More hiking, but they were Bigger mountains this time.

Seeing as I've already posted twice about hiking, I'm going to guess that people don't need a blow-by-blow of either of my ascent to nor decent from the peaks of the two mountains I most recently climbed. Most mountains are a fairly up and down proposition, after all, and the plot doesn't waver much from that.

Because of this, I'm just going to post a mish-mash of captioned photographs from my trips up (and down!) two fairly large and fairly famous mountains in Japan: Mount Bandai (磐梯山), and Ninouji Peak (二王子岳; page in Japanese only). If you want the "stats," on the former, you can simply read the Wiki for it. Ninouji is about 1,400something meters tall, and that's with the trail head effectively starting at sea level.

One more thing before I roll out the photos- Mt. Bandai is high enough in elevation, as well as far enough inland, that even though it had long been green and warm in Niigata, Mt. Bandai was still in the throws of late winter. Ninouji Peak, on the other hand, is generally more Spring-like much of the way up, although it did have plenty of snow higher up. Now, here are the pictures-

This is the old cryptomerea (or Japanese cedar) forest at the base of Ninoujidake- it was dominated by the massive trees, with a dusting of ferns for an understory. It was beautiful, and smelled sharply of Spring:



A waterfall on the way up to Mount Bandai. The sign at the turn-off for the waterfall cautioned "beware of bears," Sadly no bears were around, but the waterfall was pretty:



This is another view, still within the cedar woods on Ninoujidake. A pretty little creek ran down through a series of gullies to the beginning of the trail, where a cup was provided if you wanted to drink the water (I didn't take my chances):



Not far into the journey up Mount Bandai is a set of sulfur springs, melting the snow around them and releasing a number of colorful pigments into the water, along with hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide. If Hell started a restaurant, this is what the dumpster out back would smell like:



Here are the ranges of mountains marching away, looking towards Murakami. The weather for much of the hike was Niigata's trademark leaden homogeneous cloud-cover, which the sun broke only periodically:



On Bandaisan the whole journey was obscured by clouds which ran down to a few feet above the ground, muffling any sounds and giving the forest a ghostly appearance:



Dwarf flowers like these were in bloom all over the place above about 2,000 feet:



Most mountains of any noteworthy size in Japan are volcanic, as is Mount Bandai. At the trail head was a signing warning to be mindful of volcanic events (as though there's anything one could do during a full-scale eruption other than run like hell and pray in between breaths, but I guess it's nice to be warned), and there was evidence of volcanism scattered about the mountain, if you knew where to look. Aside from the sulfur springs, there was the barren spur of rock pictured below. I'm guessing that plants couldn't take hold here because the rock is relatively new, and has a high concentration of poisonous elements in it (sulfur, for one). The lake in the background is only a little over 100 years old, and was formed by the massive 1888 Bandai eruption.



Through a rare break in the clouds and mist: the excellently named Nekoma-san, or "cat magic mountain", although neither cats nor magic were in evidence (it's a ski resort, as a matter of fact).



The last photograph is of the tiny jinja at the top of Mt. Bandai; no larger than a fire hydrant (infinite cosmic power, itty bitty living space). The kami inside looked old and weathered, but the shrine itself was relatively new, for obvious reasons. I usually pitch in a couple coins at shrines when I visit them: I reason that it's worth a couple yen to help with the upkeep of cultural sights, especially if I'm benefiting taking lots of pictures. It needn't be much- my round-trip fare for Bandai was 60 yen (a yen is about 1 cent), and for Ninouji it was about 100 yen (because I didn't have any smaller change).



I've taken to hiking as a sort of hobby; it gets me outside, and boosts my vitamin D levels to boot. Because of the rain, the mountains here are always full of a variety of interesting plants and animals, which are worth the trip themselves. What I enjoy most, however, is that most of the places you go are the haunts of some demon or supernatural tale (as with Nekoma), which lends an air of antiquity and mystery to the average Japanese day hike. The mountains in America might have retained some of this if more of the Native Americans' names and legends had been better preserved in the public psyche, but as it is we wind up with a lot of places with names like "Bob's Peak." This may be interesting from a Westward expansion historical perspective, but doesn't bear the same gravitas that only a good myth can. I love the misty mountains here in Japan, and intend to keep exploring them for the remaining two months of my time here.

Briefly: Aizuwakamatsu

One and a half weeks ago, I traveled to the city of Aizuwakamatsu(会津若松市-"meeting harbor young pine city"-interesting, considering the city is about equidistant from both oceans that Japan touches) , mostly to set myself up to climb Mount Bandai the next day, so I only had an afternoon and an evening to see what the city had to offer.

Aizuwakamatsu proved to be a place that was more charming for its mundane bits than the actual tourist destinations. I visited a botanical garden that was famous for having a variety of medicinal herbs, for example, but it was rather small and while nice, not any better than other gardens I've seen around Japan (such as the one in Tamagawa-ji). I also visited the local castle, which I will picture down below:



The castle was moderately interesting from the outside, featuring the Pythagoras'-layer-caked look of so many Japanese citadels. It went through the usual changes of feudal hands at various times, and also was the site of a siege in the Boshin War I would have poked around inside as well, except that it was expensive and crowded. I was also on a budget for time, so I decided to move. Japanese castles have their own distinct look, and any one would be of interest to a foreign visitor. I've seen several, on the other hand, and frankly, if you've seen one Japanese castle...

