Super Rindo Trip

The Super Rindo Road is a winding road leading into the Japanese Alps, between Haku-san City, a lot of other mountains, and then Haku-san itself (Haku-san is one of the three holy peaks of Japan, along with Fuji-san and Tateyama). We'd been meaning to get up there and look around for a while, and an opportunity to do so pretty much fell in our laps, so we took it. The Haku-san we-like-foreigners-and-their-money group set up a trip that any foreigner in Kanazawa could sign up for which cost a measly ten bucks a head, so to the Super Rindo we went.

 Bus full of foreigners

Haku-san City and the Super Rindo are an hour or so away from Kanazawa, so all the foreigners would be busing up together. The tour bus conveniently stopped at several points in Kanazawa and we were able to catch it at a local stop instead of having to go all the way to the train station first thing in the morning.


The plan for the day was to bus to the Hakusan City area, drive most of the Super Rindo, and then do a short hike up one of the minor peaks in the area, Sanpō-iwadake. After climbing down, they'd bus us into town for lunch at an onsen before bringing us home. The bus ride up was about what you'd expect - a whole bus full of foreigners, most of them knowing each other at least through other people - we all swapped plans for the summer and spoke full-speed natural English to each other. The tour group people felt this needed some stirring up, however, and bestowed upon us a tourist guide to the Haku-san area showing basic statistics and various tourist attractions, and then proceeded to quiz us on Haku-san facts. I used the book and guessed the best, winning the grand prize of a 500 yen (five dollar) bookstore gift certificate with seven of ten multiple choice quiz questions correct. Lesser beings won $1 international calling cards (hint to Haku-san people: we use Skype, and it is free) and everyone got to keep the pencils used for the quiz.

 We took a lot of pictures from the bus - the road is along the walls of the gorge

The Super Rindo itself winds across some very dramatic terrain, and both sides of the bus get to see things the other side does not. We snapped a large number of pictures from both sides, most of which we knew were going to be rubbish. We got a couple of keepers though. I just wish they'd washed the bus windows before the tour as that would have improved our yield substantially. I'll let the pictures describe the Super Rindo further. There is one weekend each year when it is closed to motor traffic and people walk along it - we'd certainly be interested to come back for a closer on-foot look.

 We discovered snow (in late June)

When we reached the base of the hiking trail, there was definitely still snow, but it certainly wasn't very cold out. The guides predictably lead the whole group in stretches and warm-ups before permitting us to begin walking. The hike itself was only about 30-40 minutes up, made longer by a few breaks. I don't think most people needed them - we certainly didn't. The view from the summit was pretty nice, and included a clear view of Haku-san itself. We're considering climbing it later in the year.

  Warm-ups and stretches - the Japanese love 'em

Lunch was Japanese-style curry and a salad and as part of a package costing ten bucks I can't complain. The actual onsen cost $5 extra, and since the bus wasn't leaving for hours we all paid up, leading to time spent naked with a lot of strangers, but hey. It was a relaxing end to the trip, followed by busing back to Kanazawa in time for dinner.

 Trail up

 View of Hakusan

At the top

Waterfall next to the Super Rindo

 Lunch - Head over to Flickr to see all the images we've got.

Hyakumangoku Parade

The big event for the Saturday of the Hyakumangoku Festival is the parade, which starts at the train station and ends at Kanazawa castle, next to Kenroku'en. After we went to Kenroku'en in the morning to see iris, we walked back downtown and had lunch at an Indian restaurant which turned out be be really good and have large portions. Most of the staff was actually Indian, and therefore spoke English, which was a nice touch (the English menus conspicuously were not full of questionable translations too).

We ate so much and spent so long doing it that when we were finished the festivities for the beginning of the parade had already commenced, and thousands of people crowded the intersection in front of the train station. We found that this was fairly pointless, as nearly every angle from which one might possibly watch the taiko drummers and the like was obstructed by platforms for TV cameras and sound equipment. It was clear that the TV audience had priority - sidewalks were roped off and then left empty as routes for TV personnel to walk back and forth while the police kept the people there back against the buildings. So, what do the Japanese do in this situation? They pull out their cell phones and other portable TV devices, and watch the proceedings on TV while they stand where they easily could have seen it live were the TV dudes not in the way. Classic Japan.

