Living in Aizu

After the flood - volunteers and friendship

2012-01-29T01:07:00.000+09:00

One of the volunteers dispensing cold drinks and towels for tired volunteers

A very big thank you to everyone who came to help clear up in the days and weeks following the flood in Kaneyama-machi at the end of July 2011. It was very touching to see so many people working together in adversity - but then don't they always? Many came long distances from around Japan. Some travelled long hours from where they had been helping with tsunami debris. We even had volunteers who were residents of the tsunami hit areas who wanted to repay the fact that we had been volunteering in their area of Fukushima over the last three months. The tasks they undertook were usually unpleasant and tough jobs like digging out mud from between floorboards and cleaning household goods of mud, or digging out drains. It was good to be part of this culture-changing volunteer movement, with people realising, sometimes for the first time, what pleasure and satisfaction is to be had when you reach out beyond the bounds of your own life.

UK volunteers who travelled a long way from working in a tsunami-hit area

The first job was to empty the houses of the chaos of ruined furniture and tatami mats and a deep layer of mud. This was hard and filthy, and was done before any volunteers arrived from outside. The next part was to take up the flooring on everyone's ground floor and dig out the mud underneath. This had to be done as if left it would rot the wooden floors and bacteria in it might cause health problems. The underfloor areas were then sprinkled with white powder, which may have been caustic soda as it burned my skin, the fine powder settling on sweating arms and rubbing at the edges of gloves.

The hardest job - very awkward and dirty

Digging the mud out was heavy work, as it was wet, like cocoa butter or damp clay, and it was hard to manoeuvre between the floor joists. It then had to be carried outside and either piled up or put in bags for later collection. Whoever has the contract for those bags will have made millions in Tohoku - they are used everywhere.

Fancy a go? Our kitchen, and no, that is not my cooking

Our first two volunteers were locals, members of the All Okuaizu Network

We had volunteer help from the first day. Many of the older people had family who answered the call until outsiders arrived, and my wife's uncle (our landlord), and her cousin got stuck in. We also had two guys from the All Okuaizu Network which was founded locally to respond to the 3.11 disaster and to help develop Okuaizu in the long term. We are members and I had been over to the coast near Iwaki-shi with them a couple of times to work on the tsunami damaged area just outside the nuclear evacuation zone, never thinking I'd need the same help in a few weeks. One brought us a fridge to borrow, and he advised me not to worry about others until our house was done. This was a kind thought as I felt that I should be helping the oldest people first, and I also felt very bad that I was away volunteering at Fuji Rock in Niigata (also flooded) as part of my Strong Children art project with Fukushima's children, and couldn't get home to help until the second day. They both worked hard to help get the mud out before moving on to the next house, and continued day after day.

What's that saying? Something about a creek and a paddle?

One of our neighbours surveying progress

People from Okuaizu are very physically strong and resilient from generations of hard work in difficult terrain and heavy snow in the winter. They are used to helping each other anyway, and can keep going when city folk would be keeling over, and they got through a prodigious amount of spadework and lifting. Some who had escaped the flood neglected their own businesses and households over weeks in order to help the older people to get their houses into at least a temporary liveable state, as many had no usable kitchen, bathroom or toilet. It was exhausting work.

The council used systems already set up to support nuclear evacuees in the previous months to send round portable stoves, instant rice and noodles, bottles of water and basic hygiene equipment, and began assessing damage and people's needs. Council workers concentrated on the public infrastructure. I remember thinking how much worse it would be for it to happen somewhere very poor without organised help - and since it happened there have been far worse floods in various places around the world where people have to fend for themselves for weeks.

As floors were cleared, ripped up, dug out and disinfected, upper floors were re-arranged for camping in, with various make shift arrangements and use of unaffected neighbours' facilities. The next phase was salvaging as much as possible, which wasn't much, and cleaning it all several times.

Two of my son's school staff pitch in to help clean our stuff

Dust became a worrying problem as everything dried out and the heat returned with a vengeance

There was no let up for affected households as it was very time-consuming, and when you look at piles of your stuff covered in mud you just feel like you have to keep going every minute until it is done, otherwise when will life get back to normal? No-one anywhere likes their home and possessions despoiled, but the fact that Japanese people fastidiously preserve a complete separation between 'inside' and 'outside' made it all the harder as a taboo had been broken too. People's concentration began to suffer in the heat and there were several injuries, and people began to get more and more tired. We were all a bit dazed, especially on top of the underlying tension there had been for the previous months because of Fukushima Daichi. What a year.

The cavalry arrived after a week or so in the form of hundreds of people from across Japan, organised into teams and allotted tasks by a volunteer centre set up in a nearby village. Everybody knew the drill as most had already volunteered somewhere else in Tohoku.

Volunteer squad from further afield

Various vans providing refreshments and good cheer were doing the rounds, and the spirit between everybody was pretty special, people couldn't do enough. This will be one of the great positive legacies of the 3.11 tragedy for Japan, and it will be interesting to see how all these shared experiences based on volunteering affect society over the next few years. It changes you.

Some of our stuff headed for the tip

Watching possessions that you have allowed to become part of your identity disappearing into a dump truck changes you too. It is a timely reminder about priorities and life's temporary bargains with chaos. Now, every time I buy something I just think "Yes, more dump filler." What really matters? It was difficult watching everyone breathing in the billowing dust that we know contains a certain amount of caesium 137. There was no way of keeping it out, and you can't keep clean either. As I write in January 2012 the government's controversial policy of 'decontamination' rather than evacuation means that thousands of workers and volunteers will be going through this same process: handling debris, soil, leaves and mud, and breathing dust in areas of eastern Fukushima with substantial levels of radiation. There is evidence that it won't even work sufficiently well, and we won't know for years what the health impacts will be. In the meantime fathers, daughters, sons and brothers will be risking their health - and to me that really matters.

The way friends rallied round was a great comfort in this time uncertainty and worry. At least our son was away from the dust being looked after for several weeks by the Ichikawas, parents of one of his school friends - so kind! At a time when there was a bit of family pressure about what should be done, in what priority order, and exactly how it should be done (you know how that goes...), at least my friends turned up to help in any way they could. Like Iwata-san, Tokyo-based museum producer and cyclist, who gave up his weekend in the middle of a project rescuing and cataloguing the collection of Sendai museum. He looked cool in his rescue duds! And Shigemura-san, local friend, fellow cyclist and good egg who likes nothing better than helping, even on an ordinary day. They helped clear the debris-filled garden and did some cleaning up.

Iwata-san and Shigemura-san: heavy lifting and washing up a specialty

Then there was Yoshida-san, another friend from Arai cycling club 250km away in Saitama who gave me a weekend of his time in the big push to get what was left of the house perfectly clean after everything had been taken out ready for our move to Kansai. Not the most interesting or rewarding form of volunteering, not much to see for your effort compared to digging mud or moving wreckage, but he did it with a will and was good company. And Abé-san at the garage, who helped trying to find us a roof-rack and wouldn't take payment as usual. Useful though everyone's practical help was, the most important thing was the feeling that they had gone out of their way just out of simple friendship. They were just there. This was something else that really mattered to me.

So to everyone I say again, thank you. It was great to be a part of it, and I will remember as long as my memory lasts.

The Tadami Flood, Fukushima, July 2011

2011-11-06T09:53:00.001+09:00

Destroyed bridge on the Tadami railway line below Honna dam above our village

As if it wasn't enough, communities already very worried by the ongoing releases of radiation from the stricken Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant were struck by record rainfalls at the end of July. Over the 72 hours until midday on Saturday 30th July, 700mm (27.5 inches) of rain fell in 72 hours in the Tadami area of Okuaizu, western Fukushima. At least 4 people died, 6,400 people were evacuated from their homes, and 500 people were cut off by floodwater, including those downstream from Tadami like our community in Kaneyama and in Yanaizu.

Our street (photo from council website)

The damage was worst in Tadami town, 30km up river, with many houses completely destroyed. Everyone on our street, only a few metres from the river, lost everything on the first (ground) floor. Rice fields and allotments that people had worked hard on were destroyed. Apart from the fact that most residents are more than 70 years old and it hit them very hard, it is sad that so much family history was lost. Over and above having your home full of mud, most painful for many people was loosing the Butsodan, the Buddhist shrine to the family ancestors which keeps them a living presence in the home and provides continuity, sometimes over hundreds of years. Some of the houses were like domestic museums. The framed photos of the more recent dead were fortunately above the floodline. You can imagine them looking impassively down from near the ceiling as the water rose towards them. If the ancestors have seen anything, they have seen it all over the centuries, and floods have come and gone. The portrait I drew of my next door neighbour survived, and so did he, but he had to spend the next few weeks in hospital after damaging his shoulder in the clear-up. He will have been so frustrated not to be able to continue helping with the cleanup.

Below Honna dam concrete river banks were breeched, washing away house foundations and destroying rice fields and allotments.

So why did it happen? Floods are as old as water itself, and of course global warming has been accompanied by extreme weather around the world, often much worse than this in scale and casualties. But this was an 'accident' waiting to happen, and one that was a whisker away from being very much worse. Living a few metres from the river, I was very aware that flooding was a risk. This is true of any river, but there are five dams upriver from the village, the one at the top being huge. I was told that executives from Tohoku electric who own several of the dams had been doing the rounds post 3.11 trying to salvage the reputation of nuclear power - a lost cause in Fukushima of course. Apparently they were asked if there had been any checks on the dams following the huge earthquake of 11th March. No, no extra tests, but they were sure everything was fine, and there was no risk. Of course if lots of people asked for tests they supposed they could do them. Extraordinary, and very reminiscent of the complacency of Tepco.

Concerned, we had also visited the Kaneyama council offices in May on returning from our temporary self-evacuation. As well as pressing them to urgently buy their own radiation testing equipment, instigate more detailed testing for food and soil, to source school meals from safer areas of Japan, and to draw up a plan for the emergency evacuation of children in the event of further explosions at Fukushima Daichi, I raised the issue of flood risk. I asked them what the evacuation plan was, to tell us what the warning siren sounded like, and where we were supposed to go if there was a problem. No response. I also personally raised it with the Mayor, who lived on our street. No problem , no problem. No radiation risk, and the dams were safe. Big smiles. Oh really? After a major earthquake and many aftershocks, with no extra structural checks, and no practice drills or information for residents?

Destroyed rail bridge above our house. The blue plastic covers a landslip beneath a neighbour's house

Often woken up in the night by aftershocks, I lay awake half expecting to hear the rush of water. Would we get a warning? We discussed what we would do, and I told my son to run fast for the mountainside, even if he was on his own. As it turned out I was away from home, and frustratingly I wasn't able to be there to help during a very frightening night waiting from a friend's house to see how high the water would get. The local fire and disaster volunteers thankfully did a great job of getting everyone out of their houses promptly, not letting anyone linger to save possessions, which must have saved some casualties. They have my deep respect and grateful thanks. This can't have been easy with so many elderly and frail residents, some of them bedridden.

Destroyed bridge at Yokota. Residents on the right bank had to be helicoptered to safety

After the flood it began filtering through that it was the opinion of many, through family members working on the dams, that bad decisions may have again contributed to disaster. In this case it is possible that the early and gradual release of water building up from the extreme rainfall could have prevented the flood. This was reputedly delayed in order to keep generating electricity as long as possible. Then when it was clear that danger levels were fast approaching, the sudden release possibly added to severity of the flooding. Could it be that pressure to keep generating electricity while most of Japan's nuclear reactors are shut down contributed to this delay? No doubt they were 'following the manual.'

A very dangerous element was added in the shape of a chain of several large, yellow, iron barges used for dredging that swept down the valley smashing bridges and damaging dams as they went. One dam could no longer use one of it's gates after it was struck. Local opinion was that legally these should not have been in the river in the wet summer period for this very reason - they should only have been used in the winter, when there is less of a flood risk as all the moisture falls as snow. It seems that some of the workers at one of he the dams thought there was a serious risk of a dam failing completely, as they ran away. It must have been truly terrifying, especially when the barges hit.

Bridge carrying main road up the valley smashed at Yokota

It also emerged that the council' evacuation plan did not take into account that a dam might fail. When the dams were built any houses by the original course of the river were moved to at least 3 metres above the new water level, including ours. Residents and the council were told that a serious flood was now 'Impossible.' Again, sound familiar? So guess where the evacuation moved people to? Unaccountably, an old aged persons' home by the river, only slightly higher than the problem areas, despite the availability of various large buildings nearby in the mountains, like the Ski Centre. If a dam had actually failed there would have been a large number of deaths. As dam failure began to look possible there was a frantic attempt to move the people who had been taken there somewhere else. This strange plan echoes what could be called the 'evacuation into slightly less danger' policy taken by the prefectural authorities, who have built emergency housing for evacuees from inside the 20km zone around Fukushima Daichi as near as 35km away - in Iwaki. Again, this is hard to understand when there is a choice. Iwaki is an area many families have chosen to self-evacuate away from due to the elevated radiation levels.

A home left hanging over space

Luckily, the worst did not happen, though the following weeks were very tough for everyone, camping out on their top floor without kitchens or bathrooms, and beginning to tackle the horrendous smelly mess that any flood leaves in its wake. Difficult for anyone, but particularly exhausting for the majority in their 70's and older.

For us, it was the last straw. We had been trying to hang on to living in Fukushima despite the daily worry for the long-term health of our son, because of our love for the people and the place. Not having a functioning house, and realising that the riverside location was no longer tenable in the long term, it gave us the push to make the move away that was inevitable but wrenchingly sad.

There was still no sign of the necessary radiation safeguards and protections being put in place for children, still far too big a gap between information from the authorities and that available from independent sources, still difficulty in sourcing food from other areas of Japan with much lower radiation, and still no sign of transparency or clear food labelling, just more of the same simplistic 'It's safe' propaganda. Not good enough. And when it rained, the radiation levels beneath our eves were 50% higher, meaning that releases were still continuing. After all that worry it would have been ironic indeed if it had been hydro-electricity that had finished us off.

Flood debris and wrecked graves in the family plot, Nishitani

We will probably never know the degree to which human error, both in institutional form or our own addictions to energy intensive comforts, contributed to making this, and other floods like it, worse. It was certainly the worst in living memory along the Tadami river, and some of the elders said that before the dams were built it was never as severe. Because of the way the energy market is organised, people never even saw cheaper electricity for the extra risk they accepted. That is something that could change if hard-fought reforms wanted by the majority are achieved and micro-generation owned by communities is viable. 50 years ago when the dams were built people wanted to contribute to the modernisation of Japan. For us, as for many people in Japan, the recent disasters have washed away more than just houses. They have eroded trust in the government and institutions that are supposed to protect us and our children, just as they have proved once again that individual people and communities will rally round and work wonders in supporting each other and clearing up the mess in times of dire need. If only we could get better at stopping it happening in the first place.

With especial thanks the family that provided emergency accommodation on the night of the flood and looked after my son while we were cleaning up the house. Also thanks to everyone who came to help with the clear up or checked to see that we were all right - we will never forget! We think about everyone in Kaneyama every day.

Fukushima children's art project

2011-08-18T20:45:00.000+09:00

9 year old Fukushima child's anger and sadness at Fukushima Daiichi

I'm sorry I haven't been able to post anything for quite some time. I have given most of my spare time to my new project Strong Children, and our house has just been flooded out by the Tadami river for goodness sake! Life was obviously getting too simple here in Fukushima.

Strong Children consists of portraits of Japanese children and young people living with the ongoing consequences of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear accident, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11th 2011. Please take a look. The images are designed and made by the children, with words too if they wish. I add their portrait according to their instructions - they choose the pose, facial expression, colour and feeling. The aim is to enable them to share their important experiences and thoughts with the world at this crucial time. It is a collaboration, but they are the boss.

In my view children need an appropriate setting that gives them permission and safety to express a whole range of emotions and thoughts. That includes fear, sadness, grief and anger sometimes, as well as happiness and the more socially acceptable cute and joyful aspects of childhood.

I also want to create a channel for them to reach the world and get feedback, and to affect the policies that shape and limit their living conditions, health and happiness. This completes a positive circle they can feel proud of and empowered by. Finally, no record of important historical events, or thinking about energy choices or ethics for that matter, can be complete without including children - even if it is just seeing the marks they make, and looking into their eyes as they gaze from a portrait.

If you would like to support or help exhibit, publish or disseminate the project, please contact me

As unreal as snakes and snow

2011-05-12T00:01:00.000+09:00

Japanese four lined rat snake or 'Shima-hebi' (Elaphe quadrivirgata)

A two metre long snake was not what I was expecting on a windy day after a stiff walk over snow and the debris of winter up to the ridge. But the sunshine was warm on the narrow edge, with the wind hitting the mountainside and shooting straight up, leaving a pool of stillness on the rocky edge and heat sufficient for reptiles to wake up from their winter sleep, along with their prey. The winter is so long that at the first hint of spring everyone, human, animal, plant or otherwise, leaps to make the most of every minute.

Head bottom left, tail top right

This 827m (2,713ft) mountain above Yokota in Kaneyama-machi, Fukushima-ken is one of those that, while unremarkable in itself, offers great beauty, a village laid out like a toy at it's foot, and wild expanses of space and light. I cycled to it's base and up the winding road that leads to abandoned homesteads, changing into running shoes for the top half up a forestry track and onto the final slopes.

The first flush of green above snow holes warmed by tree trunks

The path was covered in snow, so I lost it and ended up thrutching through the tangle of trees destroyed by the heavy snow, some of them big but with their trunks snapped anyway. Where the snow had melted on the steepest slopes the thick stems of tall grass and bamboo had been plastered down and combed directly downhill, making for slippery going on their smooth stalks.

