Summer vacation 2018: Part 2, Japan

This post is more of a reminder (or diary) to myself about what we did in Japan after Hawaii (part 1). Well, we were mostly chasing creatures since that is what my son, Taiga, loves at this moment.  So it doesn't have too much about cool places in Japan, or cool things to do (for grown-ups).

• Kyoto

We were warned about the unusually severe heat wave in Japan and a bit concerned about Taiga, especially after a fairly long flight (9 hours) from Honolulu to Kansai International Airport.  As soon as we got out of the airport, our energy got sucked out by the hot, humid, and heavy air.  Taiga's face turned red like a boiled octopus; Alaska grown kids don't have many sweat glands, so they don't sweat and they overheat.  Fortunately, he took a good sleep in the airplane, and his excitement was over-riding the heat.  One week of Hawaii, where it was hot during the day, but cool after sunset, could have been a good buffer, too

From the airport, we took this cool-looking train (Nankai Rapit) toward Osaka.

After we checked into a Ryokan (Japanese style hotel), we went to dinner with Noriaki, a good friend from my undergrad days.  We hopped into a Yakitori (chicken kebabs) pub Kicchou (吉鳥).  The last time we saw each other was in 2004, so I was looking forward to see him.  Noriaki is a person with lots of fun hobbies, and he is the first person who showed me how to tie flies (for fishing).  Taiga is usually a bit shy around people (except when he is fishing), but somehow Taiga was quite different with Noriaki.  I think Taiga felt more comfortable because of their common interest (fishing).

Next morning, we all woke up early due to the jet lag, and took an early morning walk.  Warm, but it was still pleasant. During the walk, Taiga saw his first cicadas at the entrance of Japan Tobacco Medical Research Station (JT医薬総合研究所). JT created a tiny garden with several species of trees. The trees were covered by Abura-zemi (Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata) and Kuma-zemi (Cryptotympana facialis), which were making piercingly loud chorus.  It is the sound of Japanese summer.  We have been reading about cicadas in one of Taiga's favorite Japanese books, Hakken Mushino Mori (translated: Discovery in Forest of Insects) by Satoshi Tada. But books or videos can't convey the intensity of cicadas.  In Japanese culture, cicadas represent the transiency and emptiness of life since the adults are short-lived, and it is something in which some of us find a beauty.  Taiga was collecting the exoskeltons as seen in the following video.

Noriaki picked up us in the morning after the walk, and we drove to Kyoto.  Another hot day was predicted, so we worried whether it is too hot to climb up Fushimi Inari Taisha. This shrine is one of the most popular tourists spots in Kyoto for tourists from other countries.  Even though we started to climb up early (around 8:30AM), the heat was intense, and Taiga wasn't feeling too strong until ...

Noriaki found this cool creature, a stick-bug!  It is probably Baculum irregulariterdentatum (ナナフシ/ナナフシモドキ) since the antennae were short. Phraortes illepidus (エダナナフシ) is another common species, but it should have longer antennae than what we saw.  Once Taiga realized that there could be cool insects, his energy level went up a couple knotches.

We found quite a few interesting insects, but this colorful caterpillar was very cool.  It is a moth, Calliteara pseudabietis (リンゴドクガ).

After 1.5 hours of climbing the steps, we arrived to Yotsutsuji (四ツ辻), which was our final destination.  There are more shrines higher up, but we didn't want to wear out the person without enough sweat glands.  We waited for the tea house (Yotsutsuji-chaya Nishimuratei (四ツ辻茶屋にしむら亭) to open.

And we ate Ramune soft serve, which was great after the climb.

After going down from the shrine, we had lunch at a restaurant Kitaro near Keihan Fukakusa train station.  I think it is called Kitaro, but it might be Kibutoshiryo (I'm not sure how to pronounce the Chinese characters, 喜太呂). The owner was talkative and quite a character.  She gets customers from all over the world, but we were the first Alaskans, so she wanted to know about the life in the north.    She kept chatting but her hands kept cooking.  Since she individually prepare each meal, it does take a bit of time. While waiting for the meal, Taiga quickly fell asleep on Diana's lap.

