Hiroshima/Miyajima

The final destination on our journey with Ryan's parents was Hiroshima. Below is the famous building with the domed top that was one of the only structures standing after the atomic bomb dropped. 

The A-bomb dome is an important landmark in Hiroshima and can be seen here through the middle of the arched monument in the Peace Memorial Park.

This monument is for a Japanese girl, Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old when the bomb dropped. She survived the blast but years later developed leukemia, likely due to radiation. In the hospital she folded hundreds of origami cranes in hopes of getting better, in reference to a Japanese proverb that promises a wish to anyone who folds a thousand cranes.

She died before reaching her goal of one thousand, but every year Japanese school children from around the country bring cranes to place at her monument. The cranes have become a symbol of peace.

There are tons and tons of paper cranes all over Memorial Park.

And also many school children. Here is a group who were interviewing Ryan's parents for a school project. That is the Memorial museum there in the background.

Since Himeji castle, which we really wanted to see, is under construction, I was glad to get the opportunity to visit the Hiroshima castle. Although it has been completely rebuilt in recent years and made of concrete, it is rather majestic and hints at its former glory.

It has a moat and outer buildings.

The castle itself is now a museum. You can go all the way to the top for a great view of Hiroshima.

One of the foods that Hiroshima is known for is its Okanomiyaki. Unlike the Tokyo version, theirs is layered. On the bottom is batter like a crepe, then seasonings, cabbage, onions and bean sprouts, pork, then a layer of noodles, a fried egg, some sauce and finally sesame seeds and seaweed powder. Phew! It is so complicated that they don't let you make it yourself. They start making it over behind the counter and bring it out to your table side grill to finish cooking.

Ryan and his parents returned to Tokyo and I stayed on with my boss for a 3-day conference. One of our colleagues took us to his favorite okanomiyaki restaurant.

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Only a brief ferry ride away from Hiroshima is the island Miyajima.

Which is home to this famous submerged torii, which appears in every guide book for Japan.

The Miyajima temple is called the floating temple, but it is actually just built on stilts in shallow water, the level of which goes up and down with the tide.

It is a good setting for a wedding.

Miyajima has a lovely 5-story pagoda...

and a population of deer.

For reasons unbeknownst to us, Miyajima is also all about rice spoons. The bigger the better. It is apparently the home of the world's largest rice spoon, below. Why?  I really don't know.

One of the Hiroshima/Miyajima specialties is oyster. Here is the oyster extravaganza set meal that Ryan had for lunch one of the days: oysters fried, steamed and baked in a leaf with rice. 

And then it was back home via the high speed shinkansen, or bullet train.

Open House at the University

Every August, the Institute where I work open its doors to the public to show what we are doing in the field of earthquake research. In the days leading to the open house, some major housekeeping went down. Somebody lined up all the old bikes that are apparently on permanent storage on campus.

In the lobby of our building, they set up a seismogram to entice some future geologists.

And here is a future structural engineer checking out the integrity of this train and mini skyline before it experiences a mini magnitude 8.

And out in our parking lot they set up the traveling catfish. I'll explain: an old Japanese tale claims that earthquakes were caused by giant catfish in the sea. Old woodblock prints show folks alternating between stabbing the catfish and bringing him offerings for appeasement. Here they have got a van with a mockup kitchen inside hooked up to some hardcore hydraulics to simulate an earthquake. Ryan and I got inside it. They slowly work their way up so that in the beginning I was giggling and standing and by the end I was screaming and holding my head under the table.

We've also got a pretty good collection of old earthquake-themed woodblock prints that we displayed during the open house. I know it's morbid, but I really like the ones with lots of fire. I like how fire and waves are depicted in prints. Unfortunately I have no idea what this one is called.

Sukiyaki

Every now and then I go to dinner with my boss and another female professor. We use it as an opportunity to try new restaurants or, more often, introduce me to a new style of Japanese cuisine. After being here over a year now, I have tried just about everything, but one thing that I never managed to cross off the list was Sukiyaki. With a little research, my boss tracked down a very traditional, old restaurant right by campus and last Friday the three of us went.

The restaurant, called Echikatsu, has apparently been around for as long as the University: 140 years!

With tall apartment buildings on either side, it is this small chunk of old world charm in the middle of Bunkyo-ku. After walking through the front garden, we made our way to the proprietor, who was waiting for us. We dropped off our shoes and were led down this old hall way - one side is glass looking out to the garden, the other side is full of paper screen doors - to our private tatami room.

Sukiyaki is very similar to nabe, or stew, that we often have during the winter. However, with sukiyaki, you typically use much higher quality beef, and a lot of it. So that you don't lose track of your high quality beef (in this case, Matsuzaka beef), you use much less broth, just about a half inch or so. A handful of vegetables and some tofu are simmered in there as well, but really this dish is all about the beef. The other thing that separates sukiyaki from other dishes is that you dip everything into a beaten raw egg before eating it. Our association with raw eggs is probably why this dish hasn't really become popular in the States. It's a pity, because it really was amazing. I can't remember eating more meat in one sitting before.

After dinner we poked around the building and went to see their back garden and small koi pond. Here I am with my boss.