The media blocked the view

Watching the TV version of the event right in front of them

Standing there wasn't working for us, so we went further down the parade route and found a shaded spot where we could see well and sit down when we wanted to.

The firemen / acrobats from an earlier post performed during the parade.

Bellhops's Union marching band (probably not)

Many individuals in the parade had clearly fortified themselves for duty with alcohol, but this being Japan that was OK / expected during festival participation.

Some aspects of the parade were clearly still being worked out during the parade - tech crew stopped by to draw marks on places where different groups should perform. This is an unusually large tech group for the situation as one guy with chalk appears to be all that the was required.

"Samurai" were in evidence. Don't mind the swastikas, the Japanese had them first.

As were female noble types. Anyone who wants to can sign up to be samurai or noblewoman in the parade, and they provide costumes. People have said that the whole process is long and boring though - we'll probably not sign up for that.

Demons walked the streets, with nearby priest to keep things under control.

The official stand-in for the long-dead lord being celebrated by the parade

The parade moved very slowly, with large and conspicuous gaps between groups. We've heard that this is usual, though I don't understand why. They definitely could have sped the whole thing up dramatically without losing anything. I'm sure the people in costumes would appreciate a 2-3 hour parade instead of a 5-6 hour one. They were probably performing for judges or something along the way, though it was quite annoying to sit for 20 minutes between groups. We watched for several hours before experiencing parade fatigue and heading home. Worth seeing the once, though we might just have a cookout at home next year, and watch the TV version over the internet. Check out pictures and several videos on Flikr.

Hyakumangoku Lanterns

Last weekend we attended Kanazawa's Hyakumangoku festival (translates roughly to 150-million-kilograms-of-rice festival), which is probably the largest Kanazawa festival of the year. It is the celebration of the entrance of Lord Toshiie Maeda, Daimyo, into Kanazawa. The area around Kanazawa that he was now ruler of produced hyakumangoku of rice, which is why the festival is so named. That was several hundred years ago, but they still use the excuse to throw a serious party every year. There are a few different parts of the festival celebrated over a Friday night and the whole day Saturday, and even a little on Sunday. We attended two parts, which we're going to break into two posts.

One big thing done on Friday night is to float lanterns down the Asano river for the aesthetic appreciation of several thousand people. We biked downtown after work and grabbed some takeout, then walked over to one of the older districts of Kanazawa, which features numerous temples and houses constructed in the traditional style. The Asano river runs by this district, and has grassy banks on both sides. Apparently they dredge the river mud up into winding banks inside the canal walls to speed the water flow and create pleasing curved paths for the lanterns to follow as they float down the river. The lanterns mostly come from elementary school students, with some larger lanterns in fanciful shapes being produced by sports teams and clubs higher up the educational food chain. It was very crowded in some areas, but we just kept walking until we found enough space to sit and watch without being too much disturbed, where we ate our burgers (Ana got a teriyaki burger - does that appease the sense of eating Asian in Asia?) and watched the lanterns float by in the darkness. Pictures available on Flikr.

River at Sunset

Main pavilion and lanterns

Taiko

Kenroku'en in Early Summer / Iris

Last year we read about an iris festival, but didn't manage to find out exactly where it was or to attend. This year we did a bit more planning and preparation, and determined that there are two really big iris festivals in Japan, but neither is close by. As it would cost us many hundreds of dollars for the train tickets to go see them and being short of evidence of them being worth it, we decided to hold off and just go see the iris at Kenroku'en, which we'd not yet seen anyway. They have a few pretty significant plantings, which are easy to miss when they're not in bloom. They turned out to only feature one variety of iris, which was a little disappointing, but the weather was perfect and the admission free, so it would be silly to complain. Pictures follow and can be found on Flikr.

The Rose Garden

Every so often, I get together with some local girls to hang out and knit. As the weather has been gorgeous, we wanted to have an outdoor afternoon of nice weather and yarn. Here in Kanazawa, there is a rose garden fairly close to home, which I'd never been to before, and we ended up going there. This garden isn't huge, but it does have a large assortment of great roses.