A classic Okuaizu view from the ridge

I gained the ridge path and began scrambling upwards, shreds of plastic rope rotted by the sun on the ground. The snake and I surprised each other, and it lay stock still as I seemed to be neither small enough for lunch nor dangerous enough to bother moving away from. As I moved in closer it suddenly shot straight forwards past my leg and threaded like an arrow the undergrowth that had slowed me so much. That must be the speed that enables it to catch frogs, lizards, insects, mice and small birds, and I was very glad of my size at that moment.

The top, with no leaves to obscure the view

It was lovely to be up here alone, surrounded by space, with the sunshine, the snow, and the first leaves of spring all to myself - or my ever changing bundle of narratives, if you prefer the modern approach. Bundle of nerves feels more like it these days, with many of our comfortable assumptions having taken such a battering from nature and human folly recently. A lot of those personal and national narratives are having to be hastily rewritten on ragged scraps of paper with broken pencils.

Native beeches, looking south east towards the Tadami river

I spent some time pottering around, breathing in the air and feeling the burgeoning life of the hills, trying to get some comfort from greater perspectives of time and space than the house, the television and even the internet can afford. It worked, as usual, though there has been more to overcome since the March disasters. I mean, the net is great and all, and during the hours we spend in thrall to it it certainly feels significant, like right now, but in the end we are just sitting there alone in front of some glowing metal and plastic, aren't we? Current company excepted of course - I am really here, talking to you now, you aren't alone in a darkened room, your face lit from beneath by your screen. Isn't there a hill you could be going up? That seems more real. The Romantic narrative about it has got a bit of a longer history anyway, and I am buying into it, big time. It is cheaper to buy into than a laptop, that's for sure. Wordsworth wouldn't have written half so much or walked half as far on the fells if he'd had the internet.

Looking west towards Asaksa-dake. Definitley real in a romantic kind of way

I wandered lonely as a blogger, until at length it was time to descend the ridge again, being a little more alert for wildlife this time, and better able to see where I had mistaken the path on the way up. Below, the cerulean blue roofs of Yokota surrounded the wonderful primary school, where I have run art and songwriting sessions in the course of teaching English. It has a special atmosphere amongst the children and staff - that Okuaizu magic, and is in an idylic position, full of light and life. What a tragedy that it is at risk of closing due to falling numbers. I mean, look at it for goodness sake!

Yokota school and village in it's majestic setting

And still they came

2011-05-05T14:02:00.004+09:00

It takes more than mere disaster to keep Arai racing club away from Aizu.

Many people have cancelled their bookings for this area, and businesses in Oku Aizu are really struggling by association with the rest of Fukushimna, even though levels here are relatively low, similar to natural background radiation in many parts of the world. I wondered therefore, whether Arai racing club would make one of their regular trips up from Saitama this Golden Week. They could be forgiven for staying at home.

Four of them came anyway. Hoshi-san (giving the thumbs up above) said that he sees this as a safe zone, and anyway, he doesn't like to necessarily do what everyone else does. "I do things at my pace," he said. He recently suffered a bereavement - he crashed his lovely new full carbon Giant in a tragic blossom-gazing incident and snapped the frame. Ouch, expensive. Get a steel bike. Now he is working overtime to save up for a replacement.

Yoshida-san on 401, Showa-mura

He works in ICT in the middle of Tokyo. Now he is listening to birdsong

Yoshida-san likes his sweet bread...a lot

After a sociable ride up 400 to Showa-mura, and the beautiful snaking slopes up 401 to a pit stop in Minamiaizu, we chain-ganged along 289 to Tadami, where we stopped at the nice little restaurant that does my favourite risotto. It's cheesy, very cheesy, and you can't say that for much food in Japan, delicious though the diet is.

Too classy for a bunch of scruffy sweaty cyclists? Not at all sir.

Ahhh, risotto! Good value at ¥850 for this plus tea or coffee

Hilariously, though the guys were happy to brave a radiation scare, they were horrified by the heavy rain that started falling while we were eating. They always hate rain, and avoid it whenever possible, as they are made out of tissue paper and would obviously melt into a soggy pulp at the merest drop. I had been waiting for this moment, as they were all riding stripped down carbon race style bikes, as is the dodgy fashion. I ride a training bike with mudguards, something that is seen as quaintly old fashioned, but I see as a no-brainer for anyone who wants to ride in comfort in all seasons, especially in the mountains. I laughed. A lot. I asked them how the road tasted? Were they nice and warm with great splatters of dirty water up their arses? Apparently not. That'll teach 'em. Their enthusiasm and speed was thoroughly dampened, with Hoshi-san in particular frozen to the bone. To be fair, it was 7c, and they are used to Saitama, where it is currently a whopping twenty degrees warmer.

Hoshi-san cooking up a storm

Still, it was nothing that a soak in Nakagawa onsen couldn't put right. Hoshi-san bore me no ill-will despite my churlish dry-posterior-based gloating, and cooked a massive multi-course meal for us all, including vegetarian specialities for me like tofu fritters. We finished the day satisfyingly bloated and snoozy round Shigemura-san's wood burner.

As is becoming traditional, they refused to ride the next day. I think the club needs a new name: Arai Dry Eating and Onsen Club. It was good to see them though. Although we are not out of the woods yet with the power station, and it doesn't change that, it makes all of us who live in Fukushima feel a whole lot better that people still want to come. Thanks Arai.

The snow is nearly gone

2011-05-05T11:02:00.003+09:00

Photos from April. Speeding up the melt by hand is hard work

The snow is finally leaving us again after four months and a winter that lasted longer than usual.

A neighbour calls in the big guns to speed things up - snow from her allotment.

A heavy duty council snow machine clears the pavement

Evaporation above Oshio - one of the famous views of Japan

Road running in Minamiaizu

2011-04-26T12:44:00.000+09:00

A day off from worry

Hoshi-san about to make a break for glory, above Ouchijuku, Minamiaizu

It has taken me two years to find a group of runners to run with, in this sparsely populated area of a 'time poor' country, so I was really glad to be able to forget the stress of the last month and go and run with the informal Aizu Run For Fun group. They meet up a couple of times a year for a social run in addition to seeing each other at races.

Aizu Run For Fun group with Mt Ono in the background

We met at Yunokamionsen, which is lorded over by Mt Ono, and in the midst of other fine mountains, but the group like road running, so we weren't going up it, unfortunately for me. Instead we climbed up a long side valley past the famous old houses at Ouchijuku. It was about an hour of uphill road running, to a dam at the top. Then we turned round and ran back the same way! Ouch.

Endo-sensei and Iwabuchi-sensei, both primary school teachers, and Hoshi-san, very fast at 60.

The run up was at a steady social pace, and I stopped to take a photo of the others as they ran down a loop of road with mountains behind, assuming catching up would be no problem. Hoshi-san, the spry 60 year old, took the opportunity to leg it down the road sharpish, which shouldn't have been a huge surprise, as I had noticed how easily he was chatting on the way up.

Runners on route 131, above Ouchi, Minamiaizu

I have noticed two things about Japanese sports clubs. One is that they like to play 'show the newcomer who is boss,' perhaps especially if they are a foreigner. And secondly, I am yet to go on a completely social run or ride, where people stay together all the way round. There is always someone batting off the front. Don't get me wrong, it is all done in a friendly spirit, and I love competition and hard training, but when I was in my prime in England we always said 'Don't leave your best runs in training - save it for races.' Perhaps they don't get to do as many races, so they have more of a competitive itch to scratch? It's just a different approach, and fine once you know to expect it.

Hoshi-san had a good time anyway, and it took an effort to catch him. He is obviously a classy runner for his age category, and without an ounce of fat on him at 45kg he has a great strength-to-weight ratio. On down the hill at a brisk pace, with my mountain runner's legs spitting hate at the pesky tarmac, he put in another burst and was off.

Sharing grub after a relaxing onsen

The group who had gone a shorter route arrived back in pairs, their ages ranging from the 30s to the 70s! Fantastic. I love seeing people running and biking into their old age. I really hope I can do it. It won't be too long now. There is no better way to follow training than with an onsen, and the lunch banter got more raucous, the more alcohol the non-drivers consumed. Interesting characters!

It was a lovely day, and it was good spend it with nice people and to see a little more of an area that I don't know yet. Driving back on beautiful roads, I hoped that I would be able to come back and run a few of the mountains in Minamiaizu in less troubling times. There won't be much tarmac involved I can tell you...

Write for Tohoku ebook available

2011-04-22T20:50:00.000+09:00

The Write for Tohoku ebook is now available from http://fortohoku.org/

It is 295 page collection of pieces by people who have been touched, changed, or just plain amused by their experiences of this unique country, with many pieces about Tohoku itself including places affected by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. You will wind up knowing a lot more than you did before about Japan behind the headlines if you aren't very careful.

It is a veritable bargain at $9.99 (£6.20 approx), and all profits go to the Japan Red Cross relief effort. Spread the word. And I'm not just saying that because a piece from Living in Aizu is in it obviously...

Run? Hide? Ride?

2011-04-19T20:06:00.000+09:00

Look, a mask. That's me completely safe then. I'll duck and cover when I get home

If we do stay here I don't want my son to be doing anything I feel uncomfortable about myself. So on my first day back north, when I came ahead on my own to see how it felt being back here, I went for a bike ride and breathed the air in good and deep.

I called in on one of the great primary schools I have done some teaching at, just to say hello and show that I had come back. By coincidence on the morning of the March 11th earthquake we had been told by the outgoing head of education that we would no longer be employed to do English in local schools, which confused and saddened us a bit, as a lot of children and teachers seemed to have enjoyed our creative approach. We returned home to the quake and to pictures of the tsunami on television and nothing has seemed that small or ordinary since. Still, being unemployed made it slightly easier to go away until things became clearer. They are still not clear.

The deputy head, a lovely chap, gave me an emotional greeting, and we exchanged concerns about each other's families. It is hard for him as he lives in a flat here, while his wife and children live further East (more towards the plant) in Aizuwakamatsu. This isn't an unusual arrangement in these parts, as apparently women often refuse to live in the mountains even when their husbands want to. His parting words were that I should look after my son. After the ride my eyes were itchy, but I'm guessing that was the tree pollen, which has been billowing out in big yellow clouds. Smoky Robinson might disagree.

The next day I visited Shigemura-san, who spent the first two weeks of the crisis in hospital having an operation that had been arranged before-hand. He was very upbeat and I think he is an immovable object. He loves giving hospitality, and it was great to feel almost normal as he fired up the wood burning stove in his front room for a cup of tea and a succession of snacks and goodies.

Biomass - anything that is non-nuclear is OK by us now

I dropped in to Abe-san's garage to top up for my trip to pick up my wife and child. Bowing sometimes goes out of the window in times like these, and the normally non-touching Japanese dive in for a warm double-handed handshake given the excuse of a gaijin - especially as I have turned out not to be a flyjin for now (the term coined for foreigners who flew home during the crisis).

Abé-san and friend

We discussed how sad it was that even evacuees didn't stay here for long as they found it inconvenient and cold. How sad that in modern life instant access 24 hour shopping and physical comfort every minute of the day are valued more highly than what this community offers. I said that if they had given it more time they would have realised that here everyone is your friend. People don't have as much money, sure, but they have more time. And children are really cared for and well educated. What is more important, when it comes down to it?

In a wider sense it is a kind of sickness, contributing to the concentration of life in Tokyo, which therefore needs enormous electricity resources, so nuclear power stations are forced on the provinces like Fukushima-ken that don't even benefit from them, but have to deal with the fallout - literally.

Of course in such dire circumstances I completely understand people chasing every crumb of comfort they can find, and many may simply have gone home again to work or to re-unite their families. Evacuation solves one pressing problem, but can create a whole set of new ones.

Abé-san recalled how much he disliked living in Yokohama City for ten years. He couldn't stand the rush hour trains, with people pressed right up against your face, so he came back. He is an occasional cyclist, and has so far given us a good bike and some skiis. He also re-did the nuts on my the car wheels for free this week. Apparently I put them on the wrong way round in taking off the snow tyres. But like the long-term health effects of low levels of radiation from naturally ocurring radon gas, compared to solely man-made caesium 137 contamination, who is to know? Like everyone else, Abé-san looked to have lost weight since I last saw him. There is of course deep concern and worry beneath the 'business as usual' veneer.

Shigemura-san on his first post-operation ride

I joined Shigemura-san on his first post-operation ride. "9.30 in the morning!" I emphasised. "Not 10!" Yes, yes, of course, he replied. "All ready?" yes, yes of course he would be, he said. The next morning I arrived at his big old house just before 9.30 to find him struggling to get his spd pedals off and put platform pedals on. No surprise there. That took a while. You see, life, carrying on as normal! So not all Japanese dislike shaking hands, and not all Japanese are punctual either. But I liked it. It was comforting.

On the ride I had to persuade him not to sprint some sections for the sake of his recuperation. He might literally have bust a gut, but I can see that he must have been a bit stir crazy in hospital and stuck in his house, when he is such a big one for the outdoors. It was windy, and billows of dust rose from the roadside. I could feel the particles working their way into my eyes - but that is the feeling I had come out to try before my son. It wasn't good. In these situations is imagination your friend or your enemy? It is simple for Shigemura-san - there is no problem, just as there are no bears on any given hill that he chooses to go on.

I also got a call from Iwabuchi-sensei, who I run with sometimes. In February before the earthquake he did the Iwaki Sunshine Marathon, only a few kilometres from Fukushima Daiichi. We had been talking about starting a sports club and finding other runners, and one had finally got back to us to arrange a group run for the following week in Minami-Aizu, which has had the lowest radiation readings of anywhere in Fukushima.

Iwabuchi-sensei toughing it out, mask on chin

Him and me ran for a couple of hours on the road, as we are in the in-between time, after the minor roads are clear of a nice soft layer of snow, and before the mountain trails are clear enough to run. Aizu looked fantastically beautiful, as it always does, nearly enough to forget everything. It was a rolling valley route, with ups and downs like our daily emotions.

As I write, the wind is blowing from the East. That is bad, and the rain that has been falling all day has turned to big wet flakes of snow. I won't be going out for a run or a ride today. Today it's definitely hide, though that is a luxury that the many people working in road and tunnel building, construction, forestry and delivery across Aizu and the rest of Fukushima-ken can't afford.

The frog in boiling water

2011-04-11T22:41:00.003+09:00

Returning to the nuclear threat from Fukushima Dai-ichi*

What have they done to this beautiful country? Waking to a different world

It is now four weeks since the man-made Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster, born of greed and arrogance, began. I haven't posted recently because I am too sad and angry, and I didn't know what to say. We left Fukushima-ken four days later after two explosions and a lack of credible information. We have returned to our home 133 km (83 miles) west of the plant after three weeks of keeping our son safe in Hiroshima (of all places) and Kyushu, where we visited, you guessed it, Nagasaki.

It tells you everything you need to know about this beautiful place that we have come back at all, to at least try living with these horribly new circumstances, in what for so many in Japan is an utterly changed world. This community has been so good for our son, and we feel a strong bond even after just two years. There is more information now, and it seems that Oku-Aizu may, so far, be the least affected area of Fukushima-ken. And yet the picture is far from complete.

We have daily local air readings for microsieverts per hour, but only outside the council offices, not across the area. The one-off reading by our son's school 400m away was double this, albeit still low. We have no local details breaking this down into amounts of iodine 131, or caesium 137 if any, and no soil testing yet. It isn't clear what effect the remaining snow or the structure of the mountains will have. Are they protective in some way, or could they lead to pockets of concentration? Should the snow be cleared off allotments and rice fields, or left to melt?

Information is inconsistent and contradictory. There appears to be no internationally uniform way of describing risk or radioactivity in a way intelligible to most people. Different figures are given using different measures over different time scales. Relating them to each other is near impossible for the non-specialist. There is particular confusion around short term versus long term risk, with dubious comparisons to things like medical x-rays and international flights being offered. The results of exposure to very high levels seem reasonably well understood, but long term chronic exposure to small amounts over years much less so. I have yet to find anyone among my friends and acquaintances who feels that they understand it, and it thus comes down to who do you trust? The answer, for many Japanese, is nobody any more.

There is also a gap between information and risk assessments in Japan and abroad. Foreign governments, scientists and engineers and the media often have a different or more pessimistic view and there has been much criticism of TEPCO.

The more you read about radiation risks, the wider the disagreements appear to be - across media pundits (independent or otherwise), governments, and most worryingly even the scientific community. The latter are quite poor at making themselves intelligible to the general public. Behind the scenes connections with industry, government, ownership and funding are not made clear, making it difficult to know to what extent the information is being distorted, selected or withheld for financial, strategic, or political reasons. No subject is completely free of this. No doubt behind the scenes the cost-benefit relationship, between how risk is presented and future compensation claims, and the future of the nuclear industry is being calculated. That is just what very big organisations often do.

We are trying to persuade the council to buy testing equipment for the air, soil, water and food, as we all urgently need reassurance that we are not putting our children at risk - with a big, comfortable margin of error, not a 'probably' or 'maybe'. For example the wild vegetable (sansai) picking season is nearly upon us and people are going to start feeding them to their children. There is currently no way of getting them tested.

