the time.
Through the various wanderings, I DID stumble across one of the enormous flood control gates on my 'to see' list: the Maeslantkering. Each of the two gates is the size of the Eiffel Tower and swings out when the sea is up. So, 'stumbling' is a term of convenience. Nothing with its own observation hill gets stumbled over.
Anyway, the last 1/2 hour getting there turned into 2 hours, which got me there in time for the 4:40 ferry, which would've gotten me to the museum 5 minutes before it closed. Crap. I hadn't really had lunch yet, so I grabbed some fish and chips and an orange Fanta, which doubled as dinner and tried to figure out what this all meant. There was clearly a commuter rail option into Rotterdam, leading maybe to a proper train back to The Hague, but, no, it was under construction and not due to open for another month. Crap. I could probably bike back faster than that. Okay. I saddled up and the WC and I headed back.
On the return, you would've thought I'd improved on my 3-hour one-way time, especially having DONE IT once already. But, but you'd be wrong. Because you would (perhaps) assume I had learned anything about that first route, which I kinda didn't. So, I got back The Hague around 7, now with a head cold acquired somewhere en route, and collapsed into bed with a box of tissue. Oh, and a sunburn.
Busy Sunday.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Phase 2: Descent and Bounce (or 'The plan du jour is...')
Okay, so the bike's in The Hague and I'm off to Utrecht. I get some sleep on the train, waking up just in time, but am still pretty zonked. I'm anxious to figure out the rental so I can zip to the hotel and collapse properly. Alas. After a schlepping my pack from one end of Utrecht Centraal Station to the other a few times, I learn that here, you need an OV card (for Dutch commuters) to rent a bike. At any price. We can mail to you in a couple weeks.
Uh. Oh. Cripe. Okay. This carefully constructed facet of the trip, while not completely unravelled, now is much closer to the 'pile of yarn' end of the spectrum than the 'sweater' end. In the absolutely immediate short-term, too, it means that a) the bike I have already rented is locked up in another town, and b) I've got a half-hour walk to the hotel before I implode in on myself.
I get to the hotel. The room isn't a total dump, but smells like Marlboro mildew, and has all the drains running through the wall just past my head. And, you know what? I don't care. Carefully balancing on one of my teeny squishy twin beds, I konk out for an hour. When I regain consciousness, I'm off in search of cash, water for the CPAP (yeah, I'm dragging my Darth Vader breathing machine around on this trip), and maybe dinner. I actually try to buy water at the nation's largest grocery chain but guess which kind of payment they don't accept? Yup. The only kind I've got. VISA.
Dinner was more successful, followed by an hour sitting in a park, watching a small crowd of chickens circulate around the place while folks grilled on their portable hibachis. All moderately entertaining, but not so much that I felt Utrecht was calling me for two nights. The room, located under the stairs and not even numbered, had strong hints of being a converted storage room. Shower room and toilet room were both shared with half a dozen other rooms, some of whom insisted on showering at 1am while loudly playing their music. I texted to my sister that 'Utrecht' was rapidly becoming the Dutch word for 'disappointment.'
Incredibly, that was all the first day. The Pack & I left early (8am) the next day. That was Sunday morning. Of course nothing but NOTHING was open then, not even coffeeshops. Well, a couple coffeeshops were open, but unless I was offering to do dishes, I wasn't going to get any coffee out of them. Because...still no cash. I guess I could have offered a "blogging for coffee" swap, but then I'd be waiting 3 months for it (apparently).
So, Pack & I had a very leiesurely, very nice walk along the Bermude Weerd Canal, about which I know practically nothing (you're welcome) other than it has a set of locks, it joins the Vlecht River (the main river running through Utrecht) and, at that confluence, all the canal tour boats park for the night. An odd find at 9am on a Sunday morning, this little herd of glass-topped boats snuggled up along the bank.
This is where Utrecht got interesting for me, going from long rows of 2 & 3 story apartment buildings from 1975, to classier and older brick buildings. The shopping also becomes, well, jeez, ubiquitous, and pretty upscale, too. Signboards for the tours appear, as do theaters, and squares surrounded by nifty restaurants. The long straight streets of the newer areas turn into these narrow winding streets that line the canals. It's the older, possibly medieval layout, that makes me happy, and it's a pattern repeated all over the Netherlands: old charming surrounded by newer charmless.
My goal for the morning was to visit Oude Touer: the tower which remained after the Germans plastered the rest of the cathedral. A side note: the Dutch are skilled at finding new reasons to dislike the Germans, but the pure devastation of World War II continues to resonate here. Which was really only the latest reason to hate the Germans.
I got a look at the tower, though the interior was being renovated and the new cathedral was holding mass. Given all that, I decided it was time to fortify, and got a very nice breakfast at a place on the tower square. Oh, and coffee. Phew. Disaster averted.
Next stop: The Hague. Deja vu, all over again.....
Uh. Oh. Cripe. Okay. This carefully constructed facet of the trip, while not completely unravelled, now is much closer to the 'pile of yarn' end of the spectrum than the 'sweater' end. In the absolutely immediate short-term, too, it means that a) the bike I have already rented is locked up in another town, and b) I've got a half-hour walk to the hotel before I implode in on myself.
I get to the hotel. The room isn't a total dump, but smells like Marlboro mildew, and has all the drains running through the wall just past my head. And, you know what? I don't care. Carefully balancing on one of my teeny squishy twin beds, I konk out for an hour. When I regain consciousness, I'm off in search of cash, water for the CPAP (yeah, I'm dragging my Darth Vader breathing machine around on this trip), and maybe dinner. I actually try to buy water at the nation's largest grocery chain but guess which kind of payment they don't accept? Yup. The only kind I've got. VISA.
Dinner was more successful, followed by an hour sitting in a park, watching a small crowd of chickens circulate around the place while folks grilled on their portable hibachis. All moderately entertaining, but not so much that I felt Utrecht was calling me for two nights. The room, located under the stairs and not even numbered, had strong hints of being a converted storage room. Shower room and toilet room were both shared with half a dozen other rooms, some of whom insisted on showering at 1am while loudly playing their music. I texted to my sister that 'Utrecht' was rapidly becoming the Dutch word for 'disappointment.'
Incredibly, that was all the first day. The Pack & I left early (8am) the next day. That was Sunday morning. Of course nothing but NOTHING was open then, not even coffeeshops. Well, a couple coffeeshops were open, but unless I was offering to do dishes, I wasn't going to get any coffee out of them. Because...still no cash. I guess I could have offered a "blogging for coffee" swap, but then I'd be waiting 3 months for it (apparently).
So, Pack & I had a very leiesurely, very nice walk along the Bermude Weerd Canal, about which I know practically nothing (you're welcome) other than it has a set of locks, it joins the Vlecht River (the main river running through Utrecht) and, at that confluence, all the canal tour boats park for the night. An odd find at 9am on a Sunday morning, this little herd of glass-topped boats snuggled up along the bank.
This is where Utrecht got interesting for me, going from long rows of 2 & 3 story apartment buildings from 1975, to classier and older brick buildings. The shopping also becomes, well, jeez, ubiquitous, and pretty upscale, too. Signboards for the tours appear, as do theaters, and squares surrounded by nifty restaurants. The long straight streets of the newer areas turn into these narrow winding streets that line the canals. It's the older, possibly medieval layout, that makes me happy, and it's a pattern repeated all over the Netherlands: old charming surrounded by newer charmless.
My goal for the morning was to visit Oude Touer: the tower which remained after the Germans plastered the rest of the cathedral. A side note: the Dutch are skilled at finding new reasons to dislike the Germans, but the pure devastation of World War II continues to resonate here. Which was really only the latest reason to hate the Germans.
I got a look at the tower, though the interior was being renovated and the new cathedral was holding mass. Given all that, I decided it was time to fortify, and got a very nice breakfast at a place on the tower square. Oh, and coffee. Phew. Disaster averted.
Next stop: The Hague. Deja vu, all over again.....
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Phase 1: Arrival (or, 'Wait....what?!)
hase 1: Arrival
I always forget how much I hate space travel. On a 9 1/2 hour flight, I go back and forth: is it better just to get there and get on with it, or do I take the layover and give my $## a break? Obviously this becomes a theoretical exercise once you're miles above Greenland. Plus, hooray! A middle seat, which pretty much guarantees 'no sleep.' I did watch 3 movies, though....couldn't tell you which ones, but I did watch them.
Suffice it to say, I showed up in Amsterdam a bit of a wreck: poorly watered, awfully tired, pretty hungry and having a little difficulty standing up. And the pack's good and burly. Yasss. Oh, also, the exchange rate at the Portland Airport was ludicrous to the point where I suspect that I misunderstood something. So, I'm there with no cash. None of these is a crisis, but some take longer than others to remedy.
My first planned stop was the bike rental place in The Hague (Den Haag [which means The Hedge {referring to someone's old hunting lodge where the 7 provinces discussed unification in the 1500s}]). That would be 2pm at the latest, after which I'd get to my first night in Utrecht.
In the planning, I thought I might take some time in Amsterdam that first day, you know, take a canal tour, see some Rembrandts. Then go The Hague. Except, The Hague and Amsterdam are in opposite directions from the airport. Throw in all the rest of this mony/food/sleep stuff and, hey, remember to add time for getting lost. Plus, man, this pack....
