Naoshima Island

I am fascinated by the concept of island life. The inland sea between Shikoku and Honshu has many many islands and supposedly unused homes. Any idea where this is leading?
Naoshima Island is noted as an artistic community as well as possessing many traditional old wooden homes with very narrow streets. The islands and surrounding sea are very beautiful. Our ferry docked and the two of us walked over the hill to the artistic community on the other side. We did no have time to see the art exhibits, but thoroughly enjoyed the sunny ambience.

Please see the Picasa photographs at Naoshima Island.

Battle fatigue

We have seen so many fascinating things that it has become difficult for us to be easily impressed any more.
Every city has sites such as historical figures, castles, temples, shrines or gardens that they are proud of. Each city has a food that they are proud of.
Our memories of these distinctions have begun to blur. We have met so many interesting and hospitable people.
Last night we left the city of Tokusima on Shikoku at 9:45pm and took the overnight bus to Tokyo Station arriving there at about 8am after a sleepless night. It is following us. We cannot seem to escape it. Snow, there must be at least 15cm in Tokyo where it almost never snows, ha. We will stay at Yayoi's brother's place in Ome, Tokyo for a few days to tell our battle stories. Then we plan on checking out an unused farm house which friends in Winnipeg arranged for us and hopefully it will be suitable for us to use as a home base long term.

Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu

Many places in Japan are rightfully proud of their gardens, but the Ritsurin claims to be better than the three usually touted to be the three best. I am not prepared to debate that, but for a garden in winter, it was a very beautiful garden. It included birds, koi (carp), unique rocks as though sculptured by water and of course shaped pine trees. Taka meaning large and matsu meaning pine, which helps to explain the name of the city. This area is one of the driest areas in Japan and therefore suitable for pine trees.

Please refer to the Picasa website for related photographs.
https://picasaweb.google.com/104647910828070714256/RitsurinGarden

Nara the first political centre of Japan

Like most Japanese cities Nara appears to be just another city, but hundreds of years ago it was the original cultural centre of Japan, where the emperor would have resided. So today there is a part of Nara that still maintains old temples and shrines and of course the tourist shops that all tourist attractions have. But what makes Nara unique today is the hundreds of deer wandering around on the grounds of the ancient area. You might be tempted to compare them to Canada geese or pigeons. Stands sell senbei or crackers that tourists feed to the deer, which can make the deer quite aggressive. Even fawns will spot you and approach hoping for a handout. At the same time there are signs warning that the animals are wild and I did see one head butt a person in the rear end almost lifting him.

Energy

Canadian houses tend to have 200 amperes, while Japanese houses or condos may have 30-40 amperes. Canadian houses have central heating and frequently cooling, while Japanese houses tend to only heat the area they are living in at the moment. The Japanese air conditioning systems used to be a square hole in the floor with a charcoal firepit or a charcoal pot beneath a "blanket covered coffee table - kotatsu" under which you stuck your feet or legs to stay warm. Later they used kerosene heaters or more recently free standing natural gas heaters. Today's standard is the use of heat pumps usually located in one corner up on the wall with an air conditioner like heat exchanger outside. This does not function well when the temperature falls below zero, but it is something that Canadians should adopt for cooling individual rooms and heating in spring and fall. Canadian houses, especially in the colder areas are designed to conserve heat, while Japanese houses are designed to allow cooling breezes to flow through in their unbearable summers and have virtually no insulation. There are two gypsies in Japan currently or are having a hard time adapting to sleeping in rooms which are barely above freezing in the morning or entering kitchens in which you can see your breath.
There are serious shortcomings in both these philosophies and some houses being built today are incorporating a more Canadian philosophy. I am not implying that Canadian houses are perfect, as the size of traditional farm houses in Japan and the size of Canadian houses is in one word criminal. The traditional Japanese home used to mean a three generation family, but what excuse do we in Canada have?
Japanese laundry usually means hanging out to dry which North Americans seem to have forgotten how to do.
NASA accused Japan of having the brightest spot on the planet when their vehicles orbited above, but I do not understand this. Their entertainment districts tend to be bright as well as their vending machines, but government initiatives are curtailing this to some extent. I have always felt that residential areas in Japan are much darker than Canada. You can see more stars in Japan on a clear night and sometimes when they walk the streets they carry a flashlight.
Japanese park areas tend to have lights that are powered by a combination of solar and wind energy systems attached to each light standard. Large solar panel sites can be seen near freeway interchanges. Solar energy installations for homes are being much more actively promoted in Japan than in Canada. Wind turbines damage the appearance of a significant number of mountain tops.
Japan relationship with nature is well known to be different than that of Americans. Their homes are frequently open to the outside and so are many shops including winter when you can walk into a wide open front entrance of a tourist shop and have a space heater blasting heat into the interior and of course sending most of this outside.
Let's not discuss the worst curse of all, our propensity for travel particularly our love for that rubber legged quadruped when we were born perfectly bipedal.

The above photograph demonstrates the wind and solar energy combination.

The beautiful do not survive

The world heritage island of Yakushima south of Kyushu is an extraordinarily beautiful island renowned for its old "sugi" or cedar which are very similar to the sequoia or redwoods of California. About 400 years ago the shogun or ruler of Japan, Hideyoshi had a 3000 year old tree cut down to make a Buddha for a temple. The islanders who venerate their trees were finally persuaded to use some of this lumber and began making shingles. It was a lot of work to cut down a tree without tools such as chainsaws so they would sample a tree to determine its suitability for shingles. If not suitable the scarred tree was left standing. There are a number of trees which are older than 2000 years. They tend to be the less beautiful trees. We visited one 3000 year old giant named Yayoisugi.

Found my relatives in Japan

I have been hoping to see the famous Japanese macaque monkeys close up for a long time. They are quite famous in that at least one troop of them living in the snow country of Nagano prefecture makes a habit of spending time in hot spring water.
Prior to driving around Yakushima we saw a poster with one of the "saru" monkeys riding a "shika" or Japanese deer. I was sceptical, but after seeing multiple monkeys, including one less than a meter away from a deer, I believe it could happen.
It was a beautiful warm sunny day on an island that measures rainfall in meters, not centimetres or inches. We saw many monkeys in sunny areas including the middle of the road, so that we had to carefully maneuver our micro-van around them.