Tourism and the sale of produce is also dead in the water without transparent and credible local testing of exactly the thing that people are using or eating. But local government has the reputation for being change averse and very slow, and because its workers have secure jobs they are less likely to see the urgency of taking pre-emptive steps to preserve the many small producers, accommodation and onsen businesses that will go under. The way that Japanese education stamps out individual flexible thinking will also be an obstacle in responding quickly and effectively to this crisis. As I put it in a previous post,

The ability to respond creatively to change is the best insurance in an uncertain world. Fixed curricula with little chance to discuss, ask challenging questions, or freely explore each others minds, do not provide this.

Change is inevitable, and attempting to predict it is risky. Training children to accept and follow rigid patterns based on an assumed future, rather than to innovate solutions for any situation, risks condemning them to struggle and redundancy.

Institutions, like some individuals, are still in denial about just how changed things will be and are trying to cling on to their routines.

We had a magnitude 7 earthquake this week which caused worrying problems at Onagawa nuclear power station, as if we don't have enough already. There was another 7 magnitude quake today, and the constant aftershocks are really fraying everyone's nerves, and frightening the children. I ran downstairs during today's quake to check on the my son and his two friends. There was no sign of them in the front room, until I realised they had all managed to squeeze underneath the small, low, heated table (kotatsu). Apparently they threw their PSPs and Nintendo DSs in there first - imagine that on the Titanic. You can tell they were scared, because he claims they didn't continue playing them under there.

In the first four days of the crisis the image that haunted me was that of people watching the tsunami approach before they had reached safety - people were screaming 'Run! Run!' But they were mesmerised by its power like rabbits in a car's headlights. We moved because we needed to break that spell. We were, I think, right to do so.

Some friends say we should stay away, others that it is important to keep it in proportion and listen to credible reassurances. We moved back because our life is here. The radiation test numbers seemed better, school was starting, and there was a job interview. The disciplined Japanese 'group mind,' in its warmer aspects and remarkable community solidarity is a wonderful thing, as you will have seen from responses to the tsunami, and draws you in.

The image that is haunting me now, though, is the hopefully apocryphal 'frog in boiling water' experiment. They say that if you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out. But if you put it in cool water, then slowly heat it up, it will stay in there until it cooks. I hope it isn't talking about us.

Update: since writing a Nature magazine editorial reinforces my points regarding information and makes me feel better about my confusion!

*Please note, the above is a description of my current thinking as an individual assessing risk for my family and is based on web reading. I am not a specialist.

西日本の緊急住宅情報

2011-03-23T20:50:00.002+09:00

English version
あなたや子供達の安全のために、現状が回復し危険リスクが減るまで、福島県または東北地方を離れたいとお考えですか？　そのために役立つ情報はご存知でしょうか？
地震、津波、原発事故で避難を余儀なくなれている方々に、安全な西日本の多くの県が短期滞在のための住宅を用意し始めています。避難勧告を受けた人は、一年間無料の住宅提供、食糧、器具、福祉のサポートが受けられるようです。国の定めた避難地区、または震災により帰る所を失った人たちが優先されます。また、それ以外の区域の方達が、ご自身の判断で安全なところへ移ることも可能です。県によって様々な対応がなされていますが、下記の例があります。

自分の行きたいエリアの市や県に連絡する。例えば、西日本。Link
緊急住宅問題の課に連絡する。例えば、住宅管理グループ。そして、現在の自分の状況を説明する。
もしご自身が優先順位から外れていると言われた場合、その地区のNPOセンター、または小規模のNPOネットワークに連絡をする。Link
自治体からのサポートが得られなかった理由を電話で説明し、NPOに交渉を手伝ってもらう。または、その地区のNPOで手助けをしてくれるところや、ボランティアでホームステイさせてくれるところの連絡先を教えてもらう。

広島県の場合
広島市内に１年間無料の住宅を１００戸、用意しています。詳しくは広島県のウェブサイトに載っています。
http://www.pref.hiroshima.lg.jp/page/1300357651489/index.html

連絡先の詳細：

住宅管理グループ：電話番号０８２−５１３−４１７１、現状を説明して交渉して下さい。
広島NPOセンターが、あなたをサポートしてくれるNPOを見つけてくれるかもしれません。電話番号０８２−５１１−３１８０
ウェブサイトhttp://www.npoc.or.jp/index.php?%A4%D2%A4%ED%A4%B7%A4%DE%A3%CE%A3%D0%A3%CF%A5%BB%A5%F3%A5%BF%A1%BC
NPO　西城さとやま交流館が、被災者証明がなくても受け入れて下さいます。（広島市から北東に約１００キロ）
電話番号０８２４−８２−７１７１
クリスチャン教会は少人数の受け入れを考えてくれています。電話番号０８０−３１２５−０６９０、しん様宛て。

今後、自治体、NPO、ボランティアが東北からの子供連れの避難者、特に避難勧告は出ていなくても原発から遠くない人々の短期滞在住宅を準備してくれることと思います。そのためにも、あなたに何が必要かを伝えましょう。

English version

Do you need to leave Fukushima-ken or Tohoku because of the nuclear accident or earthquake and tsunami?

2011-03-23T16:35:00.004+09:00

Japanese

Are you afraid for your children or yourself, and want to leave Fukushima-ken or somewhere else in Tohoku until the situation improves and the danger is reduced? Do you know or work with people who may need accommodation or respite?

Many prefectures in safer areas like West Japan are now offering temporary accommodation to evacuees and those made homeless by the earthquake, tsunami, or nuclear accident. This may be free for up to a year, and food, equipment, and welfare support may be on offer for official evacuees and those made homeless in some areas. Evacuees from official zones, and those made homeless by earthquakes and tsunamis have priority, but help for others who make their own decision to move to a safer area may also be available. Details vary from place to place, but here is an idea for what to do:

Contact the City or Prefecture office in the area you want to go to, for example in West Japan (List of prefecture and city homepages - most have English pages)
Ask for the department offering emergency accommodation, for example the housing management office. Explain your situation and ask for help.
If they say that you do not meet their priorities, ask for the NPO support office number for that area, or similar NPO network (list of NPO support offices in Japan)
Phone them and explain that you have been refused official help, and ask them if they can negotiate for you, or if there are any NPO’s arranging help or volunteer hosts in the area – get their contact details and contact them.

Example: temporary help in Hiroshima
The city is preparing apartments (100 so far today) free for 12 months: here are the details on the Hiroshima-ken government site

Contact details:

Hiroshima housing management 082 513 4171 to negotiate for help based on your circumstances
Or the Hiroshima NPO support centre will help you find other NPO’s who can help. TEL 082-511-3180
An example of an NPO (100km NE of Hiroshima) offering help without criteria: Saijosatoyama Koryyukan: tel: 0824 82 7171
A Christian church who may be able to offer hosts for a few families: Reformed Christian Church: Mob: 080 3125 0690 (Shin-san)

As time goes on and immediate critical needs have been met, it is likely that government, NPOs and volunteers all over Japan will provide more help and temporary accommodation for people with children who arrive from Tohoku, and especially near the reactor. Keep asking so they know what people’s needs are.

If you have any corrections or other useful information that you have verified to be correct, please post it in a comment
Japanese

How are people in Aizu coping with the crisis in Japan?

2011-03-22T00:26:00.002+09:00

Kaneyama-machi: a community that will bend but not break

My wife has been in daily contact with friends and family back up in Kaneyama-machi, a long way from us now but very much in our minds. Everyone of course feels differently and will have their own particular view of things and ways of coping, but here are some of the things we have heard about.

People are of course getting on with their normal lives as best they can. Many, though not young themselves, continue to care for elderly relatives at home.

There have been repeated earthquakes in Aizu, as across all of Tohoku which while lower in magnitude than the worst areas, are frightening and unsettling, and the combination of that and the nuclear crisis is very stressful.

People do not seem to trust the official information they are being given, partly because of delays at the beginning. They are confused by the difference between the 80km evacuation zone recommended by America, and the 30km Japanese zone. One said "Why is 80km good for Americans, but Japanese people only get 30km?" Initially, the township was told to prepare for 100 evacuees, but then this was cancelled, and they aren't coming, but no reason was given. Was this because of the supply logistics in a snowy area, or for a more worrying reason? They urgently need trustworthy independent information, and information specific to their area would be invaluable.

Apparently, according to prefectural governments, areas outside the official evacuation zones cannot organise their own official moving of people, though they have no objection to individuals doing so, so mayors and schools, for example, have their hands tied. So far, it seems to be mainly foreigners and temporary residents who have left, a picture that is probably repeated in most crisis situations across the world. They are more likely to have somewhere to go to, may be less likely to have permanent jobs, and are more likely to have friends and family urging them to leave. Everyone we know who has left feels very sad and unhappy about it, finding it a very difficult decision, and wants to go back soon if possible. Oku-aizu is a difficult place to leave and is never forgotten, as the people who have left comments on recent posts here show.

Some who have moved to Kaneyama-machi from places much nearer the accident like Fukushima City are said to feel much safer, breathing the air deeply and saying "Ah, that lovely clean mountain air." Perhaps some of the older people worry less, or notice less, whereas younger people are perhaps more informed and wary, so there may be a bit of an age divide in that respect. Some people with children are of course particularly worried, but really trying to make the best of it. Others are confident there is no appreciable risk and are happily getting on with things.

The area, which has suffered from the gradual moving away of young people and families to the cities, has paradoxically seen a sudden reversal of that. People who had moved to cities where the earthquake and tsunamis hit hard, or where there is no power or food, or a greater fear of radiation, are moving back. People's big "ie's" the symbolic central home, the physical heart of the family, are full again, as they used to be, as are most of the guest-houses and onsen hotels, which have reduced their prices a lot to help people escaping. The council is providing food outside the council offices, as many of these people not staying with their families don't have access to much.

There isn't enough fuel to plough the roads, though it is still snowing regularly and there is little or no fuel available, so getting around is difficult, and some of the teachers may soon not be able to get to work in the schools. The main roads are reported to be still negotiable, though the smaller mountain roads that were previously ploughed must be getting difficult. There is no heating oil left, though people who managed to stock up before the crisis have enough for now. The general approach to winter in the area has always been to prepare for the long haul, as winters are pretty tough in any case, and the same applies to food. It is unlikely that local people will run out of basic food for quite some time.

It is a worry that milk in some areas of Fukushima-ken has been found to contain harmful levels of Iodine already - but not in Kaneyama-machi or Oku Aizu. The government has not banned produce from affected areas here and elsewhere, but suggested that people should be wary of buying it, which comes to the same thing. In the end, public perception will determine whether people will buy produce, even though testing has been instituted. For example the TV tonight showed a dairy farmer in Aizubange with his uncontaminated milk, which was perfectly fine - however his customers had cancelled their orders. It is to be hoped that transparent and credible testing in the longer term succeeds in reassuring people sufficiently. Very small amounts of Iodine, said not to pose any risk at all, have been found in drinking water as far south as Tokyo and west in Niigata.

If anyone can cope well with all this, and find a way to bounce back, it is people like those in Kanayama-machi, with their immense vitality and community cohesion.

Children at risk near the Fukushima Daichi nuclear accident, Japan?

2011-03-19T15:49:00.010+09:00

While now safe with my son in Hiroshima, we are still extremely concerned for everyone in Fukushima-ken, in particular the people, and especially children, living near (but outside) the official 30km evacuation zone, and we are working hard from here to help.

The American government has recommended a much bigger 80km evacuation zone. Inside that 80km area are many small towns and villages, but also Iwaki city just outside it (population 344,000), and Koriyama City, with a population of around 340,000. It is only about 60km (36 miles) west of the accident.

See map with example centres of population and their distances from the accident

We all hope that the incredibly brave, heroic workers fighting to save the plant are successful in avoiding the much larger release of radiation that would follow full meltdown of one or several of the six reactors in close proximity, and material in unprotected storage ponds, all affected by each other. We also hope that the more optimistic in a wide range of expert assessments are correct, that is to say that even if it comes to the worst, there will be no immediate risk outside the plant and the 30km evacuation zone. One described it as essentially "a local incident." I really hope so, though ineveitably this has now been upgraded to "an incident with wider consequences." But my personal view as a lay person with a deep affection for Fukishima-ken communities is that all along assessments have proved in fact to be too optimistic, from the design choices made in the building of the plant, to Tokyo Electric`s announcements, to the evacuation area. This is also view of the man who was in charge of the Chernobyl clean up.

This week I met a nuclear power worker travelling home to see his family before going to work at the Fukushima Daichi power plant. He said that we had been right to leave, and that he `expected it to get worse next week.` We think he had probably been given permission to say goodbye to his family and knew there was a chance he might not survive. The way he smiled at my son was heartbreaking.

Imagine everything going as wrong as it possibly can - it has so far. Can anyone really be sure that 6 reactors interacting at their worst, with sustained release of material including plutonium from controversial mox fuel, combined with strong landward winds and the fall of rain and snow, will not combine to create an unprecedented event?　Surely `hope for best but prepare for the worst` is sensible. I am very aware of the huge pressure on government systems caused by the tsunami and earthquakes and the extraordinary scale of the logistics involved. I am also incredibly appreciative of everything that is being done already by countless hard pressed and exhausted officials, NPOs and citizens, who are struggling to decide priorities.

For example, Hiroshima City has offered to accommodate anyone from the 30km evacuation zone from Tuesday 22nd March. They will also accommodate anyone whose house has been destroyed from a very wide area including all of Tohoku, Hokkaido, Kanto, Koshin etsu in Yamanachi-ken, Nagano, and Niigata.

However amidst all this great work I am afraid that one group has been forgotten. The children and families outside the current 30km zone, but within, for example the American`s 80km zone, and with no significant mountain barrier between them and the plant, should be provided with transport to safe accommodation until the plant is stabilised. Children seem to be affected more quickly than adults by radiation of specific kinds (Iodine) because of their un-developed thyroid glands, so it needs to happen quickly - before, not after the event.

Preferably government should do it, but if not then NPOs and volunteers could do a little. To these ends I am at the Hiroshima Peace Cultural Foundation in the Peace Park at ground zero, who have been very helpful and supportive with facilities, information and their channels of communication, which will hopefully bear some fruit. I have lobbied Hiroshima-ken (a branch of local government), and been interviewed by a journalist with the Chugoku newspaper. I have also contacted an NPO network arranged to deal with the crisis, tried to find local people to be host families, and asked all my friends and contacts to send money or food to help in the aid effort in general. I was contacted by the BBC while still in Kaneyama-machi, and spoke on a World Service's TV programme. I don't think anything has changed as a result yet.

Hiroshima City, with it's tragic history, has a unique understanding of what Fukishima's communities are going through, and I have no doubt will respond with any help they can offer. Hiroshima has just offered to accommodate anyone from the 30km evacuation zone from Tuesday 22nd March. They will also accommodate anyone whose house has been destroyed from a very wide area including all of Tohoku, Hokkaido, Kanto, Koshin etsu in Yamanachi-ken, Nagano, and Niigata. However, this does not yet include the group I am referring to, and at the least volunteer hosts will be needed, moving on to transport and lobbying official permissions if more is possible.

At the moment the parents we have spoken to are very afraid and confused, not trusting official information, and often without anywhere to head for even if they could find gasoline or an air or bus ticket for the few services left. Those with jobs are afraid of loosing them if they leave without permission, and life is continuing as normally as possible, with schools open, but no food in the shops or gasoline. What happens if you take your children out of school? What happens if you leave with nowhere to go to and no evacuee ID?What will people think of us afterwards if we leave?

Many areas of Fukushima-ken, far from evacuating, are actually receiving and looking after homeless evacuees from further north. The prefectural government has told our mayor that it is too busy to think about anything other than what central government is asking it to do. People need realistic options, and fast. They need to be encouraged to take them, to overcome the highly admirable Japanese social behaviour that in this situation, while preventing dangerous panic, can also be a barrier to sensible precautions.

If you are reading this and have any links that might help with anything, from offering aeroplanes (!), to links with Hiroshima groups, to future support or expertise for Kaneyama-machi, my small mountain community whose economy will probably be ruined whatever happens, please get in touch. Please forward this to people. My mobile number is ++81 (0)80-417-44847, but, only use this for something practical. Please use comments for anything non-urgent.

I don't yet know what can happen, if anything, as when it comes down to it I am just a foreigner with limited Japanese and a buggered laptop that has refused to connect to the internet for the last two days. I don't know if I am doing the right things, and am afraid of muddying the waters and adding to difficulties. But being safe and wrong is better than being over-confident and wrong. In any case any links I can make now will hopefully be of use to my home area Kaneyama-machi and Fukushima-ken as a whole in the future.

What we really need is some definitive and reliable good news from Fukushima power station, to make all our worries look stupid. Let's hope events are overtaken by us soon - it has been the other way so far.

Thanks for reading, yours in hope, Geoff

The BBC has summarised various views of the worst case scenario at 16th March:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12789749

This is the BBC's summary of health risks from radiation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12722435

This is the World Health Organisation information on the Japanese radiation risk
http://www.who.int/hac/crises/jpn/faqs/en/index4.html.

Not enough news on the Fukushima nuclear crisis

2011-03-14T13:45:00.003+09:00

The internet and phone lines in this area are now back on line after two days. The main problem for us is that there is a lack of up-to-date information to enable us to make a decision about whether to move or not. For example, information has been given an hour or two later, even though there have already been some leaks, two explosions, and four reactors are still at risk of meltdown. They are currently being cooled with sea water and they say they don't know if this will work or not. There has been a partial meltdown already. The nuclear reactions were automatically shut down, which was not the case in Chernobyl. Over the weeekend information appeared to be being controlled by the private company that owns the facilities, and the atomic safety spokesman appeared to be simply passing this on, blanking any tough questions from the media with stock phrases, like "We need more time to research information before we can answer that." There has been no update on TV for a while, and the vital information about wind direction and weather forecast is not being updated live. The New York Times is giving a more worrying picture. Although there are online lists of which roads are closed, it is hard to assess the risk of landslides and avalanches on routes through the mountains.