Right. The Hague it is.
Got there with no trouble, found the bike place, paid for my 2-week rental, and kind of tottered my way back to the central train station. The bike, as it happens, weighs about as much as my pack. For the unwary and sleep-deprived (hi), this is a nice experiment in dynamic centers of gravity. No hi-jinks ensue, fortunately.
Back at Den Haag Centraal Station, I learned that:
-nobody likes VISA, or even credit cards, here. But definitely not VISA. Mastercard is OK. AmEx to some extent. But only VISA debit cards in the train ticket machines. Credit cards are only usable with live customer service people. Did I wind up in Japan somehow?
-taking your bike on the train costs almost as much a second ticket. So much for renting in The Hague and then taking the bike with me everywhere.....
-oh, you can rent bikes from almost every train station in the Netherlands, for $4 a day. Saved! I'll park my bike here in The Hague while I figure things out in Utrecht....so tired. Now on 30 hours with no sleep...
-most Dutch banks are on different ATM networks from mine. No cash for me here.
-public toilets here at the train station are coin-op.
Hmm. Time to get out of The Hague...
I always forget how much I hate space travel. On a 9 1/2 hour flight, I go back and forth: is it better just to get there and get on with it, or do I take the layover and give my $## a break? Obviously this becomes a theoretical exercise once you're miles above Greenland. Plus, hooray! A middle seat, which pretty much guarantees 'no sleep.' I did watch 3 movies, though....couldn't tell you which ones, but I did watch them.
Suffice it to say, I showed up in Amsterdam a bit of a wreck: poorly watered, awfully tired, pretty hungry and having a little difficulty standing up. And the pack's good and burly. Yasss. Oh, also, the exchange rate at the Portland Airport was ludicrous to the point where I suspect that I misunderstood something. So, I'm there with no cash. None of these is a crisis, but some take longer than others to remedy.
My first planned stop was the bike rental place in The Hague (Den Haag [which means The Hedge {referring to someone's old hunting lodge where the 7 provinces discussed unification in the 1500s}]). That would be 2pm at the latest, after which I'd get to my first night in Utrecht.
In the planning, I thought I might take some time in Amsterdam that first day, you know, take a canal tour, see some Rembrandts. Then go The Hague. Except, The Hague and Amsterdam are in opposite directions from the airport. Throw in all the rest of this mony/food/sleep stuff and, hey, remember to add time for getting lost. Plus, man, this pack....
Right. The Hague it is.
Got there with no trouble, found the bike place, paid for my 2-week rental, and kind of tottered my way back to the central train station. The bike, as it happens, weighs about as much as my pack. For the unwary and sleep-deprived (hi), this is a nice experiment in dynamic centers of gravity. No hi-jinks ensue, fortunately.
Back at Den Haag Centraal Station, I learned that:
-nobody likes VISA, or even credit cards, here. But definitely not VISA. Mastercard is OK. AmEx to some extent. But only VISA debit cards in the train ticket machines. Credit cards are only usable with live customer service people. Did I wind up in Japan somehow?
-taking your bike on the train costs almost as much a second ticket. So much for renting in The Hague and then taking the bike with me everywhere.....
-oh, you can rent bikes from almost every train station in the Netherlands, for $4 a day. Saved! I'll park my bike here in The Hague while I figure things out in Utrecht....so tired. Now on 30 hours with no sleep...
-most Dutch banks are on different ATM networks from mine. No cash for me here.
-public toilets here at the train station are coin-op.
Hmm. Time to get out of The Hague...
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Phase 0: Leadup (or, the greatest trip ever?)
Heyo. After a bit of a delay, it's my Netherlands blog. Yeah, the headcold I picked up on Sunday has had its effect, but here we go.
So, Mitch....seriously...what is this? The Netherlands? Lemme 'splain....
This trip has kinda come out of nowhere, but also not really. I'm 4th generation Dutch. Growing up in a place called Holland, Michigan, some part of me thought I knew the Netherlands (ja, ja, windmills: check. Tulips: check. Wooden shoes: check). And I spent 3 days there while studying abroad. In December. Funny, everything was either brick colored or grey...
Something changed this summer, listening to an interview with a Dutch flood engineer. Totally matter-of-fact dude, very practical and quite reasonable. And the engineering he was describing were astounding things: big flood gates, but also lowlands and valleys being reclaimed as the natural flood storage that they are.
It got me thinking about how I hadn't gone back since college, which is actually extra-weird because I was so curious about, you know, the medieval wool trade and how it helped create the first real towns in Europe, right here in the Lowlands (meaning Belgium and the Netherlands, which were co-owned by a variety of monarchs for a while). And then modern banking spins off, international trade, etc. I mean, what's not to love about this stuff, right?
And right now you're thinking: the weird part was...which...exactly?
Anyway. I was riding my bike to work just after that interview, in the usual "joust and jockey" style now seemingly necessary in Portland commuting, and I thought to myself: 'Self, wouldn't it be great if there were a place where everyone biked and driving cars was sort of a secondary....wait a second.'
And besides that, it occurred to me that Western Michigan (where I grew up) is pretty flat, agriculturally-based country, with sand dunes running along a big lake. If I were to visit the Dutch province of Zeeland, wouldn't I find pretty flat, agriculturally-based country, with sand dunes running along a big lake? Hmm.
We're not even talking (yet) about cheese. And beer. And red cabbage. And little pastries filled with almond or whatever. Or panenkoeken, the gigantic uber-crepes that the Dutch call 'pancakes.'
We're also not talking about the astounding art or the canals. Seriously, I could even get excited about windmills and tulips.....I probably draw the line at the shoes, though....
So, Mitch....seriously...what is this? The Netherlands? Lemme 'splain....
This trip has kinda come out of nowhere, but also not really. I'm 4th generation Dutch. Growing up in a place called Holland, Michigan, some part of me thought I knew the Netherlands (ja, ja, windmills: check. Tulips: check. Wooden shoes: check). And I spent 3 days there while studying abroad. In December. Funny, everything was either brick colored or grey...
Something changed this summer, listening to an interview with a Dutch flood engineer. Totally matter-of-fact dude, very practical and quite reasonable. And the engineering he was describing were astounding things: big flood gates, but also lowlands and valleys being reclaimed as the natural flood storage that they are.
It got me thinking about how I hadn't gone back since college, which is actually extra-weird because I was so curious about, you know, the medieval wool trade and how it helped create the first real towns in Europe, right here in the Lowlands (meaning Belgium and the Netherlands, which were co-owned by a variety of monarchs for a while). And then modern banking spins off, international trade, etc. I mean, what's not to love about this stuff, right?
And right now you're thinking: the weird part was...which...exactly?
Anyway. I was riding my bike to work just after that interview, in the usual "joust and jockey" style now seemingly necessary in Portland commuting, and I thought to myself: 'Self, wouldn't it be great if there were a place where everyone biked and driving cars was sort of a secondary....wait a second.'
And besides that, it occurred to me that Western Michigan (where I grew up) is pretty flat, agriculturally-based country, with sand dunes running along a big lake. If I were to visit the Dutch province of Zeeland, wouldn't I find pretty flat, agriculturally-based country, with sand dunes running along a big lake? Hmm.
We're not even talking (yet) about cheese. And beer. And red cabbage. And little pastries filled with almond or whatever. Or panenkoeken, the gigantic uber-crepes that the Dutch call 'pancakes.'
We're also not talking about the astounding art or the canals. Seriously, I could even get excited about windmills and tulips.....I probably draw the line at the shoes, though....
Placeholder C: Tokyo and the rest
This is the last day of the trip, in which I make no attempt to see all of Tokyo in one day, and a realization about tthe Tokyo train map.
Placeholder B: Kyoto & Himeji
In which I describe Kyoto a & Himeji, an astounding fortress and a bamboo forest just parked in someone's back yard ("back yard").
Placeholder A: Train of thoughts of trains. I think.
I still have a bunch to write about Japan, but it's not quite ready, I don't want to mess up the sequence and I want to get on to the current trip. So, placeholders. Why didn't I think of this before?
So: placeholder A, in which I describe a random assortment of train related thoughts.
So: placeholder A, in which I describe a random assortment of train related thoughts.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Sewer
One thing I noticed while traveling around most of Japan was the storm sewers. I'm inclined to do this...who can say why, exactly. It certainly can't have anything to do with being employed by a sewer bureau for over a decade. Still... practically everywhere I went, the storm sewers were segmented, box by box, each 1-3' long with a removable lid, and all installed as the basis, the foundation of the sidewalk (more or less). We learned from the engineer in Usuiso that, outside the cities, most homes have their own little septic system, which overflows into the main storm drain (or, you know, the ocean, if you have one handy). I couldn't help but wonder: why there isn't more underground sewer piping and mass treatment?
[two seconds of thinking.....]
Right. In a country with this many earthquakes, how ridiculous would their repair budgets be? Ooops, broke another pipe. Ooops, there's another one. Ooops there's another one.... Why would you bury a pipe just to unbury it every 5 to 10 years? Much cheaper to pop out the small broken pieces at the surface. And before the advent of the diesel backhoe, I suspect this aspect of public health was a formidable and constant challenge. You'd think their cities would constantly have open sewage flows and probably disease outbreaks, too, if they weren't EXCEEDINGLY careful. You'd think such a society would develop a strong habit (bordering on a taboo) against wearing shoes in living spaces. Oh, wait...
