Kakeroma: Cats and Dogs and Wild Boars

Part of the events Masami was organizing included a series of talks by manga artists. While they were here they wanted to see the sights. Everybody seems interested in the neighboring island, Kakeroma. To me Kakeroma always meant being stuck in the middle of nowhere, at Masami's uncle's bachelor pad in Shiba. I mean, nothing going on there at all, ever. I believe there's a law that you have to be over 60 t0 live there, and they're soon raising that requirement to 70. Maybe that's what appeals to Japanese people, that it's about as far away from modern Japanese life you can get and still be in Japan. I got a little different view of it last year, when we actually had a car to get around, and see some of the "sights." (See last year's blog entry.)

We stopped at Arangachi Falls on the way. There's a long staircase to the top. A nice mossy glen.

There's a little pool in front of the ferry building with local reef fish that two kids were harassing. Two years ago there were lots of fish in here. Last year they were all gone. There were a couple this time, including this nice one.

We dropped the comic artists' luggage off at their pension in Shiba (I don't know how they stay in business) and had iced tea and passion fruit. I love the smell of passion fruit in the grocery stores and fruit stands. It's so intoxicating. I put mine in the tea for an experiment. Theo did the same, but didn't like it much. His mom told him the seeds looked like frog eggs, then made him drink the whole thing.

We spent most of the day in the car, driving windy narrow roads, so it was great when we were able to get out and stretch. There are some nice banyan trees on Kakeroma. This one had a rope swing.

This tree is great for climbing, and Theo got way up.

Masami's uncle.

Public toilet. It is socially acceptable to urinate in full view here. But don't blow your nose!

Saneku beach, another beach I'd never been to. But there are so many. We only had a minute to look, anyway, no time to swim. Had to get back in the car.

One of our racing crabs ready at the go.

Some late afternoon sun on dead trees. A lot of pine trees have been dying here due to pest infestation. It's really noticeable all over this island, although I haven't seen it on the main island.

I had to drive this ridiculously huge van all over the island, on these narrow one lane roads, where they have mirrors so that you can see around curves to see if anyone is coming and slam on the brakes. When passing a car going the other way, you just inch by and hold your breath. We managed to come out unscathed.

Another eclipse.

These caterpillars were everywhere, hanging from trees by silken threads, like little SWAT assault teams. You had to be careful not to walk around with your mouth open.

I dropped the artists off at their pension at one end of town, and uncle's house was at the other. There was really no room to turn around, so I just drove through town in reverse. Ok, so I didn't really have to, but I did it because I could. Shiba is that kind of place. Can't do that many other places in Japan.

We always do a barbecue at his house, which used to be Masami's grandmother's house. We always likes to encourage Theo's pyromaniacal tendencies. The meat is catching on fire because it is mostly fat (the way the Japanese like it). It's pork from the wild boar uncle hunts, with his pack of howling dogs that always greet us with a chorus every time we get near them, or they hear us, or smell us. There are also wild cats roaming everywhere, looking for a handout and getting into fights. They were pretty evenly divided into the spots and stripes gangs.

Little drinks for little ones and big drinks for big ones.

Really Japanese style. Uncle is married, but his wife conveniently lives on another island. It's very Japanese. So uncle lives like a bachelor, and you can really tell by looking at his house. Auntie is very nice and comes over from the main island when we visit and helps take care of us.

Masami used to spend the summers here as a girl. This is the old pump where she would get water for her bath in a big iron pot in the yard.

We had to get up early and pay our respects at Masami's grandmother's grave and head back to the city. It was a whirlwind trip, but maybe better that way. Can't say I had much time to be bored. This is the alleyway next to the house with coral walls chock full of poisonous snakes. Always walk in the middle of the road or the habu will get you!

The Wild Side of Amami Oshima

Spiny Tree Ferns at Kinsakubaru

Amami is a beautiful place, a sort of subtropical paradise, forested mountains in the middle of the ocean where people have made a relatively small imprint. There is water everywhere, and things are intensely green. We have cicadas and owls calling at night. Lizards roam freely around the house, and huge bugs abound. Whenever the hectic Amami big city life (40,000 people) gets me down, I need only to walk up the hill to be in the jungle (which the tourist brochure describes as "crowded" and "stifling"-no wonder why there aren't more tourists!). There are a number of parks all around the city, and there are hardly ever people in them. I guess they get a lot of federal money for development, so they have to spend it on something.

Right behind the house, I can climb a long crumbling staircase to the top of the hill to an old park. It seems abandoned, but I think they just let things go until it's officially summer, July 20th, and otherwise let everything get overgrown. This lion looks sadder every year.


Big slugs here.

and bigger snails.

Whenever I need a workout, I usually ride my bike up to Akasaki park, which is about a twenty minute ride straight up. I always have sweat running off of me by the time I get to the top, but then, it's a fast coast down. The brakes on my old rusty mountain bike aren't that good, but they slow me down enough to only make the ride down hair-raising and not suicidal.

There were a lot of these sword tailed newts walking across the road at the end of the rainy season, to their mating grounds, no doubt. Apparently, they're an endangered species, but they're common here.

These cool beetles were covering this one plant for about a week. This was the only kind plant they were on, and it seems they live their whole adult lives on it.