After lunch, Noriaki took us to one of the best Kakigori (shaved ice) shops in Kyoto, Nakamura-ken (中村軒).  Fortunately, there wasn't a long waiting line, which Noriaki expected.  Taiga and Noriaki got Mango, Diana got Uji-Maccha-Milk (green tea and condensed milk) with Shiratama, and I got Ooshima Kintoki (molasse sauce with Tsubu-Anko, which is sweet red bean paste).  They were all delicious!

Kakigori cooled us down a little bit, but mid-afternoon heat kicked in, and we didn't want to be outside.  So our choice was Kyoto Aquarium, which is close to JR Kyoto train station.  One of their unique features is Japanese giant salamanders (オオサンショウウオ, Andrias japonicus).  I've been to many aquariums, but I was pretty impressed by this salamander exhibition; the big tank with many salamanders was nicely aqua-scaped, and the educational information was very easy to understand.  According to the information, they live in Kyoto (Kamo river), but a closely-related, Chinese species has been invading, and hybridization is beoming a problem.  So they are trying to save the pure species.  Later, Taiga got a stuffy of this species at the gift shop.

Taiga loves all aquariums, he was really excited in this aquarium, too.  He was frequently talking to other kids in English (he forgot that they didn't speak English), and other kids were a bit scared.  Taiga liked this penguin tank.

My personal favorite (after the salamander exhibit) was the school of Japanese pilchard (マイワシ, Sardinops melanostictus) and Ray fish.

It was a short stay in Osaka/Kyoto, but I was lucky that Noriaki had time to hang out with us.  We wish we could have gone fishing, but we'll save it for the next opportunity.  We left Kyoto by Shinkansen Nozomi (bullet train). Taiga has read about the bullet train in several books, so his expectation was high.  When we were on it, the ride was smooth, and he didn't feel that he was going fast (top speed is around 285km/h = 177mph).  So he might have been a bit disappointed.  In the video below, it shows a N700 type and N500 type.

• Kagawa

After Kyoto, we went to my parents' house in Marugame, Kagawa Prefecture.  We did lots of things which I used to do as a kid during the stay of 2 weeks.  When I was a kid, Nintendo Famicom (=Nintendo Entertainment System) wasn't out yet, so our hands were more adjusted to swinging nets and hooking fish than operating the game controller.  Taiga can still keep himself happy if he has a net in his hands, too.  So we chased lots of creatures together.  Human brain is amazing, there are many drawers of memories which we usually don't access.  But small things like a particular smell of river, intensive heat, sounds of cicada, or the deep shine in the eyes of dragonflies can become the key to unlock the hidden drawers. Sometime unleashing one small memory causes a chain reaction to flood the mind with childhood memories.  It was fun to revisit and share my childhood memories with Taiga.

While there were quite a bit of urbanization even around my parents' house, I was surprised (and happy) that 60-70% of creatures I used to chase were still there. Actually I was a bit surprised that some of the creatures became more abundant (e.g. wild carps) and some invasive species diminished. For example, Louisiana clawfish (Procambarus clarkii), introduced in 1927 as food for bull frogs, became a major pest by 1960's.  When I was a kid, they were abundant.  For kids, they were very cool creatures to play with, and I spent lots of time catching them at the nearby river.  But this year, we didn't see a single clawfish there.

This is the landscaped garden of my parents' house.  There were abundant cicadas, and Taiga had great time chasing them with his net.

Taiga was chasing insects around the rice paddy in front of the house in the next video.  This area was where I also chased dragonflies and butterflies.  I remembered that I found a rare dragonfly (for the area), a lesser emperor (Anax parthenope, ギンヤンマ), and I wanted to catch it and to see its beautiful blue/green thorax in my hand.  I dashed back home to get the net, and chased it, but the net was a little too short (usually the case with this swift flier).  This was also the area where I first learned that you could catch honey bees by bare hands, but there was a fair chance that you could get stung.  The road was not paved and it was covered with clovers, so there were lots of honey bees there.