I mention it because it's a reminder of how much we are influenced by our environment. In the US, for example, we perceive that we have unlimited space, and that leads us to to be loud and oblivious and to want a lot of space. In Japan, where 75% or so of the land area is unbuildable, everyone is crammed into the remaining 25% and develops a society where politeness and a certain decorum are highly prized.
I know this is a bit of a giveaway, but I'm off to the Netherlands in a few days: another country with a lot of environmental pressures. How have floods and flat land shaped their history and how people interact with each other? Stay tuned.....
[two seconds of thinking.....]
Right. In a country with this many earthquakes, how ridiculous would their repair budgets be? Ooops, broke another pipe. Ooops, there's another one. Ooops there's another one.... Why would you bury a pipe just to unbury it every 5 to 10 years? Much cheaper to pop out the small broken pieces at the surface. And before the advent of the diesel backhoe, I suspect this aspect of public health was a formidable and constant challenge. You'd think their cities would constantly have open sewage flows and probably disease outbreaks, too, if they weren't EXCEEDINGLY careful. You'd think such a society would develop a strong habit (bordering on a taboo) against wearing shoes in living spaces. Oh, wait...
I mention it because it's a reminder of how much we are influenced by our environment. In the US, for example, we perceive that we have unlimited space, and that leads us to to be loud and oblivious and to want a lot of space. In Japan, where 75% or so of the land area is unbuildable, everyone is crammed into the remaining 25% and develops a society where politeness and a certain decorum are highly prized.
I know this is a bit of a giveaway, but I'm off to the Netherlands in a few days: another country with a lot of environmental pressures. How have floods and flat land shaped their history and how people interact with each other? Stay tuned.....
Monday, September 10, 2018
More in the Middle
Well, certainly taking a 14-month break is not the ideal way to finish one's travel blog...
But I think it can be done. Because there is still so much, it seems useful to summarize up to this point: I've left off about halfway through the three weeks, in the city of Matsumoto. Since Matsumoto is on the other side of the Japanese Alps from Tokyo (north side), I continued my loop north and west to Kanazawa. After a couple days there, I headed south to Kyoto for a few days (including a half-day in Himeji) and then closed the loop with a day and a half in Tokyo.
That's the quick version.
Kanazawa
Kanazawa, almost on the Sea of Japan on the central north coast, was the capital one of the most productive (thus richest) regions of Japan. The Maeda clan ruled here for centuries, as a reward for their support of Hideyoshi, and then the Tokugawa (who ruled from 1600ish-1870ish as shogun). Now with about the same population of Portland, Kanazawa has maintained many of its historic districts, including the Samurai District, the Geisha District, and the huge Kenroku-en Garden. The Garden was built in the 1630s, probably in several phases, and at least partly as way of storing water for firefighting. It was the Outer Garden for the now-completely reconstructed Kanazawa Castle, itself worth a wander for the range of views of the city, as well as a really detailed explanation of 'how you build a castle wall in Japan.' I took careful notes.
Unfortunately, this was about the point of the trip where the backpack, the constant changing of cities, and the summer weather caught up with me. I was disappointed in myself, having lived in North Carolina for years, but 90 degrees with 80% humidity turned out to be my undoing. And then the rains, for which Kanazawa is also famous (I mentioned their agricultural success here....?).
So, the second day in Kanazawa, I didn't do that much. The fish market was probably the highlight. Earlier that week, I had seen forklifts in Hachinohe loading large stacks of styrofoam boxes, which struck me as odd. Styrofoam being, you know, pretty light. OF COURSE....they were full of fish and ice. And now, here's a bunch of styro boxes, stacked up in this market. Also, some boxes full of water, with air bubblers running into them for the...live flounder. Just lying there at the bottom, hoping no one would notice them. Blink. Blink.
Having looked at some of the fantastic little streets in and around the Geisha District the day before (funny, no one seemed to be around in the morning....), my Day Two exploration was along a winding canal/stream, thoroughly walled in rock but surrounded by all manner of restaurants and boutiques and little houses. This was just a block or two off The Main Drag. Impressive contrast. But it also rained like crazy that day, so hunkering down in the hotel wasn't so bad. A related note: umbrellas are generally considered public property in Japan. If it's in the umbrella rack, dripping, you can apparently walk off with it. Which inspired a couple of after-dinner "&*$#!" moments...
I didn't get to everything I'd hoped to in Kanazawa, mostly notably the Sea of Japan, less than a mile away. I guess the compromise was: given the rain, the Sea of Japan had, instead, come to me. This region of Japan, is also well-known for its onsen (including one where they soft-boil eggs in the water (yum?)). Missed those, too. Whenever I go back, I expect I'll spend a bunch of time poking around here more carefully.
Although we'll see about the eggs...
But I think it can be done. Because there is still so much, it seems useful to summarize up to this point: I've left off about halfway through the three weeks, in the city of Matsumoto. Since Matsumoto is on the other side of the Japanese Alps from Tokyo (north side), I continued my loop north and west to Kanazawa. After a couple days there, I headed south to Kyoto for a few days (including a half-day in Himeji) and then closed the loop with a day and a half in Tokyo.
That's the quick version.
Kanazawa
Kanazawa, almost on the Sea of Japan on the central north coast, was the capital one of the most productive (thus richest) regions of Japan. The Maeda clan ruled here for centuries, as a reward for their support of Hideyoshi, and then the Tokugawa (who ruled from 1600ish-1870ish as shogun). Now with about the same population of Portland, Kanazawa has maintained many of its historic districts, including the Samurai District, the Geisha District, and the huge Kenroku-en Garden. The Garden was built in the 1630s, probably in several phases, and at least partly as way of storing water for firefighting. It was the Outer Garden for the now-completely reconstructed Kanazawa Castle, itself worth a wander for the range of views of the city, as well as a really detailed explanation of 'how you build a castle wall in Japan.' I took careful notes.
Unfortunately, this was about the point of the trip where the backpack, the constant changing of cities, and the summer weather caught up with me. I was disappointed in myself, having lived in North Carolina for years, but 90 degrees with 80% humidity turned out to be my undoing. And then the rains, for which Kanazawa is also famous (I mentioned their agricultural success here....?).
So, the second day in Kanazawa, I didn't do that much. The fish market was probably the highlight. Earlier that week, I had seen forklifts in Hachinohe loading large stacks of styrofoam boxes, which struck me as odd. Styrofoam being, you know, pretty light. OF COURSE....they were full of fish and ice. And now, here's a bunch of styro boxes, stacked up in this market. Also, some boxes full of water, with air bubblers running into them for the...live flounder. Just lying there at the bottom, hoping no one would notice them. Blink. Blink.
Having looked at some of the fantastic little streets in and around the Geisha District the day before (funny, no one seemed to be around in the morning....), my Day Two exploration was along a winding canal/stream, thoroughly walled in rock but surrounded by all manner of restaurants and boutiques and little houses. This was just a block or two off The Main Drag. Impressive contrast. But it also rained like crazy that day, so hunkering down in the hotel wasn't so bad. A related note: umbrellas are generally considered public property in Japan. If it's in the umbrella rack, dripping, you can apparently walk off with it. Which inspired a couple of after-dinner "&*$#!" moments...
I didn't get to everything I'd hoped to in Kanazawa, mostly notably the Sea of Japan, less than a mile away. I guess the compromise was: given the rain, the Sea of Japan had, instead, come to me. This region of Japan, is also well-known for its onsen (including one where they soft-boil eggs in the water (yum?)). Missed those, too. Whenever I go back, I expect I'll spend a bunch of time poking around here more carefully.
Although we'll see about the eggs...
On Onsen
Dawn, who I work with, has been to Japan many times to visit her husband's family. "There are two things you must not miss in Japan," she told me before I left. "Trains and onsen." 'Trains' I get, am easily pumped up for, and have mentioned/will mention often in this blog. 'Hot springs' are...fine, but I haven't really gone out of my way for them.
But Dawn was right. And I was wrong: apparently, I AM going to wax poetical about onsen.
'Onsen' (I understand there are no plural forms in Japanese grammar) are a kind of hot springs bathhouse. Depending on where you are, the water may contain some kind of minerals, that have some kind of healing property and some of them (like Asama Onsen) have been around for centuries. You can find bathhouses with heated water, but, to be an onsen, the water has to be geo-thermally heated (as I understand it), not a water-heater. Surprising NO ONE, the Japanese have a national agency that certifies which places are 'onsen,' and which are merely 'sento.'
Because onsen are important to the Japanese, as Dawn suggests. They're not merely hot springs, although I can only speculate why not. Part of it is probably the ritual: everyone soaps off before, swimsuits are not allowed, no tattoos (it's a family place...Japanese gangsters [yakuza] are known for tattoos), and you're not allowed to put your face in the water, so you keep your little face cloth on top of your head. Obviously, they're divided into men's and women's, and I didn't see a lot of socializing. Then again, as a gaijin (foreigner), it's entirely possible people didn't want to talk around me.
