As we got higher, this stunning blue lake came into view...

And what did we find at the top of the mountain after this epic journey over giant ravines and azure lakes? That's right, a bear, a tiger, a panda, a mole and some hippy-looking guy with a guitar. The best band we saw all weekend.

All too soon Monday morning arrived, which meant it was time to take the tents down, swallow a couple of aspirin for the journey home and get the hell out of Dodge. Note the complete and utter lack of rubbish...

The Rock is Calling...

I'm off to the Fuji Rock Festival in Niigata-ken tomorrow - I can't
believe the time has finally come. Let's rock, people. Hopefully in a
few days time I'll be able to post numerous photos of me standing
around in a field drinking warm beer with my top off and mud all over
my face. Ah, how I love festivals.

Anyway, just to warn you, the posts will be a bit sporadic throughout
August, since after Fuji Rock I'll be going on a road trip to
Hokkaido, then on the 19th my parents arrive (hello mum!, hello dad!),
so it's going to be a pretty hectic month. In the meantime though,
have a great summer everyone! School's out! Let's party!!!!

Oooh, I came over all American there. Sorry about that. Toodle-pip.

The famous "Kotoji lantern". Bothered.

Fake Plastic Trees

I spent most of the weekend in Kanazawa, which is in Ishikawa, just
north of Fukui prefecture. On Saturday we stayed the night at a
swimming pool/hotel complex called Renaiss (more on that another time)
and on Sunday morning a few of us headed out to Kenrokuen - one of
Japan's top three gardens. Here's the description from the Kanazawa
City tourist website:

"Kenrokuen is known as one of the three most beautiful gardens in
Japan. It is called Kenrokuen because it combines the six attributes
(kenroku) that a garden should have: spaciousness, seclusion, human
ingenuity, antiquity, water and panoramic views. It contains roughly
12,000 trees of 150 varieties, which achieve beautiful harmony with
the garden's meandering streams, ponds and bridges."

Of course, being one of Japan's top three gardens meant that it was
absolutely rammed to the gunwhales with tourists. Meandering around
the ponds and bridges often required dodging 30-strong tour groups,
all scrabbling to get into the best position to take THE photo you
MUST HAVE of Kenrokuen: the two-legged "Kotoji lantern" (see above).
The story goes that one of the two legs of the lantern was broken
during transportation, so the gardeners solved the problem by placing
the longer leg in the lake, and the shorter leg on land. In doing so,
they also created harmony between water and land, and added to the
essence of the garden.

Unfortunately, any harmony that may have been created by the lantern
has long since been destroyed by the throngs of amateur photographers
scrabbling to snatch a photo of the aforementioned landmark, of which
I was one. In hindsight, it would have made a much more interesting
photo if I'd turned the camera round and taken a photo of the jostling
crowd behind me...

I've been a bit negative so far about the garden, but that's not to
say I didn't enjoy looking round it - the gnarled old trees were often
very impressive and the little streams and teahouses all looked very
attractive. However, as I quoted above, one of the tenets of the
perfect garden is seclusion, and that was one thing which Kenrokuen
was definitely lacking - it's incredibly difficult to gain a sense of
"seclusion" when you're being followed round by a jabbering tour group
led by a tour guide screeching away through a megaphone in
hundred-miles-per-hour Japanese.

Aside from the tourists though, I felt there was something strangely
lacking in the garden... In fact, I often feel the same way in most
Japanese gardens. They always seem a little disappointing to me.
Perhaps its the lack of grass - usually the paths and trees are
surrounded by scrubby moss, which doesn't quite cover the ground and
gives you the impression that perhaps the garden isn't quite finished.
Or maybe it's the lack of colour - excepting the cherry blossom season
and the winter snows, the landscape is usually various uninspiring
shades of dark brown and green. The idea may be to inspire restful
thoughts, but well, let's be honest, it looks a bit drab.

However, I think my biggest problem with Japanese gardens though is
that they're constructed on a strictly "look, but don't touch" basis.
The winding paths carefully guide you around scenic rocks and streams,
but you're out of luck if you fancy taking your shoes off and lying
back underneath a tree. There's no freedom to explore: you have to
stick to the path.

Of course, in saying that I'm entirely missing the point of the
gardens, which is to inspire contemplation and a sense of beauty in
the viewer. But let's be honest, and it may be scandalous of me to say
this, but I'm gonna say it anyway: often they're not really that
interesting to look at. Give me St. James's Park in London any day.

The main lake of Kenrokuen.

Escaping trees are often a problem in Japanese gardens. Luckily this one has been tied down securely. You ain't goin' anywhere mate.

Kenrokuen is also home to this famous 500 year old white pine tree. Although it actually died in 1995.