Later, we met with my high-school friend, Masaaki.  His son, Kouki, is 1-2 years younger than Taiga, and they had fun time playing together.  Around this age, it is amazing that language isn't a barrier to make a new friend.  First, we went to a rural area where Masaaki's friend has an olive nursery (Oki Olive).  Kagawa is somewhat closer to mediterranean climate, and olives seem to grow well.  I've never seen an olive orchard, so it was fun to talk to the owner.  But Taiga got bored with chatting, and soon we were chasing dragonflies.  Since it is a bit more rural around here, we saw quite different species, and we saw many lesser emperors, the species which I always wanted to catch. We swung our nets many times, but we didn't get to see them in our hands...  Taiga caught about 3 species of dragonflies, a big grasshopper (probably Kuruma-batta, Oedaleus infernalis, but it could be Tonosama-batta, Locusta migratoria danica), and a citrus long-horned beetle (Anoplophora malasiaca, ゴマダラカミキリ).  So these insects kept him busy.

Miyama Akane (Sympetrum pedemontanum elatum). At Oki Olive, Nishiueda-cho, Takamatsu-shi, Kagawa.

Earlier, we met with Mr. Satou, the principal of Takamatsu West high school.  He is a naturalist, and enjoys scooping creatures in rivers.  He told us that he was organizing a summer event where kids can catch, observe, and learn about creatures in the river.  The high school campus is surrounded by nice forests, and he wanted to emphasize the opportunity to learn about environment.  He told us to a good place to scoop fish and other creatures in Koutou River, so we headed there.   Even though this is a river which goes through a populated area, there were quite a few fish.  They were too fast to catch with this kind of net, though.

 Koutou River (香東川) near Takamatsu National College of Technology (高松工業高等専門学校).

But Taiga caught lots of pretty shrimps.  Apparently, you can eat these, but we released them.

Suji-ebi (Palaemon paucidens). 

Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle (Kabutomushi):
My brother-in-law and nephew took us to their secret spot to catch rhinoceros beetles and stag beetles.  I have been telling Taiga about stag beetles for a while, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to visit Japan in the summer time (Alaskan summer is much more comfortable).  When I was a kid, stag beetles were the ultimate insects to catch.  Some kids knew good trees, but they usually didn't tell their secrets to others.  You have to be in the loop with those kids, so they can take you to there.  Sometime we rode our bikes for an hour or so to check a tree when I was around thirteen (my parents didn't know how far I was going until I told them this year).

Hunting for these beetles is hit or miss.  If a person visited the spot before us, we wouldn't get any.  Or if there were hornets around the tree sap, we couldn't approach the beetles.  Fortunately, it worked out this time, and Taiga got to experience catching Japanese Rhinoceros beetles (Trypoxylus dichotomus, カブトムシ).  We got seven, and some of them were huge males.  We didn't find any stag beetles, though.

One morning, my parents' cat, Sora, found this guest inside of the house (she is an indoor cat), and brought it into the living room (later we found a small space between doors, through which the snake came in).  My mother freaked out, but Taiga and I had fun.  It was a tame Japanese Rat Snake (Elaphe climacophora, Aodaishou).  Sora was carrying it in her mouth, but fortunately the snake wasn't injured.  This was probably the first time Taiga hold a wild snake other than the snakes in the pet store.

Another day, Taiga caught a Schlegel's Japanese Gecko (Gekko japonicus, ニホンヤモリ) in the house, and showed it to my mother. She freaked out again even though it was a beautiful creature.

My uncle and aunt live in a mountain, and they harvest and sell bamboo shoots (among other vegetables).  I used to love exploring the area because they have cool insects. When we visited them, Taiga was itching to go outside and chase creatures (instead of chatting with them).  The insects there are quite different from what we saw around my parents' house.

Haguro-tonbo (Calopteryx atrata). 