And then....you soak. Mostly it's in the hot pool, but there's also a cold pool, and typically a bench or two out in a walled garden. In one hotel, the whole onsen was on the 15th floor, so the bench was out on the balcony behind a 5-foot wall. The whole experience, taken over 30-40 minutes, is surprisingly soothing, but also invigorating....and very Japanese.
We talked with a local owner in Ishinomaki. If I recall, his onsen was completely slammed after the tsunami, and a pump failure nearly created a crisis. Sure, folks wanted to clean off, but it was clearly a much needed comfort. I'd be interested to know what percent of the population uses an onsen, and how often. I'M certainly a fan...
But Dawn was right. And I was wrong: apparently, I AM going to wax poetical about onsen.
'Onsen' (I understand there are no plural forms in Japanese grammar) are a kind of hot springs bathhouse. Depending on where you are, the water may contain some kind of minerals, that have some kind of healing property and some of them (like Asama Onsen) have been around for centuries. You can find bathhouses with heated water, but, to be an onsen, the water has to be geo-thermally heated (as I understand it), not a water-heater. Surprising NO ONE, the Japanese have a national agency that certifies which places are 'onsen,' and which are merely 'sento.'
Because onsen are important to the Japanese, as Dawn suggests. They're not merely hot springs, although I can only speculate why not. Part of it is probably the ritual: everyone soaps off before, swimsuits are not allowed, no tattoos (it's a family place...Japanese gangsters [yakuza] are known for tattoos), and you're not allowed to put your face in the water, so you keep your little face cloth on top of your head. Obviously, they're divided into men's and women's, and I didn't see a lot of socializing. Then again, as a gaijin (foreigner), it's entirely possible people didn't want to talk around me.
And then....you soak. Mostly it's in the hot pool, but there's also a cold pool, and typically a bench or two out in a walled garden. In one hotel, the whole onsen was on the 15th floor, so the bench was out on the balcony behind a 5-foot wall. The whole experience, taken over 30-40 minutes, is surprisingly soothing, but also invigorating....and very Japanese.
We talked with a local owner in Ishinomaki. If I recall, his onsen was completely slammed after the tsunami, and a pump failure nearly created a crisis. Sure, folks wanted to clean off, but it was clearly a much needed comfort. I'd be interested to know what percent of the population uses an onsen, and how often. I'M certainly a fan...
Friday, February 2, 2018
Most of Japan is South of Hachinohe...
Alright. Time to start wrapping this up. Here's a post I wrote on 7/5/17 about the previous week (6/28)....
"I'm realizing that my blogging is a little heavy on detail, so I'm going to do less travelog and more story-telling [ha! MB 2/2/18]. Let me know if that's working....
Hachinohe was a pleasant enough place. It appears to be a port city in decline, and probably for 15 years or more. The entire Tohoku region has been losing youth to the bigger cities forever; Tohoku and everywhere else in the world. So, I didn't hang out long, and took off Tuesday for Matsumoto, tucked in amidst the Japanese Alps.
The usual hash of reroutes and adjusted expectations didn't keep from getting there by mid-afternoon. I did some laundry and shopping and came across, of all things, a Big Boy. This is a Midwestern restaurant chain that has no earthly business in the valley cities of mid-Japan. Yet, there it was. Obviously, I had to see what that's all about.
It was okay, and...pretty different. The full meal deal included salad, soup (miso), rice and a beef curry. Hmm. And the hamburgers ALL failed to have buns. "Hamburg steaks" is how they're billed. Most curious. [as it happens, Big Boy has mostly disappeared from the US {79 stores}; almost all the remaining Big Boys are IN Japan {279 stores!} 2/2/18]
Wednesday was full. Matsumoto Castle, across the street from my hostel, was great. Virtually every castle or palace I've visited in Japan has been rebuilt to some degree and at some more recent time. This speaks to the enormous fire risks Japan is subject to; I assume that's a response to primarily woodframe construction. That and, you know, some wars.
But Matsumoto Castle is intact, going back to the late 1500s and the rise of the Edo period. Somehow that feels important, even though the shuffling crowds and lack of any furniture make the insides of all of these castles...hard to grasp. Still, there was enough interpretation to get it, plus, like, it's a friggin' 7-story building made of wood. Standing in the middle of this ring of mountains with a full view of the valley. Gives some insight on how these feudal estates formed. If you think about that kind of thing...
And, of course, Matsumoto Castle ("the Crow Castle" from all the black siding) is totally photogenic: it already graces the cover of my FaceBorg account. No idea how I'm going to decide which photos to keep...
So, a full morning. I took advantage of one local specialty for lunch: soba, or buckwheat, noodles. Pretty tasty, and, yes, everyone else WAS slurping. The other specialty for the mid-mountain region (Nagano/Matsumoto-ish) I did not try: basashi, or horsemeat sushi. Yeah, raw. Outside my current culinary capacity.
The afternoon was dedicated to getting to, and soaking in, the Asama Onsen, or natural hot spring baths. I'm not going to wax too poetical about onsen....but they're pretty relaxing. Getting there and back, somewhat less so.
Ah, and there I go into travelog mode. Time for a break.
"I'm realizing that my blogging is a little heavy on detail, so I'm going to do less travelog and more story-telling [ha! MB 2/2/18]. Let me know if that's working....
Hachinohe was a pleasant enough place. It appears to be a port city in decline, and probably for 15 years or more. The entire Tohoku region has been losing youth to the bigger cities forever; Tohoku and everywhere else in the world. So, I didn't hang out long, and took off Tuesday for Matsumoto, tucked in amidst the Japanese Alps.
The usual hash of reroutes and adjusted expectations didn't keep from getting there by mid-afternoon. I did some laundry and shopping and came across, of all things, a Big Boy. This is a Midwestern restaurant chain that has no earthly business in the valley cities of mid-Japan. Yet, there it was. Obviously, I had to see what that's all about.
It was okay, and...pretty different. The full meal deal included salad, soup (miso), rice and a beef curry. Hmm. And the hamburgers ALL failed to have buns. "Hamburg steaks" is how they're billed. Most curious. [as it happens, Big Boy has mostly disappeared from the US {79 stores}; almost all the remaining Big Boys are IN Japan {279 stores!} 2/2/18]
Wednesday was full. Matsumoto Castle, across the street from my hostel, was great. Virtually every castle or palace I've visited in Japan has been rebuilt to some degree and at some more recent time. This speaks to the enormous fire risks Japan is subject to; I assume that's a response to primarily woodframe construction. That and, you know, some wars.
But Matsumoto Castle is intact, going back to the late 1500s and the rise of the Edo period. Somehow that feels important, even though the shuffling crowds and lack of any furniture make the insides of all of these castles...hard to grasp. Still, there was enough interpretation to get it, plus, like, it's a friggin' 7-story building made of wood. Standing in the middle of this ring of mountains with a full view of the valley. Gives some insight on how these feudal estates formed. If you think about that kind of thing...
And, of course, Matsumoto Castle ("the Crow Castle" from all the black siding) is totally photogenic: it already graces the cover of my FaceBorg account. No idea how I'm going to decide which photos to keep...
So, a full morning. I took advantage of one local specialty for lunch: soba, or buckwheat, noodles. Pretty tasty, and, yes, everyone else WAS slurping. The other specialty for the mid-mountain region (Nagano/Matsumoto-ish) I did not try: basashi, or horsemeat sushi. Yeah, raw. Outside my current culinary capacity.
The afternoon was dedicated to getting to, and soaking in, the Asama Onsen, or natural hot spring baths. I'm not going to wax too poetical about onsen....but they're pretty relaxing. Getting there and back, somewhat less so.
Ah, and there I go into travelog mode. Time for a break.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Kasagi no O-kuki
"The torii crosspieces from Okuki"
Trying to pick up the blog thread...this post is the Monday after the rest of the group headed south to Tokyo, and I headed north to Hachinohe, not too far from the northern end of "the big island." And it's mostly the tale of the torii.
Torii are the large red gates that look like 'pi' to Westerners. They're actually part of Shinto shrines, and at least two were washed away in the Great East Japan Earthquake in March of 2011 (and I hope someone will correct me where I've gone astray). Somehow, they washed up on the Oregon coast two years later. Through a remarkable chain of events, they ended up in the care of the Portland Japanese Garden, which spent two years discovering where they were from and getting them back. These kasagi, or crosspieces, are considered sacred objects, and their return was kind of a big deal. The whole story is here:
https://japanesegarden.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Kasagi-Story-July-Final.pdf
This became one of my quests not too long after deciding I was going to Japan. Given that I've come to Japan to learn more about their experience with the tsunami, it seemed fitting to visit these torii. And things seemed to fall into place: the lady at the hotel tracked down all the train info, I failed to mess that up, and I got to the breakwater the shrine and torii now reside. Ooooh, but there's a cyclone fence. Okay, I'll check it out. Oo, there's a gate, and it's unlocked. Oh, but there are gulls. And it's.....nesting season. Actually, there are medium-aged chicks staggering around everywhere, not quite ready to fly. That's right: it's fledge week.