In case you live near a nuclear facility, this is the kind of treatment you can probably expect in the event of a problem, no matter what bland assurances you are given beforehand. No doubt all over the world the nuclear industry is as I write preparing statements about how this is a unique event, and in any case their designs are different, newer and safer, and they will apply everything learned from this incident to ensure that it can never happen again. Until the next time.

People locally are continuing as normal, which is admirable. They feel safe because this area is relatively safe in terms of earthquake. The nuclear risk does not seem to worry them, perhaps because trust of government is high. For example we just asked our son's school is someone there is monitoring warnings on TV. They are not.

The shops here have food for now and people usually have a lot of food for the winter, but we have just heard from relatives that shops in northern suburbs of Tokyo are now empty of food, and petrol has run out. This is possibly because oil tankers are diverting until the threat of further tsunamis is over. This means that leaving the areas threatened by the nuclear emergency by this route is much more difficult, as you could end up stranded in the car with no petrol and little food available. Once south west of Tokyo it might ease. The Japan sea side of Japan is apparently less affected by shortages, but how long this will continue we don't know. The numbers of people in greater Tokyo mean that things can spiral very quickly, although it seems stable at the moment.

There is no reliably safe option for what individuals should do, and it is hard to know whether to trust information we are given, which makes it especially difficult to decide.

Good luck to everyone.

Please note this post is written based on TV reports and what relatives are telling us - if you are in Japan please refer to other sources.

Fukushima nuclear reactor emmergency

2011-03-12T10:27:00.002+09:00

The latest news is that there have already been some leaks from Fukushima nuclear power station. Radiation levels 1,000 times normal have been found at at least one place in the plant, so previous announcements that there had been no leak were inaccurate. No surprise there. The authorities have announced that they are venting radioactive steam from 9am. A second reactor 20km away from the first now has the same problem. The only good news for those on the mainland is that the wind is currently blowing eastwards, out to sea. However, it is in the nature of radiation that this may just means bad news for someone else later. I feel for the technicians who have to put themselves at risk to deal with this, and really hope that they succeed in averting a further major disaster.

This is further evidence that nuclear power is not the solution for our energy needs, especially in earthquake areas of the world. This design was described by the government as the most earthquake proof in the world, but it has failed. Yet there are ongoing plans to build more. In Japan hydro and solar generation seem far safer and very practical solutions. Having said that, we are living in a low lying area of the village beneath a series of hydro-electric dams built in 1958. At least if they go, the damage will be limited in area and time, and the energy is relatively clean and cheap. Rather death by an attempt at clean power than something that will poison the land for generations.

As well as the extensive tsunami damage all along the Pacific coast, three cities containing thousands of souls were completely inundated by the ocean. Casualty figures are irrelevant at the moment because of the impossibility of collating them over the whole of Japan at the same time as responding to numerous local emergencies. We just have the examples of people we know, and thankfully everyone seems well. My friend Iwata-san walked north for six hours from his office in central Tokyo and reached the emergency shelter near his home where his daughter was volunteering. They spent the night there. He said the streets were flooded with people. My wife's mother spent the night awake on some station steps, and as I write at 9.30am is on a train, which is now stuck somewhere. She should get home soon.

My wife stayed up all night, unable to sleep, and there was another big aftershock based on Nagano at 4am. Her brother in Kawagoe near Tokyo said that there were so many shocks he ended up not knowing whether the house was still shaking, or it was just his dizziness. I slept fitfully, but wasn't aware of it. All of Japan is at risk of another big shock, but especially Tokyo, which is near the meeting point of five tectonic plates. There is in any case a high likelihood (estimated at a 50% risk), of Tokyo having a major quake in the next 50 years. As anyone who has visited Tokyo will know, it doesn't bear thinking about.

The news last night showed people bedding down on cardboard sheets in the stations, and escaping to Shinjuku Chuo park, where I have drawn the portraits of homeless people many times over the last ten years. I wonder if their sometimes critical attitudes will change when they have experienced what homeless people have to do every day. It could go either way, either leading to greater empathy, or to a greater rejection through feeling threatened by proximity. After the Kobe earthquake which killed 6,400 people, I heard that homeless people were chased away from the emergency aid stations. "No, you were homeless before the earthquake, it is not for you!"

However, I have found the great majority of Japanese people, like people everywhere, to be kind and supportive, and very communally minded, especially older people. The amazing stories of heroism and selflessness from this disaster will go some way to softening the pain of the next few weeks as the real picture emerges.

Many thanks to everyone who has got in touch to check that we are OK

Watching towns burn

2011-03-12T00:47:00.002+09:00

Whole areas of Kesenuma in Miyagi prefecture in Tohoku are burning, people's lives going up in smoke, watched by anyone who was able to make it home. It is painful to watch the playing over and over again of images of destruction, but we need to watch out for fresh warnings, and sleep doesn't seem possible. If you aren't accustomed to earthquakes you might think that it is only falling buildings that are the problem, but there are many other dangers. It is often the fires that break out that are more destructive, and the ground can even liquify into mud. This has been a day no-one in Japan will forget.

You have probably seen the tsunami videos by now, and terrible though that has been there is perhaps a greater long term risk posed as a result by the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power station which was built right by the pacific ocean on the Fukushima-ken coast, and therefore right in the path of tsunamis. Earlier today we watched the huge waves batter it. It is now reported to be in a state of nuclear emergency declared due to the failure of a pump in the cooling system which is vital to control the reactor following the emergency shut down. The evacuation zone was initially 3km, with an emergency team said to be on their way from Tokyo, but this has since been increased to 10km. We have packed bags with clothes and food for if it comes to the worst, depending on the wind, and we need to leave.

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami

2011-03-11T18:58:00.001+09:00

I really feel for the lives that must have been lost or ruined in this afternoon's huge earthquake, at 8.8 the biggest since 1900. Now night has fallen, which will hamper rescue efforts, and it is snowing across the north of Japan. The aftershocks are still shaking the house every now and then and could continue for a month. They say there could even be another big one. I was upstairs teaching drawing, and we were disorientated like everyone else. When the ground shakes it is so unnatural that even natives who have grown up being trained what to do get confused. We got under the kitchen table as the house swayed, feeling sick, but as it continued we realised it would be better to get outside as there are open spaces here. All the stoves and the gas had to be switched off, and the doors opened in case they jammed.

The neighbours were all outside, but motorists continued to drive past as you don't notice the ground shaking in a car. Looking around at the mountains, it was inconceivable that all that enormous mass was shaking. We may as well be bacteria for all the effect we can have on the power of the earth. Eventually we went back in and watched the television and the unbelievable pictures of ships, whole houses, cars and wreckage being tossed around like toys in a bath by the tsunami.

Fortunately the local primary schools have only just been reinforced for earthquake, and my son is back home now, blanking out his fear with Pokomon on his DS. We are lucky, and it is good to be with family. On the television are burning gas facilities, collapsed and flooded houses, and people huddled in cold sports halls and community centres. Worse will be to come as the toll becomes known, and we find out how successful Japan's relatively thorough preparations have been, and which of the various attempts to make earthquake-proof buildings have worked.

Threading the Tadami River

2011-02-24T09:38:00.004+09:00

One of the many streams that come down to the Tadami river

The grey valley road and the now dark Tadami river are woven together through the long valley between Yanaisu and Tadami itself. The third strand of the braid is the great Tadami railway line, a very determined mole with a one track mind bobbing in and out of the mountains in numerous tunnels. It is now hibernating beyond Kawaguchi . The road crosses many bridges, swapping sides whenever convenient like a career politician. Slightly warmer temperatures had warmed the tarmac enough for it to shed it's customary winter coat of a few inches of compacted snow and ice. Bike ride!

Island in the Tadami river

These are places I haven't seen for a couple of months. With remarkably effective 'stud-less' snow tyres it is quite possible to travel more or less as normal by car - something that came as a surprise to an Englishman. England rolls over on it's back and whimpers pitifully at a few inches of the white stuff. Tokyo usually furnishes some entertaining news items showing slick city hipsters slipping onto their arses in even slicker shoes on any spot of unaccustomed snow.

While people here are perforce equipped for metres of the stuff , life naturally compresses into a smaller area, so it is great to be able to get the sanity machine out and pedal out of the domestic zone and into the blue.....you know, yonder.

Now breathe...

As you well know if you come from a childishly dualist tradition there are two sides to any road, street, idea, whatever: the sunny side - relatively free from patches of ice, and the dark side - shadowed and dangerous. Whilst Luke Skywalker (and various other archetypal fictional characters in stories so basic they only have two sides) may have had a choice, on an out-and-back bike ride there isn't one, and it takes a lot of care not to end up up-ended. There is always a bit of shadowed ice around. Through the villages there were a few patches of snow to negotiate where householders had chucked their snow onto the road to clear it from their roofs and doorways. And in the shadows of the six foot walls of snow all along the road, stripes of ice.

Bird footprints on floating ice

It is important to hit the warmest couple of hours of the day, and on the way home it is a race against freezing point which returns rapidly with dusk even on sunny days. You are never quite on your own with the cold in Aizu, though. Getting back to my village and getting very chilly even with everything on, the cheery ba-chan in the shop was keen to know where I had been and how long it had taken. Outside a truck driver had stopped to get a coffee from the vending machine. I had never seen him before, he was just passing through, but without missing a beat he offered to buy me a hot drink. It is just what you do here. It almost makes you want to move somewhere cold, doesn't it?

The cold coming back to snow-jet and avalanche chutes near Showa. My bike looks small and worried. It's not a person though....is it? I knew that

Snow festival giant

2011-02-17T20:50:00.000+09:00

Every house should have one: our 2.5 metre snow giant

It's Nakagawa snow festival at the weekend, and having missed the more famous Tadami snow festival once again through being in Tokyo, I decided to get with the programme and do something with the snow other than shovelling it away from the entrance. I shovelled it back towards the entrance.

There's a bit of a "Roy Wood and Hagrid meet that guy with the octopus beard in Pirates of the Caribean at Karl Marx's gravestone" kinda thing going on here don'tcha think?

Tadami festival apparently had a Taj Mahal with arches and arcades you could walk under made by the army, sorry, Ground Self Defence Force. My son and I decided to make do with a more modest one for our first go, though you can sit on it if you are under 10. He was a big help with gathering the snow, although much of it arrived in the form of big chunks tossed in the direction of my head - entirely accidental I'm sure. He made the hands and feet though, before reverting to the aerial bombardment. Where are the GSDF when you need them?

Nikko, The Three Monkeys and coincidence

2011-02-15T20:15:00.001+09:00

Improbable autumn perfection in Nikko

Nikko is a World Heritage Site, and only two hours away. It is the burial place of Tokugawa Ieyesu, the Shogun who unified Japan and ended the battle period, ushering in the Edo Period when foreigners like me were not welcome unless they were arms dealers. Stupendous as Nikko is, I am satisfied with the living heritage woven into the small community I live in, so it took nearly two years to get round to seeing it, and I was punished with a very disorientating coincidence, if you believe in that kind of thing - punishment and coincidence I mean.

I prefer the small scale to the bombastic, accidental beauty to the grand scheme, and in my view tiny local shrines that a few families have visited for centuries are more connecting than those that have become a major business. By the same token, the light and life you experience on a hill is more important than its height. In any case, thanks to nuances of weather and season you never go up the same hill twice. Travelling deep is better than travelling far. Live by the aphorism and you will die by the maxim, I say, and you can misquote me on that.

Aphorisms don't travel well, or at least they change as they go. Take the three wise monkeys, for example. In the west seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and speaking no evil suggests a kind of selfish avoidance of noticing anything bad in case you have to take responsibility for doing something about it. In Japan it is amongst other things about keeping yourself pure and avoiding spreading evil. From it's origin, probably in China, it has changed it's meaning as it has spread and been appropriated, gaining a power that is more paradoxical than any single interpretation. Like many symbols that at first seem simple, it is, in the end mysterious.

The Three Wise Monkeys, the famous 17thC wooden carving at Nikko

On our return home from Nikko last autumn I left a web radio station playing upstairs and went down to chat with my wife. We fell to talking about the three monkeys and their meaning for a few minutes, until I went back upstairs to continue working. As far as I am aware - which may not be very far as it turns out - I had not thought about the three monkeys for a very long time - at least for a few years. Having just talked about them for the first time in memory, I re-entered the room exactly on cue to hear an old R n' B song playing. The singer asked me "Have you heard the one about the three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil?" Exactly on the nail, as I came into the room, as if it had been timed for maximum effect. As I said, mysterious. It freaked me out I can tell you, and sent me scuttling down the stairs.

Anyway, I must go now, I have just thought about someone I haven't seen for years - that will be them on the phone now.

Now tell me your freaky coincidence story...

Road running in the Japanese snow

2011-02-08T22:50:00.000+09:00

Iwabuchi-sensei elated at the end of the road

I usually avoid road running like a black plague, but when the road is not black with mind and leg-numbing tarmac, but white with ploughed snow and surrounded by mountains it is another matter. Walking isn't possible in this two metre deep snow until it hardens up, so it is great to discover (thanks Richard!) that some of the minor roads are ploughed and, with only a handful of shocked and bemused drivers to deal with, they make for great running.

Running through a remote village, with its population of elders busy shovelling snow

Trail shoes and a cap to keep the snow out of your eyes are a good idea. Studs with metal inserts would be even better. It feels like a trail run, or running through sand, as the resistance, slippiness and roughness of the snow pull you around as you run. Excellent. Care is required, as there is a lot of ice around, sometimes hidden under a few inches of powder. The snow ploughs do a great job of clearing the road, but seem to polish the snow surface. This makes for some amusingly bad free-form dancing when attempting to stay on your feet. Running in the deeper snow at the edge, or keeping to chained tyre tracks helps.

Road running Jim, but not as we know it. River near Tamonashi

Of course it is being out amongst mountains that makes it really special. Iwabuchi-sensei has a full marathon this weekend, so it was good to get out for three hours ata reasonable pace on Sunday, and we even made a full circuit of Numazawako - who knew those little roads would be ploughed? The people who live there and need to get about, that's who.

Children in their mountain village just off the school bus

When running a valley road with Richard we bumped into some of the children I had been teaching earlier in the day, no doubt wondering what on earth we were doing. What a place to grow up. Anonymous suburbia it is not.

A bit heavy on the icing sugar

The snow is at it's height now - what am I saying, there is more forecast this week. The extraordinary forms it takes, and it's transformation of everything, is a great pleasure - look, it even turned me into a 'road' runner.

Run Rudolph, run!

Child throwing in the snow

2011-01-31T21:54:00.001+09:00

Snow-blowing the pavements and delivering the newspapers

The snow has been falling constantly for many days now, reaching intimidating 'end of the world' quantities - and what if it never stops? It is forecast for the next week too. Snow is piled up to the first stories now, and becoming too heavy for many roofs, so everywhere there are old people risking life and limb cutting big slabs from high up on their roofs. I'd like to help, but I know from past experience that an offer of help can be taken as doubting the ability to cope and an insult to proud and very capable people, however old they are. In fact the lady at the shop said it is shovelling snow through the winter that gives Aizu people their tough spirit. She is probably right.

There is a 2 metre hat of snow on everything, in this case a rice husking kiosk

So what would it be like trying to get about without the huge effort and resources put into clearing it? Having tested it today in what used to be the garden I can report that walking through a patch of virgin snow is....well, interesting. You sink into deep powder up to the crotch, which makes for hard work. Walking is possible, but not probable. Even snow shoes don't keep you on top of this stuff - I tried and sank in 30cm, which is still hard work. If you were properly snowed in, you had better have a full season's worth of provisions. This probably explains Aizu people's love of all things dried and pickled and their cheerful 'We're all in this together' attitude.

How many times have I got to tell you? Not the face!

I have also conducted child throwing experiments. If you throw a medium-sized child into the air they sink a couple feet down into the very soft snow, which is satisfying both for child and thrower. These results may not be reproducible, and even then, as Hume pointed out during a particularly white Scottish Christmas, "There is no reason to suppose that the causal link we perceive between throwing the child and it sinking into the snow will always occur in the future." Perhaps tomorrow he will float off into the sky, then boy won't I be embarrassed about my reliance on instinctive inductive inferences.

My son and I make inroads into the piled snow with our daily snowball fights. Ordinarily useless at ball games, my aim is getting better which should help in the unlikely event that I choose to add baseball onto my list of Japan-specific activities. The snow might have been specially engineered for snowballing perfection (no Dawkins, I don't mean it literally) - to grasp it is to have a sticky wodge ideal for chucking in quick-fire succession. It's just as cold down your neck and in your ear though. However, I have concluded that snowballing is about as efficient at re-distributing snow as the 'trickle down' theory is at wealth re-distribution. You still end up with a big pile in the same place.

A dangerous season

2011-01-13T20:00:00.000+09:00

Tsubame gather together to get through the winter

Small birds fly up in a wheeling cloud and re-settle on the snow-covered rice drying rack. They have cause to be nervous - this is winter and they stand out in sharp contrast with the white ground, and there are eagles patrolling. People get together to get through the winter too. You need your neighbours even now that there are ploughs to clear the roads. In the old days life here must have become concentrated into a very small area, with travel all but impossible. People still have to keep on top of the snow, literally, especially if their roof is flat, unless they want it to collapse. The mayor's wife, no spring chicken, climbs out of her second floor window, then up a ladder to the flat roof, and leans far over to deal with the four foot cornice.