Ooshiokara-tonbo (Orthetrum triangulare melania).

At the end of the day, we found a stag beetle.  Unfortunately, there was a big hornet.  We waited for a while to see if the hornet would go away.  And it did.  I told Taiga and Diana that they should stay a little further and get ready to run in case the hornet start to chase us. I carefully climbed up there, and my hand could almost touch the stag beetle, but then I heard the loud buzzing noise of the hornet.  I quickly dropped down, and my heart was pounding.  We decided to give up, but it was great that we could see the stag beetle feeding on the tree sap.

• Fishing

We went fishing with my high-school friend, Masaaki, and his son, Kouki.  It was a last-minute decision, so we didn't have enough time to catch a fish, but we saw a beautiful sun-set.  Unfortunately a typhoon was going to hit Japan in two days.  So Masaaki had to cut their visit shorter, and leave to Tokyo in the following day.  The trains could stop during the typhoon.  But it turned out that the typhoon was wimpy, and Taiga thought that it was just normal rain.  Taiga and Kouki got to play only 2.5 days, but it was fun to see them play together.

Later in the week, we went fishing with my brother-in-law, nephew, and my father.  We went to Nio Marina.  My father used to go fishing frequently, and fishing with my father was one of my favorite activities.  But he stopped fishing recently, so I was happy to see him going again this time.  Soon after we set the rigs up, my brother-in-law got a bite, and handed the rod to to Taiga.  It turned out he hooked something big, and Taiga couldn't reel in the line at all.  He was trying hard not to get pulled into the water.  It was frantic, so I unfortunately didn't have a time to take the video of the fight.  My brother-in-law ran to the parking to get the landing net (we didn't expect a big fish, so we left it in the car).  The fish was running toward the rocky area close to the shore, and the line would break.  The fish was a bit too big for Taiga, so I took his rod, and ran on the jetty to catch up with the fish, but it was too late, and the line broke soon after.  We don't know what it was, but it was a pretty big fish.  After this excitement and disappointment, Taiga caught a Japanese wrasse (Parajulis poecilepterus, 青ベラ) in the video below.  It is an interesting species because the colors of males and females are very different (sexual dimorphism), and they form a harem with one male (bluish color) with many females in a group.  When the male is removed from the area, one biggest/strongest female changes its sex to male.  Later, he caught another species, Japanese whiting (Sillago japonica, キス).  It is a small fish, but yummy.

We grilled them, and Taiga was happy to try them.

In another day, we went to night fishing.  Taiga made a new friend, Rie, who was visiting the neighbor of my parent. She decided that she wanted to come fishing with us.  We set up the fishing gears before the sunset, and ate Bento (packed in a box) dinner while waiting for the bites.  Soon there were lots of actions, and we caught 7 whitespotted congers (Conger myriaster, アナゴ) within 2 hours.  This was a secret spot of my brother-in-law, and no other people was fishing there.  My brother-in-law was a big hero for Taiga because he was good at what Taiga likes, and Taiga followed him around during the stay in my parents' house.

Anago (Conger myriaster)

• Hashikura

We drove to Miyoshi-city Tokushima Prefecture and visited Hashikura temple (別格第１５番 宝珠山箸蔵寺).  After going through winding road, we took a ropeway to get to the temple.  This is a temple which represents the mixture of Shinto and Buddhism (Shinbutsu-Shuugou).

Dragon ornaments on Honden (main building).

Osunafumi (sand stepping) of Eighty-eight spiritual place (八十八ヶ所御砂踏み).  In Shikoku, Kukai (774-835), a famous monk born in Kagawa Prefecture, established 88 spiritual places during his training. Visiting those 88 places were popular, but it wasn't easy nor affordable for most people to visit them before industrialization.  They brought dirt/sand from 88 temples and set them up in this small place.  Each of these rock statues represents a different temple, and they were supposed to be "connected" to the real temples.  So they thought that you get the same "benefits" by just going through these 88 statues.