Woo, and loud. And there are a LOT of them. Just strolling through seemed really unwise, with real risk for stepping on somebody. Also, honestly, that many yelling birds raises the Hitchcock Factor for me. Plus, I mean, freaking out a bunch of other critters just to get to a Shinto shrine rather seemed to miss the point of Shinto shrines. So I shuffled along for, mm, a while, no doubt to the amusement of the fishermen who base their boats all up and down this cove, and made it about halfway to the torii. Just close enough for a zoom photo of the words 'Portland Japanese Garden' now etched in them.
Trying to pick up the blog thread...this post is the Monday after the rest of the group headed south to Tokyo, and I headed north to Hachinohe, not too far from the northern end of "the big island." And it's mostly the tale of the torii.
Torii are the large red gates that look like 'pi' to Westerners. They're actually part of Shinto shrines, and at least two were washed away in the Great East Japan Earthquake in March of 2011 (and I hope someone will correct me where I've gone astray). Somehow, they washed up on the Oregon coast two years later. Through a remarkable chain of events, they ended up in the care of the Portland Japanese Garden, which spent two years discovering where they were from and getting them back. These kasagi, or crosspieces, are considered sacred objects, and their return was kind of a big deal. The whole story is here:
https://japanesegarden.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Kasagi-Story-July-Final.pdf
This became one of my quests not too long after deciding I was going to Japan. Given that I've come to Japan to learn more about their experience with the tsunami, it seemed fitting to visit these torii. And things seemed to fall into place: the lady at the hotel tracked down all the train info, I failed to mess that up, and I got to the breakwater the shrine and torii now reside. Ooooh, but there's a cyclone fence. Okay, I'll check it out. Oo, there's a gate, and it's unlocked. Oh, but there are gulls. And it's.....nesting season. Actually, there are medium-aged chicks staggering around everywhere, not quite ready to fly. That's right: it's fledge week.
Woo, and loud. And there are a LOT of them. Just strolling through seemed really unwise, with real risk for stepping on somebody. Also, honestly, that many yelling birds raises the Hitchcock Factor for me. Plus, I mean, freaking out a bunch of other critters just to get to a Shinto shrine rather seemed to miss the point of Shinto shrines. So I shuffled along for, mm, a while, no doubt to the amusement of the fishermen who base their boats all up and down this cove, and made it about halfway to the torii. Just close enough for a zoom photo of the words 'Portland Japanese Garden' now etched in them.
Phew. Worth it, if a little roundabout. I don't know how to do things any other way.
Wrapping Up the PSU Week
The last day of the program, (Saturday, 6/24), was a bit more of a blur than some other days, if maybe only because we spent less time on the bus! In the morning, we heard from a couple of folks working on replacement housing. Six years later, there are still 100,000 people in temporary housing! And the social dynamics are real. Throw a bunch of fishermen among the farmers, a crowd of folks on government assistance among the still-working...it gets tense. The big breakthrough was assigning housing by neighborhood, rather than by lottery, which helped keep some group cohesion. Apparently that was an important factor, although I could imagine it going the other way, too.
After checking out the early construction phase of their new development (adding layers of dirt for a couple years, remember), we visited some of future residents at a local Shinto shrine. Then, off to the oyster farm! I gotta tell you, I'm not much of an oyster guy, myself, but getting out on the water, and watching these guys do their thing....an excellent way to wrap up the week.
Well, not totally wrap-up. There was a group photo or TWELVE that had to happen first....but eventually we were, reluctantly, allowed to leave. Our hosts were very sweet.
I'm looking forward to getting everyone's thoughts and revisiting with the group, who will be presenting our thoughts at PSU from 3-4:30pm on July 15th (Smith Student Union, #296/8), if you'd like to see the song and dance version ('Tohoku: the musical!'). RSVP here:
https://app.e2ma.net/app2/survey/1743317/213080351/1a3f528a7f/1296518613/40236501/458114517/?v=a
Flyer is here:
https://www.pdx.edu/cps/sites/www.pdx.edu.cps/files/SaveTheDate%20Flyer%20Student%20Presentations%206.29.17.pdf
After checking out the early construction phase of their new development (adding layers of dirt for a couple years, remember), we visited some of future residents at a local Shinto shrine. Then, off to the oyster farm! I gotta tell you, I'm not much of an oyster guy, myself, but getting out on the water, and watching these guys do their thing....an excellent way to wrap up the week.
Well, not totally wrap-up. There was a group photo or TWELVE that had to happen first....but eventually we were, reluctantly, allowed to leave. Our hosts were very sweet.
I'm looking forward to getting everyone's thoughts and revisiting with the group, who will be presenting our thoughts at PSU from 3-4:30pm on July 15th (Smith Student Union, #296/8), if you'd like to see the song and dance version ('Tohoku: the musical!'). RSVP here:
https://app.e2ma.net/app2/survey/1743317/213080351/1a3f528a7f/1296518613/40236501/458114517/?v=a
Flyer is here:
https://www.pdx.edu/cps/sites/www.pdx.edu.cps/files/SaveTheDate%20Flyer%20Student%20Presentations%206.29.17.pdf
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Hurtling Toward the "Finish"
So, I left off in Rikuzentakata, where mostly we heard from folks talking about surviving or rebuilding from a tsunami. The Japanese are pretty good at dealing with earthquakes; it was pointed out more than once that, without the tsunami, the damage and loss of life wouldn't have been nearly as severe. The tsunami was much tougher.
This is one of those times of sorting out the overlap between what they had to offer and what we really need. Tsunami strategy translates easily to the Oregon coast, but for Portland, it's not as clear. What other surprise risks do we need to prepare for? Uhh...if we knew....
We did hear from a firefighter, a cool guy we all said we wanted to go for a beer with. He worked for 51 straight days because 25% of their staff died helping people. We all kind of stared. That's a conflict. That's THE conflict for NET, but even more for the pros: do your job fully and pay the price, or hold back and be around to help with the aftermath. Cruel choices.
I think that's the place our afternoon exercise was coming from: practice making cruel choices, to see how we react. Unfortunately for the class, the exercise wasn't probably robust enough to get us to the level of panic. Larry, who worked ambulances in the Bay Area during Loma Prieta, was completely unfazed, as was Barb, our FEMA reservist. But even the rest of us were kind of waiting for the stuff to get really horrible. Felt bad for the lady running it, 'cause her exercise had clearly unhinged previous groups. She certainly gave us things to think about, especially given her time in the GEJE aftermath, but I think she also learned a bunch from us.
Friday morning we heard more from city planners about reconstruction, and then headed down the coast to Ishinomaki. Ishinomaki is a city of about 100,000 people, and so more like Portland. There, we heard from one of the city's disaster managers at the time, a practical man and (understandably) now retired. He talked a bit about shelters (had identified 16, now 100, all reinforced concrete) where they store supplies, like meals (had 12,000; now 50,000, mostly at government expense). Except, here's the thing. If this happens again, they expect 70,000 displaced people, and assume 2 meals/day. Uh, math concerns....
So, expectations #1 and #2 are that people are bringing food with them, and folks know to do this. Expectation #3 is that food will arrive from outside by day 4, as it did in 2011. I don't think any of these apply to Portland, so that's, uh, something to think about.
On a side note, Friday was one of my more memorable birthdays. Never bused around the coast of Japan before, plus, after hearing from Ishinomaki's planner, we headed over to the local onsen (natural hot springs bathhouse) for a proper Japanese soak. Extremely cool, in a 115-degree way...
And to wrap up the day, there was already a barbecue planned, which was its own kind of mayhem. Lots of sausages (without buns; the Japanese don't seem to believe in them), eggplant and acorn squash for grilling, and, out of nowhere, a cheese pizza. I've never been more surprised and thrilled to see a cheese pizza.
Finally, I had mostly kept the birthday thing quiet, but I mentioned it to one of the Japanese ukelele players (it was THAT kind of party), and within 10 seconds, everyone in the band (15 or 20?) was singing happy birthday. With the expected pause near the end when folks realized they didn't really know who they were singing FOR, but, okay, whatever, and crashing through for the obligatory enthusiastic finish. Awesome. I'd recommend it to anyone.
This is one of those times of sorting out the overlap between what they had to offer and what we really need. Tsunami strategy translates easily to the Oregon coast, but for Portland, it's not as clear. What other surprise risks do we need to prepare for? Uhh...if we knew....
We did hear from a firefighter, a cool guy we all said we wanted to go for a beer with. He worked for 51 straight days because 25% of their staff died helping people. We all kind of stared. That's a conflict. That's THE conflict for NET, but even more for the pros: do your job fully and pay the price, or hold back and be around to help with the aftermath. Cruel choices.
I think that's the place our afternoon exercise was coming from: practice making cruel choices, to see how we react. Unfortunately for the class, the exercise wasn't probably robust enough to get us to the level of panic. Larry, who worked ambulances in the Bay Area during Loma Prieta, was completely unfazed, as was Barb, our FEMA reservist. But even the rest of us were kind of waiting for the stuff to get really horrible. Felt bad for the lady running it, 'cause her exercise had clearly unhinged previous groups. She certainly gave us things to think about, especially given her time in the GEJE aftermath, but I think she also learned a bunch from us.