Kanazawa castle. Although the castle dates from 1583, the original buildings were destroyed long ago. In fact, the castle has burnt down on numerous occasions in its long history, and this reconstruction was only completed in 2001 at a cost of ten billion yen. This time they built it with a sprinkler system.

According to Chris (second-year JET who will sadly be leaving us soon), the inside of the castle is full of flat-screen TVs with information for tourists and "smells a bit like Ikea".

Two of Japan's greatest philosophers, Dave and Wade, ponder the meaning of it all in Kenrokuen.

Local sights for local people

The month-long rainy season finally seems to be coming to an end, making way for day after day of humid, hazy 30 degree plus summer days. Thank God for air conditioning. Still, it would be a shame to spend the long days of summer trapped inside next to the A/C, so last Friday I took the opportunity to do a bit of exploring around my beloved adopted home town of Asahi, along with my partner in crime, the lovely Felicity.

Despite having lived in Asahi for nearly a year now there's still places I've yet to visit, one of which is a spooky little shrine barely ten minutes walk from my house, which goes by the name of Yasaka-jinja. I've cycled past it on many occasions, but for some reason I've never quite had the time to poke my head through the "torii" and have a look around. It's funny - I've been to the snow festival in Hokkaido and sunbathed on the beaches of Okinawa, and yet I still haven't properly looked round my own town...

I suppose part of the reason for that is the aforementioned stifling humidity and relentless heat - walking even the shortest distance in the Fukui summer means becoming unpleasantly drenched in your own sweat. The shrine may only be ten minutes walk away, but it's a long, soggy, shirt-wringing ten minutes of non-stop excretion. And I haven't even mentioned the fighter-squadrons of kamikaze mosquitoes.

The scenery more than makes up for the bodily unpleasantness though - the rice fields have just reached their most vibrant green, and the giant bird-sized dragonflies are busy whizzing around the roadside, intent on finding other bird-sized dragonflies in order to... well, make more bird-sized dragonflies. Which makes for a hell of a fly-by.

The shrine certainly wasn't disappointing either. I've written about how easy it is to develop shrine/temple fatigue in Japan - there's just so many of the damn things - but this one definitely had atmosphere on its side. Despite the fact that there were several people milling around dismantling the paper lanterns from the festival two days earlier, the shrine retained an eerie atmosphere of desertedness. The setting is no doubt a big part of this, since the sheer trunks of the surrounding cedar trees gave the whole place the look of a huge, naturally-created prison. Even in the middle of the day, it was quite easy to imagine untold eyes watching your every movement from behind the bars of tree trunks. The decaying walls of the shrine compiled the spooky feeling even further - if you've ever played a Biohazard game then you know these are exactly the kind of buildings that zombies just love to lurk in. In my mind I could just see the scenario... You walk up to the front door of the shrine. The bell rope is swaying slightly in the wind. You go forward to investigate and you're given a stark choice.

Pull the bell rope?

Yes No

Obviously you choose "yes" (does anyone actually ever choose "no" in those games?). Suddenly the temple door bursts open and five drooling zombies burst out.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Equip shotgun!!! Equip shotgun!!!! Eat that!! Ha!!!! Aaaah! No ammo!! Get away from me!!! KNIFE! KNIFE! KNIFE! Die you mofo!! Ooops! No don't do that!! No! No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!"

YOU ARE DEAD.

"Curses."

Hmmm. You know maybe I should stop playing so many computer games and get out a bit more...

This is a traditional Japanese house about halfway down my road. I asked one of the Japanese teachers in the office what these flowers were called, but he had no idea. However, after enlisting the help of two other teachers, a plant encyclopedia and a phone call to the maths teacher's mother, we discovered that they're called "nouzenkazura" in Japanese. Although I still have no idea what they're called in English.

Asahi's looking very green at the moment - it's just a shame that you can't go and walk through the rice fields. All that greenery, but all of it totally off-limits...

The main gate leading up to Yasaka-jinja (jinja = shrine), which is about ten minutes walk from my house. The hydrangeas are out in full force.

Paper lanterns underneath the gate.

This is the main building - as you can see, it's totally enclosed by woodland. Prime zombie territory.

Another shot of Yasaka-jinja. The whole place had a very eerie, deserted feel about it... The rotting wooden struts and layer of leaf mould suggest that the shrine is abandoned, but the buzzing electric light bulbs and brand new slippers lined up outside the entrance tell you otherwise.

These are "hokora" - small shrines next to the main shrine ("jinja") which are dedicated to one minor god or spirit. In the Shinto religion everything has a spirit, so shrines like these can be dedicated to everything from a person, to a tree, to an animal, or even a rock.