We were lucky to go out sailing again last Wednesday - bit chilly, but a decent breeze. We drove and cycled from Hayama to Enoshima, then sailed from Enoshima to Hayama, had lunch in the bay and lost a boat-hook having caught a mooring with the anchor, sailed back from Hayama to Enoshima, then drove and cycled back from Enoshima to Hayama.
Had dinner in probably our favourite restaurant - kind of Japanese/Italian, the symbolic epitome of which has to be the seaweed pizza. Had a number of other splendid dishes, and a rather unusual plate of kusaiya (?) , which took me straight back to my early 20s. As a family, and otherwise, we used to holiday on a farm in South Devon, the South Hams in fact, and one whole long hot summer, when I was 20, I worked on the farm. I would get up before 7 and get the 60 dairy cows in from wherever they had been overnight, up the valley, into the dairy parlour, where the farmer would join me, and we milked the beasts - getting shat on regularly and kicked every now and then - a sensation like (I imagine) getting shot at short range. After the milking I was left to clean out all the cow shit and piss and funnel it towards the large container where it festered for several months before being spread on the fields in the winter. It reeked. And what's remarkable is that some Japanese chef has managed to recreate this smell and taste almost perfectly, turned it into a sauce/marinade in which pieces of fish have been left for a while, and then this is served up in our favourite restaurant. Kusaiya. Literally, I believe, it means 'smelly fish', which doesn't go nearly far enough. Not exactly an acquired taste; more a taste that you never want to acquire unless stuck on a desert island where the only source of food is cow manure.
Why? How did that come about? Curious.
The following day we attempted to climb Tou-no-dake, a 1,491 metre (4,891 feet) mountain behind the university, starting from around 200 metres. According to the map, this should have taken 3 hours. We set off on the stroke of midday (as the community klaxons declared lunchtime) and arrived at the hut at the peak at 7 pm. Luckily one of us had a torch. The night view was pretty impressive - 200 degrees from Mount Fuji to the west, with the Sun setting behind, and all the city lights from Shimizu, Odawara and all across the Kanto plain as far as Tokyo - a sea of several million lights, literally.
In the morning we were up bright and early, if a little stiff, and there was a howling freezing gale blowing outside, and in places, inside, rattling the flimsily built hut, pinned down with scaffolding. Odd place - no water. The only water being bottled plastic water brought up on people's backs. Plus the heating was all paraffin and oil, again brought up on people's backs, despite the vaste amounts of cut wood lying around rotting. The electric lights were powered mostly by a petrol generator, despite vaste amounts of wind and sun potential.
We put on our several layers of wind and weather-proof clothing and were on the point of bracing the arctic-like elements when a wiry little old man appeared in running shorts and a T-shirt with 40 litres of water on his back. He says he has climbed the mountain 3,000 times. Then a second wiry little old man ran in, having just run up the mountain, presumably in an hour or so, it being still only 8.30. He steams like a race-horse, looks at his watch several times, then sets off again in a desperate hurry to get down the mountain again before the sky falls in, checking his watch as he goes.
We plod off, heaving through the howling gale, and soon meet a herd of 8 roe deer, who seem not to have any fear of humans - probably as perplexed as I was.
Later on, and 1,291 metres nearer sea level, (after having given an hour-long talk on Tuscan art history to a very interesting group of people) we plonk ourselves down in an izakaya and for the first time in my life order nama kaki - fresh oysters. If you like sea food and have never attempted them then I highly recommend you do so, before the season ends. Like the difference between fresh and stale bread. Really honto sugoi oishii.
On the topic of oysters, I was walking along the strand the other day and spotted a pair of oyster shells fused together into one. Thought about how as young free souls they opened and closed and did whatever young oysters do, when they liked with no-one telling them what to do nor when to do it. Then at some point, after a good long while of lonely meaningless existence they grew big enough to touch each other - which was probably very exciting, in an oysterish sort of way. But then after a while, the novelty must have worn off, as they grew bigger and scraped up irritatingly into each other. One of them might have wanted a lie-in, while they other was opening and closing in a mad frenzy of molluscal delight. And inexorably their two shells grew into each other's and eventually they fused into one being, to the point where they must have forgotten what it was like to be two separate lonely but 'free' individuals.
Saturday we admired the waves crashing in, and wondered about those left of the human race in 500 years' time, who will be totally mystified why this generation burns fossil fuels and destroys the Earth while we have so much free pure clean energy available all around us. Could it be something to do with free market capitalism? Short-term profit and greed?