Friday morning we heard more from city planners about reconstruction, and then headed down the coast to Ishinomaki. Ishinomaki is a city of about 100,000 people, and so more like Portland. There, we heard from one of the city's disaster managers at the time, a practical man and (understandably) now retired. He talked a bit about shelters (had identified 16, now 100, all reinforced concrete) where they store supplies, like meals (had 12,000; now 50,000, mostly at government expense). Except, here's the thing. If this happens again, they expect 70,000 displaced people, and assume 2 meals/day. Uh, math concerns....
So, expectations #1 and #2 are that people are bringing food with them, and folks know to do this. Expectation #3 is that food will arrive from outside by day 4, as it did in 2011. I don't think any of these apply to Portland, so that's, uh, something to think about.
On a side note, Friday was one of my more memorable birthdays. Never bused around the coast of Japan before, plus, after hearing from Ishinomaki's planner, we headed over to the local onsen (natural hot springs bathhouse) for a proper Japanese soak. Extremely cool, in a 115-degree way...
And to wrap up the day, there was already a barbecue planned, which was its own kind of mayhem. Lots of sausages (without buns; the Japanese don't seem to believe in them), eggplant and acorn squash for grilling, and, out of nowhere, a cheese pizza. I've never been more surprised and thrilled to see a cheese pizza.
Finally, I had mostly kept the birthday thing quiet, but I mentioned it to one of the Japanese ukelele players (it was THAT kind of party), and within 10 seconds, everyone in the band (15 or 20?) was singing happy birthday. With the expected pause near the end when folks realized they didn't really know who they were singing FOR, but, okay, whatever, and crashing through for the obligatory enthusiastic finish. Awesome. I'd recommend it to anyone.
A Boost in Rikuzen-takata
And we thought the seawall project in Usuiso was mammoth. And it is. $106 million is a lot of rolled quarters. But compared to Rikuzen-takata, that's exactly what it is. It's sofa change. Steve estimated the dirt required to raise the downtown by 12 meters (38-40 feet) would cost about a billion dollars, assuming downtown was, what? a square mile? Less?
When we arrived Wednesday evening, our planned tour of some key sites mostly got rained out. But we did stop at a service area, unusual to our eyes in that it featured grandstand-style seating, looking out over the...I wasn't sure. Here it is in the rain:
It's about a 4-story concrete structure, and way up on the top, even above those slit windows, on the tiny roof of this thing, two guys survived the tsunami. Because the water wasn't QUITE that high. It's one of the scarier things I can think of, suddenly being a mile "offshore" in the middle of the ocean, when the only thing you know you can do on your own behalf is 'stay put.' And that might not be enough, either.
The other things on our tour would've been the Miracle Tree, the one surviving pine of an original 70,000. You can see the new seawall in the background:
And we also would've seen the middle school where the teacher decided, given the duration of the earthquake, to lead students to higher ground beyond the designated meeting place. The designated location was, in fact, overwhelmed, but all the students were safe somewhere else, thanks to someone not following the rules. Mmm.
So, the leading advice from folks on the coast: run like hell when the ground stops shaking. Even after the new seawall, the new tidal gate, the newly-lifted downtown, that's still the takeaway: go outside and git.
Because around here, that's apparently easier said than done. It didn't help that there had been a handful of false alarms, including just two days earlier. It sounds like many people blew it off. I wonder if the Oregon coast would have an equal but opposite reaction, of full-blown panicked dithering, that would amount to essentially the same result. I'd like to think not, but with mid-summer tourists around?
Next up: the value of NET training!
When we arrived Wednesday evening, our planned tour of some key sites mostly got rained out. But we did stop at a service area, unusual to our eyes in that it featured grandstand-style seating, looking out over the...I wasn't sure. Here it is in the rain:
The other things on our tour would've been the Miracle Tree, the one surviving pine of an original 70,000. You can see the new seawall in the background:
So, the leading advice from folks on the coast: run like hell when the ground stops shaking. Even after the new seawall, the new tidal gate, the newly-lifted downtown, that's still the takeaway: go outside and git.
Because around here, that's apparently easier said than done. It didn't help that there had been a handful of false alarms, including just two days earlier. It sounds like many people blew it off. I wonder if the Oregon coast would have an equal but opposite reaction, of full-blown panicked dithering, that would amount to essentially the same result. I'd like to think not, but with mid-summer tourists around?
Next up: the value of NET training!
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Is the Road Supposed To Do That?
So, back to the tale at hand, where I left off on Wednesday, 6/22, with a brief sketch of the morning in Sendai before going back to the coast.
Our presentations Wednesday, and I've talked with Masami about this, were not good. Some scheduling goofs, sure, and some language stuff, maybe, but no coherent structure, even in the handouts. For me, it gets back to: what kind of information do the Japanese have to give, and what kind of information do we Portlanders need? Obviously, there's no perfect overlap, so our challenge as participants is to sort the two out. Personally, I've been trying to look at all of this through a NET lens; some talks have fared better than others. Our Wednesdays speakers have done intriguing work in the aftermath, but I struggle to find the relevance to Portland. Labor trends in Northern Japan, no matter how extensive the surveys, just....I'm still working on it. Someone else in the group may very well be thinking "oh, you know what that reminds me of?"
After a quick lunch, we jumped in our crazy little buslet, our demi-bus, our busette, and motored up to the mountain road to Rikuzen-takata. I'm putting in a hyphen that isn't normally there, because it makes it clearer to my English-reading eyes where the pronunciation break is. In case you were wondering.
The trip up to the turnoff was hair-raising, even for me, because the bus's suspension was so shot that, at highway speeds, any lane change or course correction caused the back of the bus to roll madly from side to side, to the VISIBLE consternation of our fellow motorists. Official protests from within the bus were lodged and received....
Fortunately, the bus behaved better at lower speeds and, once we turned off into the mountains, there was no doubting this road's intention to have us drive at lower speeds. Which gave us a better look at the farms, the forests, the road up ahead/down below...
It's worth noting here how much rice is grown in Japan. I'd never given it much thought, but apparently Japan is self-sufficient for rice, if not much else. The paddies are everywhere (EVERYwhere), including stair-stepped up these mountainsides. I've seen a bit of corn and some clover cover crops, but so far, it has been 98% rice. It's like driving through Iowa, except I'd expect to see some soy even there. Here...nope. Is it possible that it's being imported from Iowa?
This was also the road that will have inspired a post on native/invasive plants in Japan. There's just no escaping it. OR knotweed. I don't want to talk about it right now.
But I will.
So, this is the road with real switchbacks, but also something I'm not sure I've ever seen before: a corkscrew. The road descends off a pass, goes out into the valley on its concrete stilty piers, and then drops down under itself to continue down the valley. It just seemed so random and almost theme-parky, especially where they closed our lane for construction at the very bottom. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to take a picture, but I don't evem know if that'd capture it. Too bad Barb slept through it. Sleeps on buses motoring through hairpin turns: Barb's pretty hardcore.
As we made it through the mountains to the coast, the rain intensified, making our arrival tour pretty soggy. But that's more related to other Rikuzen-takata stuff from Thursday. Stay tuned...
Our presentations Wednesday, and I've talked with Masami about this, were not good. Some scheduling goofs, sure, and some language stuff, maybe, but no coherent structure, even in the handouts. For me, it gets back to: what kind of information do the Japanese have to give, and what kind of information do we Portlanders need? Obviously, there's no perfect overlap, so our challenge as participants is to sort the two out. Personally, I've been trying to look at all of this through a NET lens; some talks have fared better than others. Our Wednesdays speakers have done intriguing work in the aftermath, but I struggle to find the relevance to Portland. Labor trends in Northern Japan, no matter how extensive the surveys, just....I'm still working on it. Someone else in the group may very well be thinking "oh, you know what that reminds me of?"
After a quick lunch, we jumped in our crazy little buslet, our demi-bus, our busette, and motored up to the mountain road to Rikuzen-takata. I'm putting in a hyphen that isn't normally there, because it makes it clearer to my English-reading eyes where the pronunciation break is. In case you were wondering.
The trip up to the turnoff was hair-raising, even for me, because the bus's suspension was so shot that, at highway speeds, any lane change or course correction caused the back of the bus to roll madly from side to side, to the VISIBLE consternation of our fellow motorists. Official protests from within the bus were lodged and received....
Fortunately, the bus behaved better at lower speeds and, once we turned off into the mountains, there was no doubting this road's intention to have us drive at lower speeds. Which gave us a better look at the farms, the forests, the road up ahead/down below...
It's worth noting here how much rice is grown in Japan. I'd never given it much thought, but apparently Japan is self-sufficient for rice, if not much else. The paddies are everywhere (EVERYwhere), including stair-stepped up these mountainsides. I've seen a bit of corn and some clover cover crops, but so far, it has been 98% rice. It's like driving through Iowa, except I'd expect to see some soy even there. Here...nope. Is it possible that it's being imported from Iowa?
This was also the road that will have inspired a post on native/invasive plants in Japan. There's just no escaping it. OR knotweed. I don't want to talk about it right now.
But I will.
So, this is the road with real switchbacks, but also something I'm not sure I've ever seen before: a corkscrew. The road descends off a pass, goes out into the valley on its concrete stilty piers, and then drops down under itself to continue down the valley. It just seemed so random and almost theme-parky, especially where they closed our lane for construction at the very bottom. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to take a picture, but I don't evem know if that'd capture it. Too bad Barb slept through it. Sleeps on buses motoring through hairpin turns: Barb's pretty hardcore.