Workmen tackle the flat workshop roofs at the back. I am helping my next door neighbour clear the snow in front of someone's garage. He leans down to pull up one of the heavy metal grids over the drain, and the one next to it comes crashing down on his wrist with a sickening weight. My cry is louder than his grunt. The flesh is crushed to the bone but he shrugs it off as I hurry him home so that his wife can take him to the doctor. He is a very tough man and his body has the easy swing of a teenager. He nearly stumbles into the path of a truck. Amazingly it isn't broken, but it is very deep and needs stitches. The nurse tells him off for looking forward to his nightly sake as a pain killer. "No! No alcohol for you tonight!" What a shame, especially as both he and the mayor's wife had kindly given my son a traditional gift of money today.

The village is disappearing. Roofs, trees and river cuttings are barely recognisable under great pancakes and wedges of snow. There is less than usual, apparently, though 4ft fell on Christmas Day, making the news as the most in the country that day, and it is colder than usual too. The clank of chains on bulldozers wake us in the early morning, and the drivers wave cheerily from the high cabs, kings of the season.

Honna station on the Tadami line

The weather is blowing in from Siberia, and there are avalanche warnings every day, but no quarter is given, and life goes on. A woman walks her Dachshund on the main road, hemmed in by five foot banks of snow, cars and trucks batting along, swerving around her, the dog reined in just in time.

Now that's what I call a bike ride

2010-12-18T22:41:00.001+09:00

This Compost by Walt Whitman

2010-12-18T16:11:00.002+09:00

Christmas, birthday and New year rolled into one for our neighbour: The joy of muck

Nothing gladdens the heart of the vegetable grower anywhere more than a great steaming heap of muck. And in some ways there appears to be a yet smaller gap than usual between people and nature here. At the level of feeling at least, the relationship between the two is understood to be symbiotic rather than simply exploitative - though plenty of that goes on at the behavioural level, especially by organisations. Shinto and its pantheon of animistic nature spirits with which people are linked by comfortable habit and tradition, rather than belief in the western sense, frame the world differently from monotheist religions that place the world entirely at the disposal of the chosen ones - people.

So it is hard to imagine that Walt Whitman would have written the poem "This compost" if he had grown up here, up to his elbows in earth and matching his activity to the seasons and the weather.

This Compost

Something startles me where I thought I was safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.

O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead?

Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd,
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through
the sod and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.

2
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person--yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on
their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the
colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in
the dooryards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata
of sour dead.

What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which
is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that
melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once
catching disease.

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless
successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings
from them at last.

Walt Whitman 1819-1892

That knocked my socks off when I read it as a teenager, and re-reading it living here throws a new light on it. His poem, as well as separating man and nature also is profoundly uneasy with death and illness, humans offering nature only the "sour dead" and their "foul meat" in return for its "prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops." Apart from the fact that he was probably a bit hazy on soil biology (aren't we all?), is this based in the Christian split between what, at its worst, can be seen as the sublime soul and the disgusting body, overlaid with his experience of seeing field hospitals in the American Civil War? Strange, given his celebration of the living body elsewhere in his work - or perhaps natural as a reaction to the betrayal of the body in death which ends all that sensual pleasure.

I'm guessing Whalt Whitman didn't grow his own food

In pick 'n mix Japan, weddings are Shinto, but funerals are Buddhist. In Buddhism ancestor veneration means that your beloved deceased are still literally part of the family, receiving gifts, photos and partaking in family meals via offerings on the Butsudan, a shrine in cupboard form. Bodies are cremated, and in a hard core form of closure which must help the grieving process if it doesn't traumatise you altogether, relatives together place the charred bones in a box with chops sticks. "Mum, could you just give me a lift with Dad's skull?" This explains both the look of shock on a Japanese person's face if you clash chopsticks with them while eating, and their more integrated attitude to death, so hidden in modern western society until it crashes down on your head.

John Barleycorn - or whatever those little oil seeds are - must die. What of it?

Lacking mains sewers means that in our village we also have a closer relationship with bodily corruption than is completely comfortable. In summer the smell gets cheerfully brazen at times, beating you around the head like a blast of sound as you pass a particularly ripe septic tank. Everyone ignores it.

Those who know me will have known this figuratively for some time, but as I write I am also literally full of shit. Water is leaking into our toilet, and the tank is overflowing. In an estate agent's nightmare, the air in our house does not, sadly, smell of coffee and fresh-baked bread, but I deal with it by re-imagining it as garlic. My wife, whose nose is preternaturally sensitive, is not happy.

I grew up seeing the corpses of sheep melting into Pennine hillsides, and always felt that it a natural thing that I would be doing in due course. Whitman seeing us as part of this compost is a wonderful insight, it's just a shame he wasn't as at peace with it as my neighbour - but now his pieces are.

But what do you think?

Cycling back to the north

2010-12-01T18:46:00.003+09:00

Crossing the Arakawa bridge at 4.30am

My ballroom dancing, distance swimming and hard working mother in law, god bless her merry soul, is irrepressible and naturally cheerful in almost any circumstance. I put this down in part to her physically and emotionally healthy upbringing in our small village in Aizu. She had to leave home at 15 to seek work in Tokyo, as after the early death of her father her household could not support all its children in the hard times following WWII and preceding the boom years.

She sent me off with an untroubled smile at 4am on a bike ride that reversed this journey, from her current home in Kawagoe in Saitama-ken near Tokyo, back up north to Kaneyama-machi. It was a journey from the pre-fabricated convenience of a modern city of busy strangers to the organic and slower kindness of a community where even the policemen say hello.

I like iron and steel bridges. They are linked in my mind with Iron-mad Wilkinson, buried in an iron coffin and instrumental in the world's first iron bridge (1779), and pride in growing up near Skew Bridge (1841) which carries the Manchester and Leeds Railway at an acute angle over the Rochdale canal near Todmorden in England. After four hours of riding, this splendid blue bridge in Tochigi-ken signalled that I was leaving the flat hinterland behind and would soon be back in the valleys and hills leading north. But not quite yet. I like my travel simple, but there are those who desire a certain panache and élan, whose dreams burst out in whatever undistinguished hole they find themselves. Behold, white van man has dreams too.

How to get stopped by a traffic cop - but probably worth it

Born into an entrepreneurial family in industrial Britain, they might have designed an iron lighthouse in the shape of a swan. Born on a struggling farm in Japan, they still defy the ordinary. Only a silver jumpsuit, platform boots, and insect eye sunglasses could be worn to emerge from that van with due reverence.

The piercing belligerence of this monkey also transcended it's banal site on a warning sign in a tranquil valley near Kanuma, always a favourite part of this ride. The road follows a meandering stream between low wooded hills, with idyllic small farms with flower-filled gardens, not isolated, but with room to breath and hardly any traffic at all. The monkeys are a pesky nuisance to farmers in some areas, though I can't help loving them. All the produce left lying around the place must be a terrible temptation - like nipping down the shops for us.

Accidental beauty: Kaki and soya beans drying in the sun near Kanuma

Popping out of the top of the valley I whipped past the busy and messy non-descript architectural detritus just south of Nikko at top speed, all supermarkets, outlet concessions and failed restaurants. Fortunately, for some reason there is always a following wind on this 10km of dual carriageway, and hammering out a big gear after 6 hours of riding is exhilarating.

I stopped for noodles at a canny business that took people down the river by boat, then deposited them to await a bus back with plenty of time to spend some money at the stalls and shop. The owner's daughter was keen to use her good English learned whilst travelling through South East Asian and Australasia. She was looking forward to her trip to Thailand and Malaysia as soon as they shut up shop at the end of November. ¥100o (£7) a day including accommodation and food is a cheap way for her to escape the snow and the strictures of life in Japan. I was glad that I hadn't stroked the Corgi that was making kewpy puppy eyes to be let in from the cold - true to reputation, the little blighter doesn't like being stroked and bites if more than one person touches it - only natural in the House of Windsor perhaps, but probably something of a liability in a tourist pit stop
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Kinugawa Onsen is also best ridden past quickly without looking too closely at all the bankrupt hotels, but it is the gateway to the wilder mountains towards Aizu, and once I get there, I know I am well on my way home, and beauty rears up on all sides.

This river bed is one of my favourite places on the route, and the colour this day was tremendous, shimmering in the crisp light.

The long drag up to the border with Fukushima-ken over, I drifted down to the same noodle stall I had used on the way south three days before, and the lady was still friendly, kindly remembering how far I was going and exhorting me to be careful on the road over to Showa-mura, there being only a few hours of daylight left.

Finding a new minor road to avoid some more traffic I found myself amongst groups of children on their long walk home from school to their houses tucked against the hills. The oldest child in each group was responsible for the younger ones, and they chatted to eachother and chased stones kicked along the road, with a particular atmosphere bewteen them that I have only seen here. And every child spontaneously called out "Konichiwa!" as I rode past, a stranger from another planet made to feel that I was truly returning home. This is why I feel privileged to be able to experience living in Aizu, why I am so pleased my son can learn this way of relating to other children and people, and why Mieko, my mother in law is as unquenchable resilient as she is. And it only started happening as I hit Aizu. There is something about this place...

As dusk approached and I tried to get over the mountain before dark fell, I found the only cow I have seen for miles around, and the first I have seen on Honshu that was not being factory farmed in deplorable conditions. I don't think cows should be kept on their own, but this female could at least get outside her shed, though clearly missing the herd. Naturally curious and sociable, she came to have a good look at me, and her melancholy lowing followed me up the road as if reproaching me for leaving her behind.

Looking back towards Tajima from the beginning of the last climb

Something between a dragon and an Oni guards a bridge

With that warning from the supernatural inhabitants not to take the mountains lightly I climbed towards the frost line. This road will be closed in a few weeks when the snow comes. A car heading the other way through one of the long tunnels faltered to a halt and the driver got out, worried that my flashing light was signalling some disaster. I was in bad shape, but not that bad, sir.

Over the top, topped up with banana and chocolate, and now sure to make it with only thirty kilometres of dusk and dark until home I allowed myself to imagine a good soak in a hot bath, then being tucked up under the Kotatsu chatting with my family.

Work is still scarce in Aizu, but I am hoping that, like Mieko-san, my son will be able to stay here long enough to absorb that indefinable something that is in the water, the air and the food and bounces between people's eyes, and ends in a laugh come what may.

230km Kawagoe to Kaneyama-machi, 2 bowls of noodles, 4 or 5 Combinis, full panniers, 13 hours and 1 Englishman.

Enlighten up, can't you?

2010-11-27T00:08:00.001+09:00

Two hours of sleep is not the best preparation for a 230km ride, but some last minute changes to the work I was commuting to present made it necessary. All that can be said for it is that it is better than no sleep at all, which I have also tried. This time of year requires an early start (aargh!) in the dark to reduce the dark at the end, when you are tired (eeurghh). Feeling half-human - not a bad proportion - and an eighth awake I headed into the dark flashing tunnel of LED light, with a wary eye on the roadside allotments for the bears that are trying some last stocking up before their winter sleep. Eating, then sleeping. Sounded good to me.

The day reluctantly prized open a blearily beautiful eye near Showa, which is always colder than everywhere else, because deeper in the mountains and higher, as the road climbs alongside the river in a valley pinched with dramatic crags that opens out into rice fields, now empty. The charcoal burner's hut in it's pungent isolation, banished to the last spot before the pass like the smelly kid in class, created cathedral shafts of light through the trees. But I would be in no mood to enjoy anything much until I found some downhill and it warmed up a bit. So I took photographs instead, which are a kind of deferred looking. See, now we can look at them without being really cold or with legs that aren't at all interested in getting a heavily laden bicycle up a hill:

Hot soba noodles from a friendly lady at a roadside stop busy with Korean tourists after three hours got me past breakfast time on the body clock, and feeling more fully human - but don't worry, I managed to contain the greed, irrationality and violence this can sometimes entail. OK, so I still felt a tad grumpy, especially when I again passed the beautiful river bed being despoiled for it's gravel, a shameful profanity which probably provided the road surface I was riding over. A flash of colour at the roadside near Kawaji brought me up sharp.

A Buddhist temple was dressed to the nines in paper flowers and stuffed with monks who could be heard chanting inside. It was a deeply moving, ever-evolving, timeless and transcendent meditation on the four noble truths, a sonic evocation of the eight-fold-path to enlightenment. However it sounded like "Weeblewomblegummyjummywarblewibblezibbledoooo..." This may well be what enlightenment sounds like, but I am no judge. It is bound to involve cycling though, isn't it?

As I rode on my oh so ironic way, a group of elderly ladies were just making their way towards the temple, chatting in a way that suggested that they had known each other all their long lives, and that if their lives were drawing towards their end, what matter? They were on their way to the temple on this diamond of a day, going just as generations of their families had gone before. I was just cut adrift aboard some cleverly shaped aluminium and two rubber tyres, making it up as I went along.

Later came something you couldn't make up. Ten hours into the ride, jaded and bored with the traffic and concrete heading through southern Tochigi-ken, the road was blocked by police in Tochigi City. Thankfully they were letting cyclists through. A few yards down the empty main street I came across something completely unexpected that made me laugh out loud.

It was a matsuri, a festival procession of large carts full of drummers and musicians, each pulled by teams of people hauling on long ropes. On seeing me whip my deferred vision apparatus out, the foreman controlling this behemoth shouted out "Stop!" and the whole thing ground to a halt. After I had taken the picture he yelled "Go!" and the whole thing jerked forward again. We all laughed. Precious.

No doubt it would all kick off when night fell and everyone finished work. In the meantime they had time for the weird foreigner in tights on a bike, and for photographs.

Unbidden, a man came up and gave me a wooden token with the name of this neighbourhood dashi burnt into it. I carried it on into the setting sun and into the dark plains of Saitama-ken to do battle with rush hour traffic for a couple of benighted hours. The lights on my bike may well have been the most enlightened thing about me (and if the behaviour of the drivers in Koza was anything to go by I had transcended my physical existence and become invisible), but a small corner of this traveller's heart at least was lit up.

Children's art

2010-11-17T21:51:00.000+09:00

From the great kids around the village...

Oh you busy fingers

2010-11-17T21:41:00.000+09:00

How many different arts and crafts can the 600 or so in habitants of very small area in the mountains of Japan produce? To give you some idea, the cultural day exhibition included this small selection:

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Classic Japanese record covers

2010-11-07T21:24:00.000+09:00

Yes, gents, smile away. You are eternally cool - you know it, we know it, and eternity knows it. I would like to be buried in a double breasted pink suit just like yours. Grief just isn't possible with a suit like that. There you were, nestling amongst the embroidery and brush writing fest that is cultural day in Japan, deep in the mountains of all places. Even here, record obsession is reassuringly alive and well, each gem laid out on the table, preserved in love, memory and cellophane. Enjoy.

This will do nicely to play them on

This post is dedicated to DJ Donald: you are the white turtle-neck sweater and belted leather trench-coat combo of brothers.

Saved by noodles

2010-10-22T13:13:00.000+09:00

Unidentified wild mushrooms, rarely seen in the shops and gathered on the mountains by old hands whose knowledge I trust (almost) completely, glistened under red grains of schimi on a hot bed of udon noodles. No ordinary bowl of noodles this, it sat on the trestle table on the playground of a disused school which had lasted from the 1870's to the 1970's. All around were stalls and the ear-splitting distortion of an antiquated public address system not designed to take loud music. I ate with one finger in my bad ear. We were all here to help get the village back on the map and back on it's feet, and what better in a food-obsessed nation than a noodle festival to draw in the salivating punters?

A landslide in the spring downpours smashed down on a snow shed and made the main valley road south of Tamonashi unsafe to use. Rather more important than the inconvenience this caused to cyclist like myself, it severed the whole village from much of the tourist traffic that brings income to those who run accommodation, shops, and restaurants. Commuters had an extra hour of mountain roads to negotiate twice a day. Seven months of risky engineering work later, the road is open again, and the noodle festival was in full swing, run by volunteers from all over the area, and with lots of familiar faces behind the stalls.

Other dishes of a less culinary nature included the team of dancers having a lot of fun in their Kung Fu - looking costumes, leaping about on the gravel to blaring backing tracks, which must have echoed up the mountainsides to confused squirrels and bears disturbed in their mid-day snoozes up trees.

Upstairs in the old school, three rooms are a haunting home-made museum, each thing with its own hand written luggage label tied on with string. Many are still in use today, Aizu being itself a kind of living museum, but others a mystery. The walls carried fading photographs of the people for whom these objects were simply useful. The dusty clothes, patched and worn, sometimes, like the ankle length jacket, made from old futons and kimonos, were rawly personal, imprinted with the wearer's shape.

Uncomfortable information. A hand made aid for teaching anatomy

In the late afternoon musicians began to play to a scattering of people in the school gym. I wondered where the young people were, as this gig was clearly aimed at them. Were they at home playing with their DS's, or in the shopping centres in Wakamatsu? When they dream of life in the cities isn't it just this kind of thing that they dream of going to? And yet when they have it here, they don't come.

Armed to a man or woman with acoustic guitars and the occasional harmonica, the performers were skilled singer-song writers in the efficient but somewhat off-the-peg mould that often afflicts many genres of Japanese popular music. If they were less skilled might it be better? Then they would have to invent their own ham-fisted and strange way of doing things and whatever is in them could come straight out.