Taiga was more into looking for insects than appreciating the historical buildings of Japan.  We caught a couple species which we usually don't see at a lower elevation.

Tsukutsuku-boushi (Meimuna opalifera).

Usuba kamikiri (Megopis sinica)

• Fireworks

When Masaaki was visiting us, Taiga tried his first fireworks.  Kouki and Taiga were a little concerned at first, they soon became comfortable with the handheld types.  But Taiga soon discovered the types which shoot up, and he got hooked.  He loved to ignite those by himself and to run away while giggling so hard.

• Marugame Castle

A castle is still preserved in the center of Marugame City.  Taiga has read some Ninja-related books, so we decided to visit the castle.  It is not a big castle, but it is still well preserved.  However, earlier this year, a part of the rock wall got collapsed due to the heavy rain.  They were still repairing the damage.

Marugame Castle

View from the top of the castle.

After the castle, we went to a fancy Unagi (eel) restaurant (Unajou, 鰻城) for lunch.  It was expensive, but it was so yummy!

• Fukuoka

We stayed in Fukuoka, my favorite big city in Japan, for a couple days since our return flight was from Fukuoka Airport.  I was excited to see my good friend, Kensuke, and his family in Fukuoka.  The last time when I saw them, their son, Kentaro, was in an elementary school. After their visit of Alaska, Kentaro composed a piano tune, themed after Alaskan wildlife. Impressive!  Now, he is a cheerful and outgoing high school student!  This reminded me how quickly kids grow up although 18 years seemed like a long time at the beginning of this journey of being a parent.

First, they took us to a fishing restaurant, Zauo (釣船茶屋ざうお).  In the restaurant, there are large pools with swimming fish.  The tables are on boat-like structures inside of the pool.  We can use their fishing rod and catch fish right next to the table. If we catch fish, they will cook them in a way we want.  It is pretty much Taiga's dream restaurant! Taiga tried to catch Red Seabream (Pagrus major, 鯛) with shrimp baits at first.  I could see Taiga's focused fishing face, but they weren't too interested in after 10-15 minutes.  Next we decided to try to catch Aji (I think it is Japanese horse mackerel, Trachurus japonicus).  They were in a smaller enclosure, and we were supposed to use snagging rods.  After a couple try, Taiga easily caught two.  Then he moved to snag a bigger fish, Olive Flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus, ヒラメ). The video below shows how he caught one.

The flounder was made into Ikizukuri (sashimi, raw fish strips, made from alive fish).  He had a great time, and wanted to catch more, but we caught enough for our dinner.  It was a fun restaurant.  I'm glad that there isn't a restaurant like this in Fairbanks.  Taiga would want to go there every week!

Ikizukuri of a flounder, which Taiga caught.

After a good night's sleep, we met with Kensuke Family again at Pokemon Center.  Even though it wasn't stuffed with a Nurse Joy relative, it was seriously crowded, and difficult to walk through the aisles.  I think we spent quite a bit of money, and Taiga had fun time there.

Then we moved to Fukuoka City Science Museum, which was recently built.  The town of Fukuoka has changed quite a lot since the time when I lived there.  There is a completely new subway line, which goes toward the south part of the city.  We took this new subway to Roppon-matsu station.  When we got out from the Roppon-matsu subway station, I barely recognized the area even after Junko, Kensuke's wife, reoriented me.  The exit of the subway station used to be the area close to the entrance gate of Kyushu University, and the museum is inside of the former campus.  Since the campus was completely torn down and it was replaced by modern buildings, I didn't recognize any residue of the former academic campus and its surroundings.  Students of Kyushu University used to spend their first 1.5 years in Roppon-matsu campus, and then moved to the research campus in Hakozaki.  Now these two campuses are moved to a completely new rural location, which is somewhat convenient since students don't have to move.  But it would be a quite different experience.