We walked around the garden for awhile before finally sitting down and knitting under a tree. My camera's batteries had died by that point, so we have just the pictures of the roses. I don't have much to say about them, except that they were gorgeous, smelled great, and it was a great way to spend the afternoon, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

More KTC Advertisments Featuring Ana

We've shown you some promotional materials for Ana's school featuring Ana before, but they've produced some new materials and we figured we'd share.

First up is the front page of one of their information booklets, upon which they have carefully placed their one black and one female engineering instructors.

Next up, the front of another information booklet. I call your attention to the picture in the bottom center - the one with the rowboat? Yeah, they take students out of class for that for days at a time to send them to one of our seminar houses to teach them teamwork by making them row together. I personally might not publicize that.

I include the rear of the same booklet for one reason: they have the full faculty and a bunch of students posing in front of a school building. You'd think it would be, say, their own school building. In this case, you'd be wrong. That's a KIT building, which KTC students to the best of my knowledge do not take classes in. However, they've remedied that with this years' photo - we took one a few days ago in front of the KTC building.

We could probably puzzle out of a good portion of this, but it is more fun just to imagine and theorize.

This portion of the newsletter brought back some wonderful Christmas memories. They had students from Singapore Polytechnic visiting in December, and for some reason decided to hold a "traditional American Christmas dinner" for them, as a time for students of both schools to hang out. First off, they ordered a Thanksgiving dinner, not Christmas. Second, they ordered 12 12lb turkeys for about 30 people to eat. 144lb / 30 people = 4.8 pounds per person. Third, the entire meal was stone cold when served because the facilities for cooking could not accommodate all of the turkeys at once, and then it was stored it in the fridge all day before serving it after school. On the plus side, Ana brought home a nearly intact turkey in a clean garbage bag afterward and we ate off it for days.

Utatsuyamakoen Visit

Utatsuyamakoen is a park outside Kanazawa. It is actually pretty close to our place (maybe 30 minutes by bike) but we hadn't known about it until introduced by a friend of Ana's, who also showed us the way there. Last weekend we were experiencing one of the 10 clear sunny days that seem to be annually allotted to Kanazawa and biked out there to see what we could see, picnic, and generally enjoy the weather.

Really nice day in Kanazawa, at the bridge where we met up with Ana's friend

Along the way there along the river we could see the mountains behind the foothills that normally fill our horizon. There are some pretty serious peaks out there. Note the comprehensive snow cover halfway through May. The ride next to the river was very nice, but we were apparently too busy enjoying it to take any pictures. After reaching the town below Utatsuyamakoen we bought lunch supplies at their supermarket and locked our bikes up at their bike stand.

Then did a little walking through a bamboo forest...

...past a graveyard....

...and a shrine...

...before reaching the park that apparently we only have this picture of.

The park itself turned out to be very large indeed, with a multi-story building with bathrooms, ice cream, a viewing area, etc, and acres of grass along with several formal gardens in I believe it said the Belgian style. Not sure what that was about but everything was expansive and many people were out enjoying it. We put down our tarp and had our lunch. The interesting thing about lunch is that Japanese golden eagles frequent the park, and will do their best to steal your lunch. I was having trouble believing it until one of them stooped on us and basically flew between our heads while our cringing apparently covered whatever food item it had been targeting. After that we were quite careful not to expose or hold up food to attract these birds, which were large enough that I did not care to debate the ownership of food items with them. Shadows from overhead made us jumpy for a while. After we finished, however, it was interesting to watch the birds attack the lunches of people less careful than us - there were several rather spectacular strikes where the bird visibly got away with something good, which they hadn't managed from us.

After lunch we hung out and chatted and enjoyed the weather some more, eventually switching to the shade. Despite the shaded ours and our liberal applications of sunscreen, we were all sunburned to some extent, though it mostly tanned out instead of peeling, which I think everyone can agree is the preferable outcome. The park is a little bit far away for frequent use, but with nice views and lots of grass it makes a nice picnic spot for an afternoon and it was a nice relaxing time, before it gets really hot and humid out.

There were some more nice views of Kanazawa on the way back, too.