The first two boys were winsome, poppy and sweet, the second a little more there, but the last performer was really good of her kind, though in all cases it was probably best not to understand the lyrics, like opera.

She played beautifully constructed slow acoustic songs with well judged and varied dynamics, her voice haunting and moving, creating that stillness and focus in the room that tells you the audience are no longer in it, but have floated out somewhere to meet the music. She deserved the young people to be here.

On the rack

2010-10-15T20:43:00.001+09:00

Sun dried rice on the rack, with its rain hat on

Late September and Early October sees Aizu heavy with green-gold rice heaved onto tall racks, every doorstep full of aka kabucha (red pumpkins), walnuts, mushrooms from the mountains and all the riches of the harvest. Compliment someone on their sweet potatoes and you will get an armful, and bags of chestnuts and fungi like nipples arrive unbidden. It beats shopping, a warm glow of cash free exchange, no strings attached.

Drying rice in the sun is said to increase the flavour and increase nutrition, and fetches a premium over the more common machine-dried version. Here most is grown for personal consumption and to send to children long gone to the city. What will they do when the old ones are gone too, and their fields rank with weeds? Rice is much more than a food. The kanji character for a man resembles a paddy, and means "One who derives his power from rice."

Daikon thinnings and beans, chilled and washed in an old bath

Our neighbour opposite gets an extraordinary amount of produce from a small patch of ground, an endless round of seasonal food being trimmed, grated, pickled or dried for that day's food or for through the winter. This week it included walnuts. Nothing is wasted. An old tiled bath is used to both wash vegetables and keep them cool until meal time. Thinned out plants are eaten, leaves and all.

Despite our towny incompetence and reprehensible laziness some food miraculously leaped out of our own garden this year, and sometimes we had the satisfaction of meals entirely home grown, with only minutes from ground to plate, which must have come as a shock to the aubergines. This week I astounded the waiting world with my first attempt at green tomato and apple chutney and managed not to burn the house down. Unfortunately a nice bit of strong Cheddar to go with it is 5,000 miles away.

Our benign neglect produced enough for a daily meal for months.

The plants seem to be as resilient as the people. For example, in attempting to be organic we don't spray, but allowed some black caterpillars to get the upper hand, and five rows of autumn plantings were reduced to rags. We assumed that was the end of both them and our veg cred with the neighbours, but returned from three days away to see them resurgent and thriving. Amazing. They must be adapted to tolerating the insects' life cycle, or we were just lucky....or, come to think of it, the neighbours may have taken pity on us and sprayed them while we were away. Hmmm. Much more likely, come to think of it.
Don't come the innocent with me, madam

Kame mushi teleporting

2010-10-15T19:13:00.000+09:00

Look: I can walk on glass. But that's not the clever bit....watch very carefully...Now I am on the outside

Now I am on the inside. You missed it? Shall I do it again, only slowly?

Brother insect

2010-10-14T21:33:00.001+09:00

I don't know what you are, but you are sure as hell something my friend

This extraordinary creature, only one centimetre long, possibly mimicking the buds of a pine tree, or simply discouraging would be predators, is a stunning example of why, of all living things, we often find insects the hardest land - based form of life to identify with. Presumably it is a kind of caterpillar, but I have never seen the like before, and it made me very aware of my own body by its very difference - or rather mine. All hail you splendid beast - walking coral, luminous battleship, all bristling defences and spiked turrets!

A big blue Japanese dragonfly and its flying equipment

Living in Aizu means living in much closer proximity to insects, much closer to much bigger insects, which suits the boy in me better than the city girl in my wife, though even she is becoming accustomed. The sudden screams from the bowels of the house are less frequent eighteen months into our residency, as she gradually comes to accept our fellow residents, who strangely seem to think the house is theirs as much as ours.

I'm a leaf, I'm a leaf...oh shit, what's this white stuff?

The unprecedented heat of this summer was the mosquitoes' loss and the dragonflies' gain. Dragonflies are voracious predators and they have patrolled our garden in droves - but fortunately they, unlike mosquitoes, do not drink human blood, otherwise I would be sitting here an empty sac and typing might be a problem. They build them big here, like sharks suspended beneath assault helicopters - a winning combination.

The biggest dragonflies have green heads

They are welcome to eat all the insects that would otherwise eat our vegetables. In fact insect appetites and drives are increasingly inseparable from our own. Kusai mushi (stink bugs) for example, are currently trying to leave the cooling woods and return to the house they overwintered in last year - that would be ours. Who wouldn't rather be tucked up under a blanket in a cupboard than wedged in some bark under ten feet of snow? My beloved has a theory that they are able to beam themselves through glass. You see them gathering at the windows, then click! They are inside. But you never see them crawling through a crack. Never. There don't even appear to be any cracks around the windows, so she may be right. I have decided to live with them rather than against them. That way if they do have useful skills inherited via shreds of DNA discarded by advanced alien civilisations, they may see me right come the re-invasion.

Butterflies as big as your hand are higher in the cuddle-ability ratings

Big green stripey spiders are somewhat lower for some reason

Grandly decorated, with satisfyingly striped legs and a body that swells over the weeks to a pregnant green blob, these spiders grace every house and set a trap across every footpath in the autumn, getting bigger and rounder by the week. Judging by the litter of limbs and bodies trawled from the air in their nets, some of their own relatives, spouses and courtiers may have added to the banquet rather than merely attending it. And how is that different from the court of Henry VIII, or any modern dynastic tyrant?

As in any marriage it is sometimes hard to distinguish consummation from consumption

A long run on Adatara

2010-09-22T01:00:00.001+09:00

Looking down at Numanotaira, the crater of Tetsu-zan in the Adatara range

The Adatara group of mountains in Fukushima, Japan consists of several stratovolcanos, including the highest, Minowa-yama 1718m (5,636ft), the active Testu-san 1709m (5,607ft), Funamyojin 1667m (5,469ft), Osho-yama 1601m (5,252ft), and Adatara-san itself 1699m (5,574ft)

Checking out the route of an epic 53km (32 mile) mountain race provided a flimsy excuse to do the magnificently irrational and unreasonable, which is all that is ever required. It follows a star-shaped route over the tops, across and through the valleys of this dramatic and slightly scary area. A two hour drive, on which I was overtaken at speed by a demon grandma screaming along in her K van, brought me to the foot of Minowa-yama at the north end of the range. I had my revenge on the old folks though. Such was my blistering speed, I overtook at least seven septegenarians over the day. Ha. Eat my dust suckers....literally, no teeth you see.

Looking back northwards to Azuma volcano from the 'path' on Minowa-yama

How far you get on days like these depends a lot on the terrain , and what looks runnable on the map can turn out to be a battle through vegetation, as the paths grow back in so quickly, so I was prepared with an open mind and a full pack. The last 2k up to Minowa-yama was up a slippery clay path obscured with bamboo, so running risked clouting rocks and protruding branches. It would be fun and games in the rain, requiring a rich Anglo Saxon vocabulary.

A long spur heading down to the east was luckily more used, so provided you are slim enough you could see your feet, but the trees closed overhead at head height, forming a green tunnel strewn with blue flowers. Very pretty, but requiring running in homage to Charles Laughton as Quasimodo, hunched over and lurching to avoid branches. Running isn't supposed to hurt your neck, is it, master?

This utterly pointless height loss took me down to a river cutting down from Tetsu-zan. An elder was relieving himself in a smiling sociable kind of way, facing in my direction and barring the far end of the log bridge. Public peeing is not a matter for embarrassment for middle aged Japanese men, who stop willy nilly. He was decent and friendly by the time I reached him, and he had all his teeth. He was checking the bridge on behalf of the local onsen hotel, which depends on walkers, and he gave me a sweet.

Chained waterfall routes in the valley east of Tetsu-zan

A gentle beginning to the climb back up, following the river on the other side of the valley, became more dramatic with drops and tumbling waterfalls, which had attracted a group of solemn women gorge scramblers. Further up I refilled my bottle. The water was a surprise, tasting strongly of minerals, which are probably either very good or very bad for you. There turned out to be a mountain hotel further up, so I hope their cesspit is in good order. Perhaps it wasn't minerals I was tasting...

Sanctuary! Adatara san from the bell near the top of the cable car

Popping out of the valley the hotel's rough track allowed some ordinary running, before more height loss and a climb up the ski ruined slopes up to Adatara. It was a busy path near the top, as most people get the cable car most of the way up, ideal for children and the elderly, like the man keen to try his English who was revisiting the peak after climbing it in his youth. There is an exorbitantly expensive cafe at the cable station, made more expensive by their habit of filling the glasses with ice before putting drinks in, halving the measure.

Such human irritations were wiped out by the panoramic views from the top of Adatara-san. I decided to give the 8 or 9 km southern loop of the race a miss, as it climbs Osho-yama to the south, then drops into the valley below before climbing to Funamyojin-yama, which is only 1km along the ridge from Adatara-san.

Osho-yama (1601m) on the southern end of the Adatara range

Tetsu-yama (Iron mountain) looking north from Adatara-san

Pretending not to be knackered 5 hours in

The rich ochre of the bare mountain path, gravel like gold nuggets spitting out from my studs, led to the rim of the volcanic crater itself. Let's be clear, this is not altogether a safe place to be. It was last active only in 1996, and fourteen years does not seem nearly enough when you are standing on the edge looking down at Numanotaira , the flat crater bottom, 350m below, which just looks plain wrong. There is a strong sulphurous smell, and steam or gas rises in places on the steep weather-worn orange and white slopes, down which it would be a very bad idea to go.

The crater from Tetsu-zan

In 1900 an eruption claimed the lives of at least 72 people, mostly miners digging sulphur - actually from the crater itself, god help them. To bring this closer to you, and to help you feel lucky if you are feeling a bit jaded at the computer (or tired from a hill run) it is worth looking at contemporary sulphur mining in Indonesia in a similar situation. The explosions and subsequent flows also swept away the refinery, lodging houses and hot spring buildings in the valley blow the outflow from the crater. I would shortly cross it.

Funamyojin-yama 1667m on the southern edge of the crater

Rejoining the race route over Funamyojin-yama, another descent and climb followed, this time very rough through the crags that rim the crater. The valley of the Io-gawa (the sulphur river) is littered with the remains of the 1900 disaster, and a tangle of modern pipes taking down onsen water and sulphur. The water in the river was hot enough for two people to be bathing their feet in it as an impromptu hot spa. It is an oppressive place I wouldn't want to linger in. Half the victims were caught trying to escape down this valley.

The sulphur river

Piping down hot sulphur-laden water for extraction

Some happier people in happier times were encountered on the next hill. Whoops and yells came from the slope strewn with house sized boulders where some young climbers seemed to be not settling down for the night. After getting over the bad step onto the crags at the top of the northern side it was up to the emmergency hut 500m NW of the top of Tetsu-zan. A happy couple just beat me there, and didn't mind me having a look at their love nest.

He drew a line down his chest, the gesture to explain that he had had an operation. That must lend an added edge to the pleasure of still being able to get up here and spend the night in such a place, cosy at 5,000ft with miles of space all around, mountain silhouettes receding into the evening light. Just look at the smiles on their faces. I forced some chocolate on them to buy some sitting down time, then headed off to re-climb Minowa-yama, which had been my first peak in the morning.

Testsu-san and the emmergency hut at dusk: what were they doing now?

I knew the light would fade fast now - it is dark by 6 o'clock in September, and the night can fall like a door shutting. I was glad that I could still run after 9 hours, and by now I was tuned in to these washed out boulder and root strewn paths. The sun put on its best evening frock and twirled its way into the night over the lakes of Urabandai as I quickstepped it down.

I only needed my puny little light for the last few yards on the road so that the cars could see me. That demon grandma might still be around.

Bear attack

2010-09-17T01:01:00.001+09:00

You wait for ages for a bear, then three come along at once

It had been a good celebration, after all, the volleyball team had won an area trophy, and beverages had been consumed. He got a taxi home at 9.30, but didn't ask it to drop him at his door - the main road would do, and he would walk up. When you have grown up with bears around and nothing happens to you for thirty odd-years, you assume nothing will happen for the next thirty. It was dark on the small road up through the village and the allotments, but he saw it coming for him, a black bear that had probably been surprised raiding the kabucha pumpkins. It was on him fast, raking his back and legs with deep claw marks, and catching his nose as he scrabbled to stand up again and run. He managed it, and made it to his door, bleeding but in one piece, thankfully for his wife and two young children.

Lots of stitches and a few days in hospital later, he was home again. Enquiries and solicitations were met with abashed apologies - they were really were so very sorry to have caused people worry, really very sorry. Had the bear been shot? Well, probably that wasn't going to happen. After all, it was just unlucky, and what with the numbers of people working and growing vegetables and rice in the hills above the village, it would be dangerous for hunters to begin shooting there.

This was the first bear attack in our village for ten years, but it had felt that it was only a matter of time. Despite the regular warnings of sightings on the council's public address system, the fireworks let off in the evening, and people exchanging stories about which of their crops had been raided, there was no discernible change in people's behaviour. It is seen as a chance occurrence, that happens or not, and so be it. In fact we had a party of our own in the village that night, after which my wife's cousin, wove uncertainly with a big smile on his face, down the main road, despite our protestations and offers of a lift "Daijobu, daijobu..." he said, fuzzily ("It's OK, its OK..."), and as luck would have it, he was.

Suddenly it filled the windscreen, huge and sprinting in freeze frames, Muybridge style, burnt into the retina, lolloping across the road, bleached in the full beam headlights, it's shaggy pelt flowing in waves like an Afghan hound. Half way up the road past the ski centre in the dark at 8.30, our first full on broadside sight of a bear - a big one. We must have surprised it crossing back into the woods from raiding the allotment on the right. I'm glad the brakes worked. I'm glad I wasn't on my bike. We sat for a few minutes as it sank in, a thing not to be forgotten in a hurry. Further on, more moonstruck animals leaped before us - a Tanuki, and a few minutes later, a Japanese marten ran down the road in the lights for half a mile, not turning into the safety of the forest. A night of full moon, a week before the attack.

It's head, comically exactly and unmistakeably bear-shaped, after eighteen months of expecting to see one any day, poked out like a theatrical prop on a stick from between someone's house and their car at the edge of the village - the biggest village that stands in for an actual town round here. Bloody hell, that is actually a bear! What happens if someone steps out for a smoke or to nip to the shop? It clocked my headlights, and ducked back in sharpish, looking sheepish (for a bear) a bungling teenage criminal looking for a main chance. My first bear sighting, luckily from a car, ten days before the attack.

The trucks and cars on the valley road are probably more dangerous, but with that progression, we really don't need a fourth bear.

Asahi-dake

2010-09-10T20:25:00.002+09:00

A 1,624m (5,328ft) mountain near Tadami in Fukushima, Japan

The long summit ridge of Mt Asahi, from the only clear path to it. The top is on the right

If you feel, as I do, the occasional need to scourge the flesh, scrub the eyeballs with some blinding beauty, and give yourself a good corrective battering against the laughably grand forces of gravity, the weather and geological time, then Asahi-dake, with it's 3,800ft of climb in 4km on the path approaching from the north east, will assuredly do the trick. Sitting on the edge of a wilderness area with few paths, it's scrub-covered summit ridge stretches from north to south, cut by cliffs and snow-scoured sweeping slabs.

Creepy mannequins slump by the signs around the 'cook your catch' fish farm, the only house at the end of a ten minute drive up a single track black top deep into a steeply cut valley leading off route 239 south of Tadami. Though they had an acre of empty grass, the man in the lean-to workshops asked me to park at the official mountain car park up the rough road beyond, which threatened to bottom out the car. Having nursed it, and an uncharitable thought or two, through to the empty car park, I jogged jingling into the salad, disguised as a runner, rucsac well stocked with gear, bear spray, and 2 and a half litres of water for the hot and humid day.

Into the salad - the lush beginnings of the path

After a gently climbing 1500m of recently strimmed path following a stream, the route kicks up into the regular zigzags of the climb proper. A spring near the bottom of this was the last water, and the serious business of sweating began, dissolving into a solution equal parts blood, salt and foliage, the skin loosing it's usual power as a barrier between the self and the landscape. It was hot and heavy, frogs and grasshoppers leaping from the path, always upwards and under trees, until the gaining the ridge gave some respite and an expansive view of an avalanche scarred wilderness.

Snow erosion scars, with only the ridge crests sustaining mature trees

The top of Mt Asahi was now bobbing in and out of view, as the path climbed the ridge butting onto it from the north east. Beautiful trees contorted by snow and age live here, their mangled roots grappling the path for control. The biggest are labelled with their girth and height, lending a disconcertingly park-like air to this wild place. The substantial unmanned metal hut 500m NE of the top was also disconcertingly locked - something that should never happen in a place where emergencies might easily demand it to save someone's life. Mine for example! The poetry of sweating prose aside, I have no desire to merge entirely just yet...

Easy roped rock slabs amongst long grass lead to the ridge of Asahidake itself, and a welcome slump gazing over the crags and pathless depths to the west.

Looking back not far from the top

Looking west from the summit ridge

The top itself is defaced by an ugly aluminium cylinder with plaque on top. It looks like a prop from a failed 70's science fiction plot and it is not actually on the highest point for some reason, but don't hold that against this wonderful mountain. Suitably scourged, scrubbed and battered by the climb, I had the place to myself, and was feeling all roughty-toughty, he-manly and terribly adventurous.