After facing the disappearance of the campus, I tried to reconcile how the campus used to look like, and my mind traveled through associated memories.  Fresh out of the high school, my parents probably wondered how I would survive alone (and I would be in the parents' position not too far in the future). When I went to look for an apartment, my grandmother came with me; this was way before internet, so we had to go there physically to find a place. We happened to meet a lady who was looking for a tenant at the campus gate.  She was a motherly figure, and she took good care of us (10 students) in her apartment.  I remember the first meeting, but the gate is not there any more.  Or we used to hang out in the campus cafeteria between the classes, and it is gone.  The classroom, where I had to retake the final exam because I didn't do well, is gone.  To my excuse, I did study late with my friends the day before the exam. But our study group shifted to a drinking group.  In the morning of the final exam, I barely got up in time, but the hang-over took over my brain, and I couldn't write reasonable answers.  But the exchanges of opinions over beer was probably more relevant to us at that time than studying for the exam of International Relationships (or something like that).  We used to discuss/argue about all kinds of things which young people usually wonder about such as why people would like to be happy, why some people require religions, what is emotions and love, meaning of life, perception and reality of human being for all night long. Of course, we usually had too much drink (a Japanese spirit, Imo-Shouchu, was the cheapest and our favorite), so we never got any answers, nor remembered much next day.

Anyway, the museum was great with lots of fun activities.  Highly recommended for people with kids!

Reflections on Naka River around Nakasu, the nightlife center of the city.

Food is another great attraction of Fukuoka. In Japan, there are several different flavors of Ramen among different regions.  In Kyushu, pork-soup ramen is dominant.  Indeed, my favorite ramen is Hakata Tonkotsu (pork soup) ramen.  We didn't have time to go to my favorite ramen restaurant, Nagahama Ramen, but we went to Ramen Shin Shin Hakata Deitos-ten.  We had to wait in a line, but it was pretty good.

We enjoyed interesting lunch at Omurice Restaurant, Pomu-no-ki in Canal City Hakata.  Omurice is a Japanese creation, which combines Omlet with Fiesta Rice.  This restaurants had probably close to 100 different Omurice in their menu.

• Japanese Food

Taiga likes Japanese food in general, and we got to eat many yummy food.  My father usually doesn't cook, but he is really good at cooking a couple things.  One of them is noodles (Udon and Soba) made from scratch.  He made Soba (buckwheat noodles) this time, and Koki and Taiga are ready to dig in. 

My father built this wood-fired oven by himself a couple years ago.  In the US, oven is essential in the kitchen, but it is rarely used in Japan.  He made this oven because he wanted to make Pizza.  Here he is tending the oven to cook Chicken legs and Pizza.

Some of the pizza toppings are quite interesting and weird.  Here the white marshmallow-like stuff is mochi (rice cake).  Then they put Yakitori (Chicken kebabs), and use Yakitori-sauce.  We were quite surprised how good this combination was.

Kagawa is famous for Udon noodle.  Udon restaurant is everywhere (I think there are more Udon restaurants than fast-food restaurants), and they are cheap and yummy.

We went to a fancy fish restaurant, Ittoku (一徳).  It is located next to a sea port, and the wholesale/commercial fish market for the region used to be in the same area (but the fish market moved to a new location).  Taiga loved this restaurant because there were big indoor ponds where live fish were kept.  After the order, they scoop up the fish and prepare the meal, so everything is fresh.  Below, we got Ikizukuri (sashimi, raw fish strips, prepared from live fish) of Red Seabream (Pagrus major, 鯛) and dark-banded rockfish (I think it is Sebastes inermis, メバル), with sashimi (raw fish strips) of Tuna, Octopus, and Horned Turban (Turbo sazae, サザエ).  Taiga loved sashimi, and he was eating unusual amount of dinner.  Probably the nice presentation helped his appetite.  The skeleton of the rockfish was still moving even though all guts were removed (see the bottom video).  Taiga loved Ikizukuri, and he was poking around the fish heads.  After everything was eaten, the skeleton of the Red Seabream became Taiga's toy for a while.  Alaskan salmons are great, but this restaurant reminded us that the fresh seafood from Japan are at a different level.