As we made it through the mountains to the coast, the rain intensified, making our arrival tour pretty soggy. But that's more related to other Rikuzen-takata stuff from Thursday. Stay tuned...
Who are these people, anyway?
Yep, still alive over here! Busy few days, and some minor plan shifts...
As folks start to ask more questions about the week, I realized I've never really introduced our class.
As near as I can tell, this one-week class was the pilot for future field trips as PSU's Hatfield School of Government develops a community disaster resilience specialization within their masters of public administration (MPA). The intention is to repeat this trip, for students and not-exactly-students like me, every year.
So, leading the trip were Dr. Masami Nishishiba, department chair and bigwig on community and organizational structure, and Dr. Hiro Ito, professor of economics with a focus on global economics. Obviously, this is grossly simplifies their interests and talents, so, my apologies. Did I mention they're both awesome? Josh from Hatfield also joined us as program coordinator/'group photo herder extraordinaire' and badly needs a vacation right about now. All three were raised in Japan, and all did substantial amounts of translation (both verbal and cultural!).
The 9 of us were:
--me [with some preparedness/NET background and a smattering of other stuff]
--Barb [working on continuity plans for Portland Parks, is a FEMA reservist and professional badass]
--Kate [also working on her masters at PSU, she speaks Japanese, so we bugged her a lot]
--Evan [wrapping up his degree in Japanese Studies; bugged HIM a lot, too]
--Robin [retired from social work, daughter works with Josh; always ready with a question]
--Larry [nearly retired emergency manager from Medford; always ready with a story, usually about being a paramedic in San Francisco in the '70s...which, uh...that's a different blog]
--Steve [a fellow NET from the next neighborhood over, he's a construction manager for a local contracting firm, also in grad school]
--Rob [an almost-former architect working on his masters, with a really good camera usually in hand and an eye for detail]
In some important ways, this felt like a bit of a supergoup, with everyone chipping in some key insight or expertise. There was nowhere we went where someone didn't say, "oh, you know what this reminds me of...?" And everyone got to be that person regularly. I found that impressive and kind of thrilling. It was also a group that stayed loose all week [although Mitchy got a little frazzled that last day or so...sorry, guys]. Mostly folks were just fun. It doesn't always work like that....
As folks start to ask more questions about the week, I realized I've never really introduced our class.
As near as I can tell, this one-week class was the pilot for future field trips as PSU's Hatfield School of Government develops a community disaster resilience specialization within their masters of public administration (MPA). The intention is to repeat this trip, for students and not-exactly-students like me, every year.
So, leading the trip were Dr. Masami Nishishiba, department chair and bigwig on community and organizational structure, and Dr. Hiro Ito, professor of economics with a focus on global economics. Obviously, this is grossly simplifies their interests and talents, so, my apologies. Did I mention they're both awesome? Josh from Hatfield also joined us as program coordinator/'group photo herder extraordinaire' and badly needs a vacation right about now. All three were raised in Japan, and all did substantial amounts of translation (both verbal and cultural!).
The 9 of us were:
--me [with some preparedness/NET background and a smattering of other stuff]
--Barb [working on continuity plans for Portland Parks, is a FEMA reservist and professional badass]
--Kate [also working on her masters at PSU, she speaks Japanese, so we bugged her a lot]
--Evan [wrapping up his degree in Japanese Studies; bugged HIM a lot, too]
--Robin [retired from social work, daughter works with Josh; always ready with a question]
--Larry [nearly retired emergency manager from Medford; always ready with a story, usually about being a paramedic in San Francisco in the '70s...which, uh...that's a different blog]
--Steve [a fellow NET from the next neighborhood over, he's a construction manager for a local contracting firm, also in grad school]
--Rob [an almost-former architect working on his masters, with a really good camera usually in hand and an eye for detail]
In some important ways, this felt like a bit of a supergoup, with everyone chipping in some key insight or expertise. There was nowhere we went where someone didn't say, "oh, you know what this reminds me of...?" And everyone got to be that person regularly. I found that impressive and kind of thrilling. It was also a group that stayed loose all week [although Mitchy got a little frazzled that last day or so...sorry, guys]. Mostly folks were just fun. It doesn't always work like that....
Thursday, June 22, 2017
A Seawall in Usuiso
It's a breezy day here on the Tohoku coast. I'm looking out at the ocean from the re-emerging Rikuzen-takata. One thing I've noticed (among many), is the widespread use of flags. Tour guides use them to lead their groups,construction sites use them everywhere. They're usually the long and narrow type, on 6' poles, now common on the Oregon coast and elsewhere. I gather this type was long-used by Japanese armies, so not really surprising to see them here. Perhaps more odd that it seems familiar.
I left the telling of things at Monday night, in the coastal city of Ishinomaki. After a huge Japanese dinner on Monday, featuring such unsuspected delicacies as fried chicken cartilage and daikon root soup, we spent Tuesday touring a new seawall in Usuiso. Pre-GEJE, it was a popular beach town, with good surfing, a little fishing fleet, and several hundred families. Six years later, the new, higher levees include a large, newly-forested buffer zone and park, but the 14 surviving houses are still all alone. Surrounding hills have been flattened to provide fill for the control structures and a flat place for the re-drawn, smaller lots. Yeah, redrawn. It's a kind of 'eminent domain' called Land Readjustment that allows the government to redivide people's lots for common structure. Relatively rare before, it's now being done all up and down the coast. I don't think folks are necessarily excited about it, but it is what it is. The relationship between the Japanese and their federal government is somewhat different...possibly more accepting...than in the States.
Our morning tour with the engineers revealed some of the amazing work that's being done to move and compact each additional foot of soil. The hillsides all around have gutters and drains, meant to keep them from saturating. Those drains run right through the new subdivision, picking up overflow from each home's septic tank before entering a common pipe that drains into the ocean. Apparently, it's common practice in less dense areas to deal with sewer this way. The cost of connecting all, or any, the remote corners of Japan would certainly be huge. Better to save sewage treatment for cities. Who here works for Portland's sewer bureau? Oh, that'd be me...
During our break, Josh (our program coordinator) and Steve (from Arbor Lodge) and I walked along the seawall, which is now 7 meters high, around 23 feet. And, while it's impressive and while it's low enough that people behind can look over and SEE a tsunami coming (an important criticism of some other seawalls), we couldn't help but look across the road at the hills and think: 'ooo. It would suck to climb those.' It seems there's still a bit of glibness, some off-handed casualness in the discussion of these large projects. "Save all that money," the argument goes. "Just make people go up." Mmm. Easy to say.
After lunch we heard from a guy on Usuiso's Recovery Committee, who talked about how the recovery was going. Interesting to hear how the local efforts developed, but, as we left, we stopped at a shrine to the townspeople who had died. He followed us, and began telling us about some of the names on the list. He was remarkably stoic: as a volunteer firefighter, that's kind of par for the course. But, these are hard stories and mostly about the kids he had known, and, in some cases, had to retrieve from the wreckage. Suffice it to say, these were the stories we expected to hear on this excursion, but I'll leave it at that for now.
After returning to Sendai for the night, we heard from Tohoku University students and faculty Wednesday morning, before heading off to Rikuzen-takata in the afternoon. More later...
I left the telling of things at Monday night, in the coastal city of Ishinomaki. After a huge Japanese dinner on Monday, featuring such unsuspected delicacies as fried chicken cartilage and daikon root soup, we spent Tuesday touring a new seawall in Usuiso. Pre-GEJE, it was a popular beach town, with good surfing, a little fishing fleet, and several hundred families. Six years later, the new, higher levees include a large, newly-forested buffer zone and park, but the 14 surviving houses are still all alone. Surrounding hills have been flattened to provide fill for the control structures and a flat place for the re-drawn, smaller lots. Yeah, redrawn. It's a kind of 'eminent domain' called Land Readjustment that allows the government to redivide people's lots for common structure. Relatively rare before, it's now being done all up and down the coast. I don't think folks are necessarily excited about it, but it is what it is. The relationship between the Japanese and their federal government is somewhat different...possibly more accepting...than in the States.
Our morning tour with the engineers revealed some of the amazing work that's being done to move and compact each additional foot of soil. The hillsides all around have gutters and drains, meant to keep them from saturating. Those drains run right through the new subdivision, picking up overflow from each home's septic tank before entering a common pipe that drains into the ocean. Apparently, it's common practice in less dense areas to deal with sewer this way. The cost of connecting all, or any, the remote corners of Japan would certainly be huge. Better to save sewage treatment for cities. Who here works for Portland's sewer bureau? Oh, that'd be me...
During our break, Josh (our program coordinator) and Steve (from Arbor Lodge) and I walked along the seawall, which is now 7 meters high, around 23 feet. And, while it's impressive and while it's low enough that people behind can look over and SEE a tsunami coming (an important criticism of some other seawalls), we couldn't help but look across the road at the hills and think: 'ooo. It would suck to climb those.' It seems there's still a bit of glibness, some off-handed casualness in the discussion of these large projects. "Save all that money," the argument goes. "Just make people go up." Mmm. Easy to say.