Cue cursing and thrashing from the bushes on the overgrown section of the ridge leading in from the wilds. Out popped two exhausted young men, throwing their big sacs down and laying down by them. They had only been and gone and done five days backpacking through the trackless mountains. That means fighting your way through scrub, bamboo and trees on the ridges, cutting a way where needed, carrying a lot of water as well as gear. Their three mates were still thrashing through it as we chatted. It also meant they got through the huge electric storm the night before, camping at a high level. They wouldn't own to have actually enjoyed the whole thing, but they at least had enough humour left to suddenly strike poses when I asked to take their pictures. Nice.

Hero 1: perky

Hero 2: pensive

Distant rumbles and a darkening sky heralded a repeat performance of the previous day's storm, and I was glad to be able to run down and get off quickly. I hoped that they weren't depending on the hut. As the rain became a downpour and the very convincing (if a little overdone) sound effects came closer I hoped the boys were OK. Of course they were.

The thunderheads piling up

So Yama and Mae Yama: Lake Numazawa's volcanic rim

2010-08-26T22:13:00.002+09:00

A beautiful and (relatively) easy mountain circuit around the rim of an extinct volcano in Kaneyamamachi, oku Aizu, Fukishimaken

The anti-clockwise route climbs this ridge from right to left

The Numazawa volcano last erupted an estimated 5,000 years ago, leaving a caldera, now a lake 100m deep. There are two main mountains on the immediate rim: So Yama 816m (2,677ft) and Mae Yama 835m (2,739ft), both with tree covered cliffs dropping to the lake, with an undulating wooded ridge between. The circuit of the lake is completed via a lakeside path and road.

So Yama, from the climb up Mae Yama

This makes for a good medium distance run of around 2 hours - how much quicker or slower than that will depend on heat and fitness, with mostly runnable paths - unusual for this area!

As an adult walk it is a brisk 5 hours or a leisurely 7 and a half or so with children - at least that is how long it took my 8 year-old.

Glimpses of the deep viridian of the lake, with cliffs above

Starting at the signposted path up the hill past a small shrine at the northern end of the lakeside road the route zigzags onto the ridge towards So Yama. This is sharp in places and with a couple of spots requiring care, but rewarding and interesting. So Yama has masts on the top, but the view is lovely, and the descent onto the joining ridge through pleasant woodland. An undulating path takes you to the base of the climb up Mae Yama, with an easy escape route to the SW if needed.

It is a stiff pull up to the top of this loaf shaped mountain, with one corner on the path requiring care as it is by a drop disguised by scrub. The top proper is in trees, but there is a wonderful if a little nervy viewing point a little further on the path as it begins to descend.

Our visiting friends the Purvis's equipped for the wilds with smiles, dreams of flight, court shoes and plimpsoles - but no bones broken. On Mae Yama.

On a clear day you can see 50 miles from here, with the enamelled lake and it's toy village like a model in touching distance below. It's best to keep concentration though, as this is on top of a cliff, and the edge of the friable rock platform is breaking away. The descent zigzags down a rough path through shaded deciduous forest, with some venerable old beech trees with massive moss covered boles. Following the stream at the bottom gets you to the lake glimmering through dark pines and a lovely lakeside path to finish with.

Lake Numazawa Festival

2010-08-26T13:00:00.000+09:00

This photo by Mike Barratt

Bowing back

2010-08-26T11:07:00.000+09:00

Every evening the spider outside our living room repairs the day's damage to it's web. It is made of a few hawser-like threads stretched from the porch roof to floor, an impressive distance. If you walk into one inadvertently you would be shocked by the strength of those tiny threads.

Across the road a man is suspended from a cable, pulling himself along and paying out a wire. The council is paying the installation costs of fibre optic broadband, providing a 200mbs service to every house for the internet, telephones and television. This will hopefully increase the range of people who may be able to work from this beautiful place through the internet. As it stands most people either find work in construction, maintenance and road repair, in seasonal casual work for the council, or tourism - or have to leave to find it.

I have a chastened admiration for the people I see working in the oppressive heat and humidity that has killed 132 people through heatstroke acrosss Japan this summer, with 31,579 people hospitalized since May 31 (Fire and Disaster Management Agency). Working in full uniform and safety gear, especially on concrete and tarmac that intensify the heat, must be killing - yet you never see anyone shirking and they all seem to do their work thoroughly and with good heart.

The toll it takes is clear if you see them in their lunch break. Usually they eat then take a short nap, laying out mats on the roadside or in the cab of vehicles. Recently though, I passed a group of men exhausted by the heat whose heads had dropped in sleep where they sat eating, the insects shrieking in the trees overhead and trucks thundering by inches away.

The people who direct traffic around roadworks have it especially hard in the heat, standing in full sun all day in one spot, with nothing to distract them, burning to a deep brown. I can't imagine the pay is good, and it is work often done by the elderly who can't do heavy work any more. Yet they do it with precision and care, bowing to each driver as they pass. Bowing back is for me anything but a formality.

Scare bears

2010-08-25T22:36:00.001+09:00

One of the bi-products of there being many hairdressers in the area stares out like a young Marc Almond, with album cover weirdness, through the netting surrounding a pumpkin patch. Hairdressers are as numerous in Aizu villages as pubs in English ones, and one folically well-connected smallholder has enterprisingly blagged some mannequins in a spirit of surreal husbandry to scare away the many bears that are now causing anxiety by coming into the local villages in unprecedented numbers.

In the next-door village a particularly persistent black bear was unfortunately shot dead last week. It had taken to sleeping in a rice field rather than the usual tree platforms in the woods, and it was probably only a matter of time before it attacked someone - and there are several children in the village. Like a children's tale, 30km away a woman stepped out of her house in the early morning to tend her garden and was mauled by three bears, though happily she survived. This was probably by a mother with two cubs, which stay together for their first two years.

We have always taken them seriously (and taken suitable precautions), but bears are no longer a fairytale or theoretical construct for me now. Having waited eighteen months to see one, I recently saw two in the space of ten days, fortunately from the safety of the car. The first poked it's head out between someone's car and their house at 9.40pm in the biggest village - emphasising that you really can see them anywhere. The second dramatically ran across a mountain road at 8.45pm. Luckily I was able to stop in time, but the image of it filling the windscreen in the headlights as it lolloped along, big and muscular with thick fur rippling with the rhythm of it's gait will stay with us. It was a full moon, and the wildlife was waiting to throw itself in front of us that night - shortly after a Tanuki appeared, followed by a Japanese Marten, which ran on the road in front of us for 500m instead of heading for safety.

Laughing in the face of forensics: a bear takes the subtle approach to corn-related crime.

There are more bears appearing in the villages than in living memory. Is this because the winters are milder and more survive, because there has been a change in the food supply in the woods, or, as the locals postulate, because there are fewer mountain allotments to raid than there used to be? They are mad for corn, pumpkins, and water melons, and who can blame them - Aizu vegetables are wonderful and provide more nutrition than anything to be found in the woods.

Whatever the reason, various measures are being taken to try and discourage them. In addition to various home-made devices like the mannequins, the council are offering to pay half the cost of electric fences, and blank charges are being exploded in the early evening. The public address system details sightings and urges caution. It is to be hoped they succeed, as it would be a shame to see the traditional and surprisingly accepting entente cordiale between human and ursine neighbours end in a cull. That would be really Grimm.

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Mt Onigatsura

2010-08-25T20:46:00.006+09:00

Mt Onigatsura, a 1,465m (4,806 ft) mountain in Fukushima ken, Japan
Aptly named 'The demon's face.'

Mt Onigatsura, along with Minamidake (1354m) and Kitadake (1465m), forms a dramatic pinnacle and cliff-strewn ridge heading SSW from Asakusadake. It is a stunningly beautiful sawtooth with three tops. The path over it skirts yawning gullies and avalanche-scoured drops falling into into the wild valley between it and Mt Asakusa. Grand sweeps of forested mountains flow towards Niigata to the west. The path looks from a distance as if it will involve some exposed scrambling. It doesn't, but it is often close to edges. For example, you can see the path skirting the very top of the tooth in this photograph.

I 'ran' it both ways, starting at the tunnel at the head of the pass on route 252 west of Tadami, doing the full ridge and adding Asakusadake (1584m/5197ft), and heading back the same way, having done the other routes before. This took 4 hours 40 minutes in all, including a 20 minute stop, so as a walk it would be double that, or more. It is a good obvious path, but steep in places and rough underfoot, with the usual tree roots and scrub to deal with. It requires concentration when near the edges and moving quickly. There is no water on the ridge, and not as many people go this way. With the exception of a few on the top of Asakusa-dake, I saw one person all day on the ridge, and it was a fine Sunday.

Shallow cave on the ridge, with Asaksadake in the background

It being in August, the path was beautiful with a profusion of wild flowers. Legions of dragonflies filled the air - some of them the huge green ones with bodies four inches long and bigger. When they fly close to your face it is like being scrutinised by an alien spaceship.On the more runnable section towards Asakusadake I surprised five snakes, whereas a walker at the top had seen only one on the same section. A king amongst slugs was encountered on the path too, grazing un-phased by the drama of it's lofty neighbourhood.

Any resemblance noted in speed and appearance entirely offensive, OK?

Thankfully the (literally) killing heat of the last ten weeks had eased a little, and the elevation of the ridge above 1,000 metres made the temperature pleasant by comparison, though still warm, and if I may put it thus, sluggish.

This is a classic route and the best I have done in Aizu so far. If you can arrange pick-ups it could be combined to make a long traverse accross Asaksa-dake from north to south by using the NE ridge, or done in a southern circuit including the path which directly climbs steeply to the summit of Asaksa from the small station on the Tadami line to the south. All would be long day walks needing early starts and plenty of water and gear.

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One of the best campsites in Japan?

2010-07-20T20:28:00.000+09:00

Lake Numazawa Camp Ground, Kaneyamamachi, Fukushima-ken, Japan

Pitches under the trees in the cooling shade

Situated around a sandy bay on a stunning extinct volcanic lake surrounded by it's mountainous rim, this is a heavenly and relaxing place. It is also ideal if you have children, as the bay is cordoned off and slopes gently, giving children somewhere suitable to splash around in whatever their ability (of course children in water should always be supervised). Usually the water is lower than in these photos, with nice sand for games and sandcastles. Cars have to be left in the car parks a few yards away, so they are not a danger or a nuisance.

What could be better?

This hidden gem is usually very quiet because of it's remoteness, except for during the Numazawako festival, usually on the first weekend of August. This is a great little festival with food stalls, performances, and a floating dragon defeated by samurai and of course fireworks. It would be worth booking a pitch for this. These photos were taken on a national holiday 3 day weekend, and there was still plenty of space, but you can phone to make sure if you are travelling a long way. On weekdays and most ordinary weekends, there are usually very few tents.

One of the open areas, good for games

Facilities

There is a toilet and shower block, barbecue / cooking shelters, separate areas for motor home pitches, and firewood can be bought for use on the hearths scattered around for barbecues - also good for keeping the insects off in the evenings. A few small camping huts are available. It is a great lake for canoeing, and lessons can be booked through the camp site. There is a cafe open during the day at weekends selling ramen and udon noodles and other simple food. The shop beneath is open every day until 5pm and sells ices, cold drink, snack food, firewood, and a few useful camping items. For groceries there is a small basic shop in the village (easy spot by its stacks of beer crates), and mini-marts in Kawaguchi, 20 mins drive away. The nearest supermarket is in Yanaizu, 30-40 mins drive away.

Small chalets with cooking areas and sleeping platforms can be hired

Activities

Swimming in the bay - not advised in other areas

Canoeing - buoyancy aids/lifejackets are essential on the main part of the lake as it is very deep.

Easy Walking: around the villages, woods and plateaus on quiet roads and forestry tracks.

Mountain Walking: superb 10km circuit of the mountains rimming the lake. Good walking (with a couple of exposed sections requiring care if with children). Approx 5 hours for fit adults, allow up to 8 hours for children. Takamori-yama, a rugged 1,100 metre mountain can also be walked from the campsite see here. If you have a car or bike there are numerous beautiful mountains in Aizu that can be done in a day from here, and guides in Japanese are available locally.

Cycling: as you will know from the rest of this blog, Kaneyama and Oku-Aizu is a superlative area for road cycling - all the routes in the cycling pages can be done from here. There are plenty of forest trails for MTB rides too. Families can do various road circuits of Numazawako, and for little un's there is a lakeside tarmac'd footpath to trundle along.

Onsens (hot spring baths). The onsens in Aizu are renowned, and there is one of the best, with outdooor sections overlooking the Tadami river just back down in the main valley 5km away.
Culture: There is (of all things) a fairy museum 500m up from the car park, and also a photographic gallery belonging to a well known Japanese travel photographer (which is occasionally open) right by the lake. The local shrines are worth a look, and if you have a car Yanaizu Bhuddist temple is famous. There are visitors centres scattered along the valley with cafés and good small museums rich in stone age artefacts. There is a 5th century Samurai burial mound about 6km away - but then the whole area is a living museum and you see sights and costumes that have not changed for 200 years.
Nature watching: I was there for a swim today and an eagle swept down and caught a fish with its claws and flew off again.
Please note: as with all Japanese camp sites there are lots of big ants around - but don't worry: I have sat in trunks many times and have never been bitten.

Getting there:

By train on the amazing Tadami line, get off at Hayato station then walk or take a taxi
By car, Lake Numazawa is well signposted from route 252 along the Tadami valley
Google map here

Prices at 2010:

Camping ¥1,000 per tent plus ¥300 per person per night

Motor homes ¥3,000 per vehicle plus ¥300 per person per night

Camp huts: from ¥5,000 to ¥8,000 plus ¥300 per person per night

To book phone ++(0)241-55-3140

I have no connection with the site - it is run by the council, I have just spent lots of happy time here - hope you enjoy it!

Kabutomushi kids

2010-07-18T22:43:00.001+09:00

A kabutomushi or Japanese Rhinoceros beetle

No Japanese childhood is complete without bugging bugs, inspecting insects and pestering pests. Kings of the crop and prized captives for all the mini marauders in the area are Kabutomushi, Japanese Rhinoceros Beetles. Along with Japanese stag beetles, these are objects of great desire for local boys, and for girls too, no squeamishness there. The school even provides them - or at least acts as a conduit, though who provides them I'm not sure. Playtime might see a clutch of kids surrounding a joisting tournament to determine whose beetle is the strongest, using their instinct to push away rivals Sumo style for mating grounds and food.

These beetles are strong, big, and they fly. My son was wary of touching insects last year, especially being used to puny English bugs. I used to annoy pond life* as a boy in Lancashire, and we were very proud if we found a Great Diving Beetle, which are only the size of the first joint of your thumb. Rhinoceros beetles would have blown our tiny minds, although the Great Diving Beetle admittedly has habits more satisfyingly nightmarish to the boyish mind.

My son gained his badge of courage and has now learned to handle them confidently. This was somewhat shaken this week when the beetle he was holding by the point on it's shell managed to latch onto his hand and crawl up his arm. You should know that they have sharp claws and they clamber around by sticking them into any available surface like an ice climber whacking axes into an ice cliff. In this case the surface was my son's skin, leaving a trail of red pin pricks up his arm. This softened him to our insistence that we only kept the two he brought home form school for a week, so they could go off and do their romancing and wild living in the woods.

Most kids keep them in plastic tanks for months, and they spend half their time trying to get out. That would be my plan too. We spent an hour in the garden today crushing and drowning the small beetles that were daring to eat our potatoes, then came over all squeamish and protective about the beetles in the tank. No inconsistency there then. Vegetarianism seems to involve rather a lot of killing as it turns out.

My son doesn't have a lot of luck with Kabutomushi - this one fell out of a tree onto his arm last year. It hurt.

We took the reprieved prisoners up to the playground at the shrine this afternoon. The big one knew exactly what to do with his freedom and escaped through the holes in our logic. He was axing up the big tree at speed in no time, higher and higher until it fell off from a dizzy height, apparently by accident and took wing instinctively, sailing off into its luvin' future through the tree tops, humming a Barry White song. The other fell off after three inches onto it's back, heaved itself half-heartedly up the tree a few feet, then crammed itself into a crack and hid. I don't know, you do your best, but they just have their own personalities right from the start don't they? You just have to let them go in the end though, the little darlings, don't you?

*Now I am pond life

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Rainy season

2010-07-13T17:26:00.000+09:00

River of mist over the Tadami river

July is rainy season in Aizu, and my, how it rains. The heat and humidity take their toll, and the first words out of everyone's mouth are "It's hot!" At the sides of roads in discrete places at midday the road workers and construction crews who have been hard at it since early morning are flaked out in their cabs, only their socked feet crossed over the steering wheel visible. Others kip on the verge, the remains of their lunch boxes by their side. Siesta's are supposedly foreign to the work obsessed Japanese, and it must be difficult to get away with it in an office, but round here they are all the rage, and long may that continue say I.

It is in the twenties and thirties every day, with at least 80% humidity, and sleep beckons at every moment, especially when, like us, you don't have air conditioning. You know it is humid when a drop of water on the kitchen table that was there when you went out in the morning is still there when you return late in the evening. Your body takes on a fungal quality, and paper feels slightly mushy. Cold showers and ice cream appeal, hot tea does not, and a wet towel round the head hits the spot. The Japanese appear to be made of tissue paper, as they won't go out in the rain unless they have to for work - even otherwise tough runners and cyclists. Landslides are a reason commonly given, though the chances of being actually hit must be tiny, and apply equally to driving, which is not an issue apparently.