This bird is a Ruddy Kingfisher, one of the more beautiful birds here. Their backs are purple in the right light. They taunt me constantly with their calls, but usually I just get a fleeting glimpse as they fly by. They wake me up every morning. This one came out to sit on a wire and pose for a picture.
If I go another way at the saddle, I can go to "the virgin forest" of Kinsakubaru, seen above. It's about a 20 mile ride fom home, up over the mountain, through the park and down the other side. It seems a lot longer with the hills. I like to ride in the rain, since it keeps you realtively cool.

I finally got to a downhill section, and was cascading down the mountainside, bouncing off the rocks. When I got to the bottom of the hill, I noticed that I had a flat tire. I've got 9 patches on the tube it and it still leaks! I could just spend $10 for a new tube, but I always think, "I'm leaving in a couple of weeks, why waste the money." There was a giant wasp that kept chasing me and stinging me and would not let up. It was probably laying eggs in me. I guess I'll know in a few weeks when the adults emerge from my back.

There aren't many hiking trails that I can find there, and it seems most people walk along the road and read the plant labels (in Japanese). There is an old abandoned road down to the river, but it's totally overgrown and you have to bushwhack to get through. People keep telling me there are habus (poisonous snakes) everywhere, but I have yet to see one.

I don't usually see much wildlife there, but I did get a good look at this White-backed Woodpecker the other day.

There are lots of these irridescent damselflies flying around. In some places, the sky is just full of dragonflies and damselflies.

There's a gaijin that lives here who told me about this waterfall that's on the way down the hill. I rode right past it the other day without noticing it, but I was looking for it today, and there it was, visible from the road. I don't know how I missed it. Maybe because it was raining heavily earlier today, it had a higher flow and was louder. Maybe before I was going too fast down the hill to notice.

The road through Kinsakubaru is gravel, but this road going down is paved, in good shape, then turns to paved in not so good shape, then rough gravel again. I would think they would start paving from the highway, but no, there's just this long paved road starting and ending nowhere. Maybe they were going to finish it one day.

There is this old gravel mine on the gravel section, abandoned, all rusted and falling apart. You can find things like that everywhere in the forest here.

Well, that's enough for one post. I have a few more maybe, but we leave in a week, so we'll see what I get done.

One Monkey Looked Up

July 22, 2009 was the date of the longest solar eclipse of the century, visible across much of Asia, including our little island, Amami Oshima, as one of the prime viewing spots. The island was overrun with lousy tourists (like me, I guess). They are still hanging on, camping on the beaches, clogging the highways with traffic. Unfortunately, the above was not our view of the event. Contrary to unpopular beliefs, there was no huge earthquake, no tsunami, no major catastrophic event of any kind. Although I suppose that may be a matter of interpretation, since it was a major disappointment here. There were a number of big events, none of which I know anything about, really, since I'm generally out of the loop here, being illiterate. There were some big music festivals, and the best place to watch the event was the northern tip of the island.

We just went a little north to a place where the Yamato Taiko drummers were doing yet another show/workshop. Masami kept them busy while they were here. It was outdoors, so I was able to get some good shots of them and their energetic performances.

It was a workshop for kids, too, so the kids performed, with Theo up front and center.
A small, laid back group of people were gathered there for the event. The eclipse took about 3 hours from when the moon's shadow first inched across the sun to when the sun was fully exposed again. Unfortunately, the day was cloudy, which was ok at first, with the clouds moving in and out, keeping it cool and still allowing periodic clear views of the sun.

It looked as if it would be ok at first, and I took a few pictures of the moonshadow inching across the sun's disk, but then the clouds came in heavy and totally obscured the view. You could look directly at the sun without the special sun viewing glasses, but couldn't see its outline. We watched it get dark, kind of dusky, then light again. We knew when it was total, because they knew the exact time it was supposed to happen and told us.

It was a major bummer, but everybody took it in stride, partly cheered by the news that it was raining in other places people had gathered to see it. Theo was pretty disappointed, but I told him he'd have plenty of other chances to see one. I felt sorry for all the people who had planned all these events, and for people who had come from so far at such a great expense to see it. Like most supposedly great things, it didn't live up to expectations.

But I did discover that you don't need to wait for a special moment and spend a lot of money and time going to the end of the earth to enjoy an eclipse. You can enjoy much the same thing anytime the sun is shining, with a camera and an oreo cookie,with the sun as a creamy center.

We did get to watch it on tv, so it was visible somewhere. People expecting weird things to happen as a result of the eclipse went to the zoo somewhere, and a camera crew was there. Theo told me that the animals didn't really react, except for the penguins, who came out of the water and their homes to watch, and one monkey looked up.

There was a street festival that we walked through that night on the way to the grocery store. People in Amami love to party.

We went to the boat to say farewell to the Taiko drum group. They still throw paper streamers from the boats here, which is quaint. Japan, and especially Amami, seems like it's part of some idyllic past sometimes. Usually you throw them from the boat and people on the ground are supposed to catch them, but this time they had it really organized, with maybe a hundred of these things, rolls of paper on broomsticks, which they fished up to the boat on a string. It was a grand sendoff and end to what was supposed to be a great day.

Celebratory squash.