Sunday we went across to Chiba on the ferry, up in the cable car to Nokogiriyama - a place that should be a World Heritage Site - the largest stone Buddha in East Asia, at 31 metres, compared to the 13 metres of the Kamakura Buddha - 1,300 years of history, 1,500 carved stone mini-Buddhas - the biggest collection in the world, a 40-meter kwan-yin carved into an amazing quarry, etc etc.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/talkitout.html
http://www.vimeo.com/3199558
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzqMJWlKMsY
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/7877369.stm
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/talkitout.html
http://www.vimeo.com/3199558
Had dinner in probably our favourite restaurant - kind of Japanese/Italian, the symbolic epitome of which has to be the seaweed pizza. Had a number of other splendid dishes, and a rather unusual plate of kusaiya (?) , which took me straight back to my early 20s. As a family, and otherwise, we used to holiday on a farm in South Devon, the South Hams in fact, and one whole long hot summer, when I was 20, I worked on the farm. I would get up before 7 and get the 60 dairy cows in from wherever they had been overnight, up the valley, into the dairy parlour, where the farmer would join me, and we milked the beasts - getting shat on regularly and kicked every now and then - a sensation like (I imagine) getting shot at short range. After the milking I was left to clean out all the cow shit and piss and funnel it towards the large container where it festered for several months before being spread on the fields in the winter. It reeked. And what's remarkable is that some Japanese chef has managed to recreate this smell and taste almost perfectly, turned it into a sauce/marinade in which pieces of fish have been left for a while, and then this is served up in our favourite restaurant. Kusaiya. Literally, I believe, it means 'smelly fish', which doesn't go nearly far enough. Not exactly an acquired taste; more a taste that you never want to acquire unless stuck on a desert island where the only source of food is cow manure.
Why? How did that come about? Curious.
The following day we attempted to climb Tou-no-dake, a 1,491 metre (4,891 feet) mountain behind the university, starting from around 200 metres. According to the map, this should have taken 3 hours. We set off on the stroke of midday (as the community klaxons declared lunchtime) and arrived at the hut at the peak at 7 pm. Luckily one of us had a torch. The night view was pretty impressive - 200 degrees from Mount Fuji to the west, with the Sun setting behind, and all the city lights from Shimizu, Odawara and all across the Kanto plain as far as Tokyo - a sea of several million lights, literally.
In the morning we were up bright and early, if a little stiff, and there was a howling freezing gale blowing outside, and in places, inside, rattling the flimsily built hut, pinned down with scaffolding. Odd place - no water. The only water being bottled plastic water brought up on people's backs. Plus the heating was all paraffin and oil, again brought up on people's backs, despite the vaste amounts of cut wood lying around rotting. The electric lights were powered mostly by a petrol generator, despite vaste amounts of wind and sun potential.
We put on our several layers of wind and weather-proof clothing and were on the point of bracing the arctic-like elements when a wiry little old man appeared in running shorts and a T-shirt with 40 litres of water on his back. He says he has climbed the mountain 3,000 times. Then a second wiry little old man ran in, having just run up the mountain, presumably in an hour or so, it being still only 8.30. He steams like a race-horse, looks at his watch several times, then sets off again in a desperate hurry to get down the mountain again before the sky falls in, checking his watch as he goes.
We plod off, heaving through the howling gale, and soon meet a herd of 8 roe deer, who seem not to have any fear of humans - probably as perplexed as I was.
Later on, and 1,291 metres nearer sea level, (after having given an hour-long talk on Tuscan art history to a very interesting group of people) we plonk ourselves down in an izakaya and for the first time in my life order nama kaki - fresh oysters. If you like sea food and have never attempted them then I highly recommend you do so, before the season ends. Like the difference between fresh and stale bread. Really honto sugoi oishii.
On the topic of oysters, I was walking along the strand the other day and spotted a pair of oyster shells fused together into one. Thought about how as young free souls they opened and closed and did whatever young oysters do, when they liked with no-one telling them what to do nor when to do it. Then at some point, after a good long while of lonely meaningless existence they grew big enough to touch each other - which was probably very exciting, in an oysterish sort of way. But then after a while, the novelty must have worn off, as they grew bigger and scraped up irritatingly into each other. One of them might have wanted a lie-in, while they other was opening and closing in a mad frenzy of molluscal delight. And inexorably their two shells grew into each other's and eventually they fused into one being, to the point where they must have forgotten what it was like to be two separate lonely but 'free' individuals.
Saturday we admired the waves crashing in, and wondered about those left of the human race in 500 years' time, who will be totally mystified why this generation burns fossil fuels and destroys the Earth while we have so much free pure clean energy available all around us. Could it be something to do with free market capitalism? Short-term profit and greed?
Sunday we went across to Chiba on the ferry, up in the cable car to Nokogiriyama - a place that should be a World Heritage Site - the largest stone Buddha in East Asia, at 31 metres, compared to the 13 metres of the Kamakura Buddha - 1,300 years of history, 1,500 carved stone mini-Buddhas - the biggest collection in the world, a 40-meter kwan-yin carved into an amazing quarry, etc etc.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/talkitout.html
http://www.vimeo.com/3199558
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzqMJWlKMsY
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/7877369.stm
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/talkitout.html
http://www.vimeo.com/3199558
Photos by Eunice