A rain storm about to hit a mountain top taxi and bus stand and it's soon to be electric chairs

On very humid days you long for the rain to come and break the looming tension in the air. Sometimes it comes with electrical storms cracking down on the grumbling mountains. We were once caught on the motorway in a storm of truly epic proportions, the like of which I have never seen. The wipers couldn't cope, the blinding flashes came every few seconds, and a service station was the only option. We were soaked to the skin in the three seconds it took to run to the café. As I write, it has rained without a break all day, and the dips between the rows of beans and corn in the garden are full, the water spattering down from the roof, cars and timber trucks thrashing past on the valley road outside the window.

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McChildhood and the real McCoy

2010-07-13T16:39:00.001+09:00

What happened when we asked local children where they would like to live when they grow up.

The hydro-electric dams across the valley were unexpectedly popular

At a recent after school club session we decided to ask the children (aged 7 to 9) to think about where they thought they might like to live when they grew up - here in Kaneyamamachi, in a nearby town or city like Wakamatsu, or in Tokyo. It is important that children are involved in thinking about this, as by the time they reach adulthood the exodus from the countryside will effect them more than anyone. We used a decision line method, with two opposing options at each end - the children were asked to stand where they would like to live. They then gave their reasons for standing where they did, and afterwards made drawings of what they liked about where they chose. The session was enlivened by the presence of a film crew from TV Asahi, who were filming us as part of the travelogue series 'Beautiful Japan.'

No surprise that the school's outdoor swimming all summer is popular

Nearly half of them chose to go to the Tokyo end of the decision line, with three in the middle opting for the nearer towns, and nearly half standing at the Kaneyamamachi end of the line, predicting that they would stay here.

It was interesting that the Tokyo group couldn't immediately think why they had chosen to be there. With some prompting, they came up with shopping, Disneyland, and in the case of my son, Sunshine 60, a huge building with a panoramic viewing floor. They could think of what they might play with or eat, but they didn't really know what work they might do. When it came to making drawings of what they liked about the city they were really nonplussed, and sat blankly staring at white paper while the group who wanted to stay here launched exuberantly into their drawings. In the end some of what they drew could equally be experienced here - a hamburger, some dogs, fashionable clothes. One drew the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, another a skyscraper.

McChildhood comes to Japan: dumming down one of the healthiest diets in the world

It felt a little as if they were the puppets of television advertisers, with invented needs that could vaguely somehow be met by Tokyo, or perhaps were simply wanting what they felt they couldn't normally have living in the mountains. The most articulate little mite, all of seven years old and tiny, drew a big blue question mark:

He said that he knew that he didn't really know what Tokyo was like, but that was why he wanted to live there - to find out. An amazing thought for his age.

The group who wanted to stay in this area new exactly why they liked it. Swimming! Skiing! My family! The dams! The food! Stag beetles! And in the discussion they launched enthusiastically into defending Kaneyamamachi. My favourite drawing was of the child's house (with a yellow roof) connected to all the other houses in their village by paths, which seemed to express perfectly the closeness of the community and the warmth of feeling for children.

The village- wide web

It was rewarding and thought provoking to see one of Japan's major issues, the continued centralisation of life in two big cities and the emptying of the countryside, played out in the imaginations of children. Before long it will be a choice they will face for real, and one that may be determined by the practical necessities of work and money rather than personal preference. In the meantime I hope they can have a say in what happens, while enjoying what must be one of the best places anywhere to grow up. Childhood's real McCoy, beautiful, innocent and healthy in mind and body.

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One wheel on my wagon

2010-06-24T23:44:00.002+09:00

One of the most touching and improbable moments of my first year in Kanyamamachi was the moment when groups of children drifted out of the shadows of the sports hall and across the baking grit of the playground. Improbably and delightfully they were all holding hands and riding unicycles. The ancient dark of the woods loomed behind, crowned with the hidden earthworks that are all that is left of the harder times when a castle was needed. The contrast with the dreamlike moments of happiness sparkling under a cloudless sky was perfect. Wheeling and turning in patterns, the children smiled as their parents clapped. It is the miraculous high point of the school sports day each year.

In the year since that day my son has learned and proudly invited us to a private showing. I was duly proud in return, especially when I had tried it and found out just how hard it is.

The school is split into two halves for sports day, the red team and the white team, which then engage in day-long gladiatorial combat spread across more than twenty events. This year one of them was another innovation designed to inculcate the smooth if competitive team working that is central to Japanese culture. It involved a kind of hyped-up leapfrog, with each member having to jump their team-mates in turn. The loosing white team's last boy began running over the backs in a desperate attempt to keep up, producing a beautiful leap as a final, if loosing, flourish.

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Mikagura Dake and Honna Mikagura

2010-06-13T01:25:00.001+09:00

A 1386m (4,547ft) mountain in Kaneyama Machi, Fukishima-ken, Japan

The view NE from the top accross Nishi Aizu towards Mt Iida in Yamagata

You can climb this impressive, remote and rugged mountain (replete with free hut) from either the north or the south, but climbing it from the south is far superior, as the people are much nicer (as everybody knows through this typically reliable blog). You also get to arrive by steam train (on a few selected days) on the stunning Tadami line should you so desire. Get off at Honna station - there are a couple of small grocery shops in the village for provisions.

It is 10-12km on an unmade road through a beautiful dramatic valley to the start of the footpath. This follows the river on it's right bank NW for a while, passed a lovely waterfall which is climbed to the right on a narrow path above a drop with a small chained crag to negotiate. Through a small but perfectly formed gorge with another chained bit, you continue by the river, which has some sections of flat rock beds and is crystal clear. The path begins to climb, and then turns right directly up a steep pine covered ridge, making for a hard slog up a staircase of tree roots until you reach the left turn along a gentler ridge which leads eventually to the summit of Honna Mikagura (1,266m). You pass the mountain hut on the way, which is visible just off the path (but you could miss it heading south), and there is a bigger chained crag which requires more care in the wet beneath the first summit. The little local mountain guide estimates an adult walking will take at least 4 hours or so to climb Honna Mikagura from the start of the footpath (doesn't include the road in). It estimates at least 2 hours 40 minutes for the descent. Getting to the bigger top takes longer.

Looking S from the chained crag on Honna Mikagura back down the approach route. The mountain hut is hidden in the trees on top of the ridge

This week I met a neighbour and his mates on the way down after they had spent a glorious spring night in the hut. "Were the stars very beautiful?" I asked. "I don't know, we were drinking sake, so we didn't see." All that way, just to do what they do every other night of the week!

The bigger of the two tops is Mikagura Dake itself (1,386m) further on to the north, but the path needs time and care as it is overgrown with bamboo, and you feel it with your feet more than following it with your eyes. It is worth it, if time and fitness allow, for the panoramic views that the bigger top affords. The little local guidebook puts the round trip to the bigger top from the smaller top at at least 1hr 40mins (walking).

Looking S on the 'path' between the tops. It is in the scrub somewhere...

Given good weather this is a wonderful top as it is the highest for some miles and you can see 50 miles in most directions.

A note on safety
I wouldn't myself take children on the southern approach to Mikagura Dake without ropes for the two or three exposed sections. Anyone going on their own especially should take their equipment, first aid and food choices seriously and make sure someone knows where you are. As with most Japanese mountains, and especially those in quiet areas, should anything go wrong on a quiet day you would be a long way from help. Also, as with most Japanese mountains and wooded areas, there are black bears in the area. I wear bells, shout, and carry a bear pepper spray. Most mountain areas in Japan can also have Mamoshi (poisonous Japanese vipers), so look carefully as you walk. If a hornet approaches, I have been told it is best to keep still and not wave at it, but I don't know for sure! Please do your own research and err on the side of safety.

Old road, new camel

2010-06-12T23:55:00.001+09:00

Newly planted rice above Kawaguchi

Having unexpectedly been lent a mountain bike by my road club captain on the express condition that I find some good routes, I dragged myself out and up the hills on a fine late afternoon in the first days of June in an effort to deserve it. Having been beaten back by spinning wheels on the steep gravel on my road bike there, I decided to go up the crumbling old road straight up the hill behind the school. It is only used by forestry workers and whoever has these rice paddies now, and is in disrepair. The old routes were made for foot transport, and were therefore much more direct and steep than the graded roads that replaced them.

The Tadami river with Nakagawa village in the distance

It was worth the climb as it (nearly) always is, the Tadami valley opening out below me, much prettier than my style as I tried to get accustomed to the rolling lurch of climbing on a full suspension bike. Are these wheels round? No doubt I'd appreciate it on the way down.

Past the sixth century samurai grave mound, I skirted the plateau of soba fields on tarmac and headed for a path I had only snow-shoed before, which lead up to the rim of our (currently) friendly neighbourhood volcanic lake. It was ride-able all the way, and it was strange to arrive on wheels to a point on the ridge I had only reached on foot before. Taking a machine of any description domesticates places somewhat, don't you think?

On the one hand it's a mountain, on the other, I seem to have parked a bike in someone's kitchen

I didn't really trust the paths marked on the map that seemed to offer a contouring escape from the climb up to the next top on the ridge, but decided to be wilfully naive and go anyway. Sure enough, arriving at the base of the hill after a sporting skitter on the switchbacks, they had disappeared, leaving a choice between going back the same way (what am I, a yo-yo?) or slogging up the steep hill pushing and dragging a lump of temporarily useless metal and rubber to get to the access road off the top (what am I, stupid?). You know the answer to this, don't you?

Yes, but an idiot in a beautiful place

I still don't know why I photograph bikes in different places, then show people the photographs, I mean what's the point? Is it a kind of visual scent marking? Mind you, you are looking at it and reading this, so you are encouraging me.

I chose a very steep (25% ish) zig-zagging concrete track off the mountain for my first experience of disk brakes. They began squealing as I kept them on, developing into a deep throb with whining overtones that, were I not concentrating on avoiding going over the edge, I would have analysed in more detail to ascertain why it began to sound like an early German experimental electronica track. I am sure the wildlife was making the self-same connection and wondering how all those old analogue synths were managing to slide down the hillside so gracefully, yet so far from Berlin. Do disk brakes always do that, or is it just the 12" vinyl extended picture disc singles?

Somewhat more darkly, form a practical point of view, was the fact that after finally stopping, I pulled on the front brake lever and it went right to the handlebar - the brake seemed to have completely failed. I decided to ride carefully home on roads, even when for no apparent reason it started working again. Do disk brakes always do that? I decided that riding an MTB when you are used to road bikes is like a jockey being presented with a saddled up camel. They look really well suited to desert survival, but it might take a while to learn how to actually milk one.

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No cold, no heat, no tiredness

2010-06-12T22:27:00.001+09:00

Now that the leaf canopy has arrived to soften the snow-mauled mountains, cloaking their winter wounds in green flames, it can seem even more as if they are empty. Looking at these precipitous wooded slopes you could be forgiven for thinking that yours are the only human eyes at work.

Aekichi-san in May on his daily rounds looking for sansai (wild vegetables). He is in his seventies

Yet every day, in every area, beneath the secretive trees scores of eyes are bent to the ground from the early morning. Gradient, undergrowth, bears and snakes are no obstacle. When you have been doing the same thing for fifty or sixty years, why worry? It is as natural as breathing for the inhabitants of Aizu to collect wild vegetables. It is almost an automatic response to the colour green to try and match it to one of the many shapes and forms that spell 'food.' They are not hunters, but they are certainly gatherers. And they do it with a passion and focus that equals any animal hunt.

This isn't an occasional pass-time - it is a serious part of everyone's diet, and the picking, preparation, preservation and eating of sansai is an important part of local culture, on a par with farming and vegetable growing itself. Special patches are closely guarded secrets, and it is a matter of great concern if outsiders, especially organised gangs, come and steal the locals' wild food. Each season provides it's own changing harvest, each with it's own taste and texture, but each with a sense of the mountain in it. Local people feel that there is a special kind of health to be had from sansai, as if the power of the mountain is somehow in it - and looking at them, who is to doubt it? It is certainly in your body if you are the one who goes and gets it every day...

Preparing zenmai, a complicated process. It is poisonous if you don't get it right.

Now that the growing season is here, aunty Siako-san is helping us in the allotment, as we know what is most accurately described as 'bugger all' about growing things. Hell, I can't even grow hair. She fits us in between her own rice fields and vegetable plots, always on the go now that winter no longer keeps her a prisoner in the house. Her and her husband won't stop until the rice is in now, always with a ready laugh and apparently tireless. "If you are a farmer," she said over a cuppa in our kitchen, "You cannot feel the cold, you cannot feel the heat, and you cannot feel tired." Then she laughed, and went out to do some more work.

Coming back from picking Kogomi (an edible fern shoot) with Aekichi-san in May, we crossed some small rice fields in the hills that looked as if they were still being worked, although there was no road to them. Further on, we met a wizzened little man in his eighties at the end of the nearest track, contemplating the snow that was preventing him riding further in on his moped. On the floor were some tools and heavy looking sacks that he obviously wanted to get through to the rice paddies. Hayasaki-san and he knew eachother and chatted a while, while I weighed up whether to offer to help or not - always a difficult decision with this elderly but extremely proud populace. Well, he was looking balefully at that snow, and he did look to be well on in his eighties. What the hell. "Can I help you with those?" As if prodded with a sharp stick he immediately picked up the bags and began walking across the snow. No cold, no heat, no tiredness.

These are the days

2010-06-08T23:25:00.002+09:00

Arai Racing Club members having a Van Halen Moment

There are days of such radiant perfection that everything beats as one: your heart, the light on the mountains, the rhythm of the pedals, the swish of rubber on tarmac and the flash of sunshine on emerald water, and clichés seem, if not expensive, just that little bit less cheap. Eee, but it's grand as they used to say in Lancashire. If Rose, who my daughter is named after, the old lady eking out her last days in a Rochdale nursing home , was here, she would sing. But then, she always sang.

It was a day when bursts of speed were interspersed with stops for laugh out loud wonderment. But then it is murder getting Japanese people past blossom trees at the best of times. You know you are in the grip of a cultural institution when a racing club stops in its tracks as one man.

I took them over one of my favourite mountain roads from Nishi Aizu to Yanaizu, which was just barely passable over the top, with some snow left and the winter's tree debris carpeting the road. And then on the way down, a landslide had inundated the road, and rocks and sticks made even the rest a little more sporting than usual. Though we stopped for the blossom, we didn't stop for that.

Or this...

Heading back in the lengthening light we split into two groups, and as usual I opted for the traffic free and beautiful option over the easier one, receiving a battering at the hands of the small chain gang that developed as we chased to catch back up, re-united over ice cream at our local visitor's centre that also does wonderful soba....

That night, over a great communal meal, with everyone tired and staisfied, I was handed a club jersey by Takeda-san, the club captain. There is no membership fee or paperwork in becoming an Arai member, but I had wanted one of those for a while to show solidarity with a group that had welcomed me so kindly.

And then, when I returned to pick something up, another two unexpected windfalls. Takeda-san had left his full suspension mountain bike for me to borrow, on the condition that I seek out some good routes for the club, and for good measure, Shigemura-san gave me a new short-sleeved jersey too. It was all nearly, but not quite, too much. That, as they say everywhere, was a good day.

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At last

2010-05-07T12:34:00.002+09:00

After a long snowy winter and a stutteringly slow start to spring the wait for good weather was beginning to tell on the nerves. No vegetables could be planted, and everyone was tired of spending a lot of time indoors, when the outdoors is the natural environment of the people of the mountains. Like them snuffing the air and raring to go, I saw that this was the first day that a longer mountain run was feasible, and I leapt at it.

In the mountains forming the rim of Numazawako, the lake in what was a volcano, the saplings were lifting their heads and springing up from the snow in which they had been bound to the ground, suddenly snapping up and shaking their heads at their release. Even mature trees can be broken or keeled over by the snow, and the winter's casualties lay across the path at intervals. The grandees of the woods, big deciduous trees that have survived hundreds of such seasons, will not now be done in by this one.

The path was hard to find where the snow remained, but it was good to run, stride out and shake off the cobwebs, enjoying the views before the coming of the green canopy. A few insects and small lizards, those princes of the leaf litter, were signs of the rising temperature and the woods awakening. I wondered where the snakes were sleeping.

The air was sweet and good. From the a rocky promontory the huge open light flowed across the lake and the mountains beyond, into the deep blue of the air.

Crushed

2010-04-27T17:12:00.001+09:00

That'll teach them for leaving me on the climb

The recent council announcement about being careful about landslides and avalanches seemed a little over the top in these first tentative days of spring, until my exploration of which mountain roads are now clear was halted by this minor inconvenience. Of course each one of those slabs of compacted snow would be enough to break your legs, and all together they would both preserve and slim your figure, in as much as you would be a frozen and flattened corpse, not on my preferred cycling agenda. Still, last time out with the club I was dropped on a hill, and oh what a terrible shame it would have been if the breakaway were passing underneath just as the snow itself broke away. Think of the wasted equipment.

This is the first time I have been turned back by an actual avalanche, and it looked as if the snow plough driver had the same idea when he came back and saw it. I climbed over with my bike, ever the optimist but only a few yards on the other side were clear.

Obviously, I need to invest in one of these:

On the way home I passed our very own mini Matterhorn, Gamou-Dake, from which the panorama used for the page title above was taken on a summer's day, big black butterflies in the air all around on the summit.

Gamou Dake, Aizu, above the Tadami river and route 252

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