After lunch we heard from a guy on Usuiso's Recovery Committee, who talked about how the recovery was going. Interesting to hear how the local efforts developed, but, as we left, we stopped at a shrine to the townspeople who had died. He followed us, and began telling us about some of the names on the list. He was remarkably stoic: as a volunteer firefighter, that's kind of par for the course. But, these are hard stories and mostly about the kids he had known, and, in some cases, had to retrieve from the wreckage. Suffice it to say, these were the stories we expected to hear on this excursion, but I'll leave it at that for now.
After returning to Sendai for the night, we heard from Tohoku University students and faculty Wednesday morning, before heading off to Rikuzen-takata in the afternoon. More later...
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Off and running
It looks like I checked in last on Monday morning...it's been a fairly busy 3 days.
I left off Monday morning in Sendai, a Portland-sized city up the northern coast. Our class of 9 spent the day at Tohoku University, one of several schools in Sendai and a leader is disaster planning for Tohoku (this 8 prefecture region) and for Japan. We've heard quite a lot this week about the Tohoku Recovery (meaning now the 3 affected coastal prefectures) and how difficult it's been. Japan's planning processes needed to be completely re-written in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE). It took a year to sketch out what planning now looked like, and another year to finalize plans. This period of adjustment, while critical for making wise choices, also prolonged people's stay in temporary housing. Also, as folks settle in their "temporary" housing, going back to home communities becomes increasingly unlikely. The story repeats itself everywhere we go: the kids are in a new school, the fish patty company's old buyers have moved on, there are no jobs in th fixed-up neighborhood.
But without residents, what business would commit to returning? In an extreme example, after six years, the town of Rikuzen-takata's grocery store will re-open next month. It's a crazy game of chicken-and-egg that the Pacific Northwest really wants to get ahead of. Inability to keep people around Portland is a thing that gets talked about a lot in some circles. There's no easy solution, but surely there must be conversations we can have and ways of prioritizing we can agree to in advance.
Yeah. And that's the light, fluffy stuff. In the afternoon, we all piled into the bus and drove into Fukushima prefecture. We were headed to the small town of Iwaki, but took the, uh, scenic route. Driving through the little village of Namie, you could tell it was deserted. And then we started seeing roadblocks. Then some with guards. Then....are those radiation detectors? O, yes. And there, 20 miles off towards the ocean, Fukushima Daiichi ("Reactor #1"), five or six stories of lethal beige. And how many acres of radioactive waste disposal bags, snuggeled in next to neighboring ricefields? We lost count. More to tell on Daiichi, but that's for a powepoint. Suffice it to say, a very weird, very surreal bus ride.
Up next: the little seawall project, or 'what does $106 million really get me?' Don't go anywhere.
I left off Monday morning in Sendai, a Portland-sized city up the northern coast. Our class of 9 spent the day at Tohoku University, one of several schools in Sendai and a leader is disaster planning for Tohoku (this 8 prefecture region) and for Japan. We've heard quite a lot this week about the Tohoku Recovery (meaning now the 3 affected coastal prefectures) and how difficult it's been. Japan's planning processes needed to be completely re-written in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE). It took a year to sketch out what planning now looked like, and another year to finalize plans. This period of adjustment, while critical for making wise choices, also prolonged people's stay in temporary housing. Also, as folks settle in their "temporary" housing, going back to home communities becomes increasingly unlikely. The story repeats itself everywhere we go: the kids are in a new school, the fish patty company's old buyers have moved on, there are no jobs in th fixed-up neighborhood.
But without residents, what business would commit to returning? In an extreme example, after six years, the town of Rikuzen-takata's grocery store will re-open next month. It's a crazy game of chicken-and-egg that the Pacific Northwest really wants to get ahead of. Inability to keep people around Portland is a thing that gets talked about a lot in some circles. There's no easy solution, but surely there must be conversations we can have and ways of prioritizing we can agree to in advance.
Yeah. And that's the light, fluffy stuff. In the afternoon, we all piled into the bus and drove into Fukushima prefecture. We were headed to the small town of Iwaki, but took the, uh, scenic route. Driving through the little village of Namie, you could tell it was deserted. And then we started seeing roadblocks. Then some with guards. Then....are those radiation detectors? O, yes. And there, 20 miles off towards the ocean, Fukushima Daiichi ("Reactor #1"), five or six stories of lethal beige. And how many acres of radioactive waste disposal bags, snuggeled in next to neighboring ricefields? We lost count. More to tell on Daiichi, but that's for a powepoint. Suffice it to say, a very weird, very surreal bus ride.
Up next: the little seawall project, or 'what does $106 million really get me?' Don't go anywhere.
Sunday, June 18, 2017
Greetings from tomorrow
So, after 2 days in Tokyo, and a BULLET TRAIN to Sendai, it’s time to check in.
Yeah...where to start? Much of the last couple of days has been coping with jet lag. Getting to the hotel and changing trains in downtown Tokyo at 5pm on a Friday didn’t help me get to sleep or dinner any sooner, but it sure was entertaining. Didn’t use the subway, though, so I don’t feel like I’ve fully done ‘Tokyo rush hour.’ But, at hour 19, I was ready to be done for the day. Finally passed out at 8pm, 22 hours after getting up “that morning” in Portland. And, after all that, WHEN did i wake up, feeling all refreshed? Midnight. I woke up 4 hours later, starving. That’s the thing about traveling: you can never get away from yourself.
So, the theme of Saturday and Sunday was mostly jetlag. Checked out some museums, walked around a lot trying to get my vitamin D and met up with , yesterday Steve and Amelia, from the class, for dinner when they got in that evening. A sizable bowl of Thai has a nice way putting things aright again.
Sunday, Steve did what I did Saturday and got up insanely early to check out the neighborhood. While I only managed to find the 7/11 (more common here than Starbucks in Portland), Steve explored the area around the Imperial Gardens/Palace. Nice. So, we met up with Robin, and the four of us did another vitamin D day. MIddle of the day, we caught up with Rob and Larry, and blasted off to Sendai.
Ah, yes, the bullet train. So clean, such a completely smooth ride, and so frickin’ fast. Makes Amtrak look like and feel like a damn Radio Flyer wagon. In an hour and a half, we covered a 6-hour bus ride. So fast. Trippy looking out the window...like someone had the 2x playback on the DVD player.
So, now we’re in Sendai, settling in for our week of classes and field trips.
I’ve been musing about my experience in Tokyo, and figuring it was analagous to visiting New York City. Now I’m going to learn about the rest of Japan, the older, maybe less hurried Japan. Some anecdotes, though, from the last two days:
--yes, there are a bazillion 7/11s and their cousins in Tokyo
--breakfast in Tokyo was reliably bad, leading one to the aforementioned 7/11s.
--Japanese hotel rooms are something else. This will be its own blog post
--this is a very risk averse society...an ongoing discussion in preparedness circles
And, the blogging process turns out to be far more tedious and cumbersome than I had even expected, so it's time for a clumsy exit to breakfast. More soon!
Yeah...where to start? Much of the last couple of days has been coping with jet lag. Getting to the hotel and changing trains in downtown Tokyo at 5pm on a Friday didn’t help me get to sleep or dinner any sooner, but it sure was entertaining. Didn’t use the subway, though, so I don’t feel like I’ve fully done ‘Tokyo rush hour.’ But, at hour 19, I was ready to be done for the day. Finally passed out at 8pm, 22 hours after getting up “that morning” in Portland. And, after all that, WHEN did i wake up, feeling all refreshed? Midnight. I woke up 4 hours later, starving. That’s the thing about traveling: you can never get away from yourself.
So, the theme of Saturday and Sunday was mostly jetlag. Checked out some museums, walked around a lot trying to get my vitamin D and met up with , yesterday Steve and Amelia, from the class, for dinner when they got in that evening. A sizable bowl of Thai has a nice way putting things aright again.
Sunday, Steve did what I did Saturday and got up insanely early to check out the neighborhood. While I only managed to find the 7/11 (more common here than Starbucks in Portland), Steve explored the area around the Imperial Gardens/Palace. Nice. So, we met up with Robin, and the four of us did another vitamin D day. MIddle of the day, we caught up with Rob and Larry, and blasted off to Sendai.
Ah, yes, the bullet train. So clean, such a completely smooth ride, and so frickin’ fast. Makes Amtrak look like and feel like a damn Radio Flyer wagon. In an hour and a half, we covered a 6-hour bus ride. So fast. Trippy looking out the window...like someone had the 2x playback on the DVD player.
So, now we’re in Sendai, settling in for our week of classes and field trips.
I’ve been musing about my experience in Tokyo, and figuring it was analagous to visiting New York City. Now I’m going to learn about the rest of Japan, the older, maybe less hurried Japan. Some anecdotes, though, from the last two days:
--yes, there are a bazillion 7/11s and their cousins in Tokyo
--breakfast in Tokyo was reliably bad, leading one to the aforementioned 7/11s.
--Japanese hotel rooms are something else. This will be its own blog post
--this is a very risk averse society...an ongoing discussion in preparedness circles
And, the blogging process turns out to be far more tedious and cumbersome than I had even expected, so it's time for a clumsy exit to breakfast. More soon!
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