Summer work party

Just like last year, we had a shokihara at work to celebrate summer. Unlike last year, nobody wore yukatas. Too bad. I was all set to wear mine, had it sitting on my desk in a bag and everything, but every time I looked down from my office, no yukatas. What I did see were a whole lot of preparations that started as early as 2 pm.

Crucial to the evening's success was the big block of ice sitting there in the middle. Part of the block was used for shaved ice, but this chunk here in the middle is just for looks. "If we look at it, we become cool" is what I was told. 

Someone has got to mind the melons.

At about 6pm the action really started happening, so I went down to join the fun. The man cooking the yakisoba here was the organizer of the event. He is definitely the hardest working man in summer parties. He never stops.

Here are some barbecued squid. I wish I liked these more because they are at every festival, but they smell a little funny to me.

Here my friend Tasaka-san (PhD student in our lab) ladles out some oden soup. I think she gave me the last of the chunks, though. Oishi!

At dusk the games begin. Those melons weren't just for eating. Here the blindfolded person tries to hit the watermelon with the bat, while avoiding the minefield of dummy balloons filled with water. The man on the microphone talks him through it. He only gets one try, so the alignment has to be perfect. Two seconds after I snapped this picture, he whacked the heck out of that green balloon. Next!

And no celebration would be complete without some tasty meats on sticks. Hey, there is the organizer again, this time on yakitori duty.

And for dessert, shaved ice with red beans, tapioca pearls, peaches, pineapples, green tea syrup and coconut milk. What? I was only supposed to pick a couple of toppings?  Oops.

rocks and culture weekend part II

Right on the banks of the river where we were studying our geology, was another wonder, of the cultural variety: a fully-functioning craft village. Similar to the villages we visited in Takayama, these structures had thatched roofs and various old-timey tools. But this village also had...

...a real working waterwheel...

...a blacksmith forging knives in front of us... 

...and chickens!

In one of the structures they were actually raising live silk worms. This batch is chomping away on their favorite leaves. At some point, maybe when they are big enough and tired of eating, the worms are put in little cubicles, inside of which they spin their silk webs. The building also displayed looms and stuff that the craftspeople use to make silk fabric. 

This artisan uses the handmade silk fabric to decorate the traditional umbrellas.

With a little more time to kill before the train ride home, we stopped off at the Toyohashi Nonhoi Park Zoo and Botanical Garden, which is surprisingly vast. There are amusement rides, huge indoor botanical gardens, as well as outdoor flower gardens, a zoo, refreshment stalls and, most importantly, a great natural history museum. The only things the park didn't have were people. Granted it was the late afternoon and it was rainy, but this huge place was a ghost town. We had it all to ourselves.

And did I mention the dinosaurs?  This place would be great to visit if you had little kids that could just run around and crawl all over these guys.

And like I said, the history museum was surprisingly well stocked with fossils and mineral samples and lots of educational displays that you can even figure out without understanding the Japanese. Really cool place. I certainly hope that the lack of visitors was just a fluke and that on sunny weekend days lots of families are taking advantage of this really fabulous (and inexpensive: only 600¥, which is ~$6) resource. 

rocks and culture weekend

Last month I received an email from one of my coworkers. The Japanese portion of the email was quite extensive, but the English translation essentially said "We will go on a geology excursion. Let me know if you want to join." Despite having little to no information upon which to base my decision, I said yes. What the heck. My first field trip in Japan. As the weekend approached, folks (my boss, my parents, Ryan) starting asking me various questions, such as what geology I would be looking at, where I was going, when I was leaving/returning. To all of which I had no answer. This got me starting to worry. I took off work the Friday before so that I could purchase some new hiking boots and a small day pack, thinking that these items could potentially come in handy. I hoped that I wouldn't also need a tent, etc. However, my worrying was for nought. It all worked out splendidly and I had a really nice time. Here are some pictures. 

A professor from a different University organized the trip and brought a few of his grad students along with five from our University. Their school has a rule about wearing hard hats during field trips, so that's how you can tell them apart. I'm told our school has the same rule. Oops.

We left early in the morning and took a 1.5 h bullet train West toward Nagoya to an area by the Toyokawa river. 

Lots of greenery here, but not many animals. There were just a few of these giant bullfrogs.

From recent rains, the river was really full. This was great for pictures, but unfortunately covered up a lot of the geology that we were trying to find.

Every field trip will include at least one picture of people squatted around looking and pointing at the ground, or in this case, some nice contact metamorphism.

The organizer, Professor Michibayashi, did a great job of describing all the features in both Japanese and English. He is also great at getting the students fired up. Apparently when he does his field excursions for his research, he is very hardcore and stays in very rough conditions - barren fields in the middle of nowhere, for instance. However, when he goes on trips with students, he prefers it to be a bit more mellow, bless his heart. 

We stayed at a little ryokan, with all the usual trappings: onsen, yukatas for everyone, a big, 20-bowl dinner and equally expansive breakfast. Above is the sign that they tell me welcomes us to the hotel. I shared my room with two female grad students who, fortunately for me, speak perfect English. We had a nice time.

In addition to the onsens and the dining rooms, there were also video games and this living room filled with lazy boy recliners, which I found kind of amusing.

Also amusing slash bewildering were some of the items on sale in the lobby.

Stay tuned for part II of the weekend, in which we check out some ancient culture and head to the local natural history museum.