What was nice about Aizuwakamatsu was the intimacy of the setup. The was a district about 4km square that constituted the downtown/oldtown district, and it was populated by an assortment of interesting-looking little restaurants and businesses. You could tell its proximity to Tokyo by the increased population of Western-style bars and slightly trendier shops, but it also had plenty of the somewhat hinterlandish charm that you see around Tohoku. It also had this:



As much as I liked their Colonel, I wanted to make sure to try out the whatever the local cuisine was before I left, and decided to go somewhere else. A talkative guy in an urushi shop recommended a place to me that he said was both delicious and featured the local flavor. It turned out to be both, as well as being well off of the beaten path, and a little on the expensive side. The food was excellent, however, and had a slightly different mix of vegetables and meats than I was used to in Niigata:



The restaurant was also interesting unto itself- people sat on tatami (woven mats), while waitresses in more traditional dress scurried around to each table. The ceiling was about 1 foot lower than I am tall, so I had to stoop and dodge bamboo lanterns to find my table in the corner:



I certainly didn't have a chance to try as many of the businesses as I would have liked, but I got the impression that Aizuwakamatsu, even if it is a ho-hum spot for tourists, would be a nice place to live. The people seemed friendly, and everything had an intimate-feeling compactness to it.

I'll sign off on Aizuwakamatsu with something I don't usually do- posting a photo of a humorous English sign. I usually don't because 1) there are whole websites devoted to that kind of thing, 2) if one were to photograph and post all the hilarious and ill-translated English in Japan, it would be a career path unto itself. This sign was too good not to post, however:



I like to think that in fine print on the handle is a sticker that says "pull handle to release cat," but sadly, there wasn't.

Notes about Post

Two quick notes about the most recent post-

1) Because I started writing it before the shorter post on the twelfth, it actually appears below the second-most recent post. Scroll down to read about Hagurosan.

2) Blogger informed me that there was an HTML error somewhere in my post just before I posted it. Nothing seems out of whack (at least all the photos posted), so I let it be. However- If anyone sees something that looks odd, and like a consequence of misplaced HTML tag, please let me know so that I can clean it up.

Thanks!

Kids say the most intriguing and entertaining things.

(Because I find the expression "Kids say the darndest things" to be no end of irritating).

I'm working on a longer post about a trip to Hagurosan (explanation to follow), but here is a quick interlude about some of my elementary school students:

First, I had a young third grader that I often play with during recess tell me, as I attempted to ride a unicycle (difficult at the best of times- more difficult when your leg is longer than the unicycle is tall)- Aa, Jesu sensei- sore wa jisatsu to omoimasu.

Translation: "(Mr./teacher) Jess, that looks like suicide to me."

I was thoroughly amused, and what's more, agreed with her, and put the unicycle away for now, and moved on to the more manageable stilts.


The second episode happened while some of my 5th graders were making meishi, or name/business cards. The children were encouraged to draw things that they liked on their card- foods, animals, hobbies, and so on. I wanted to to make the activity a little more interesting, so while they were working I threw some extra ideas out, such as favorite books or comic book characters, and then at the end, half-jokingly, favorite bakemono (monster, apparition, demon). It was a classic example of kids listening when you don't know if they have been. For the most part kids stuck to the safe stuff: fruits, animals, and a smiley-faced self-portrait. However one girl opted, in light of my comments, for a mummy wielding two chainsaws. When I looked at her card in bemusement (and secretly, glee) she pointed and clarified for me- "It's a chainsaw."

As much as they take it out of me, I can't help but feel that this job would be a lot sadder without my elementary students...

Black Wing Mountain (or Houses of the Rich and Deified)

羽黒山(Hagurosan), or "Black Wing Mountain," Is one of theDewa Sanzan, three sacred mountains in Yamagata prefecture, which is a hop, a skip, and a 3 hour car ride away from Arakawa. Since I had some time off due to Golden Week, I decided that it would be cool to visit this ancient Shinto Sacred site.

Hagurosan is near Tsuruoka, which also happens to have a movie theater. I stopped off at the Jusco cinema to watch Goemon, a ninja movie that those of you who are fond of ninja movies should look forward to (it had a whole bunch of ninjas), and then made my way east towards the sacred mountain.

However, before I could actually reach my intended destination, I got side-tracked by a sign for 玉川寺 Tamagakaji (lit. "round river temple"). It looked interesting enough that I veered rather suddenly off the highway in order to make the turn, and drove for about a kilometer on a wondering country road before arriving at the temple itself. Tamagawaji is located near enough to the Dewa Sanzan that you could see Gassan from the parking lot by the temple:



The temple proper was more garden than temple, with a carefully kept, traditional-style, and very visually pleasing garden wrapping around the building itself:



These stairs led to an ancient-looking graveyard out back...



...which in turn was watched over by 36 Kannon
. These Kannon were interesting, in that they retained a lot of iconographic conventions that fell out of favor later on in Japan.



After having a look around the gardens, I went into the temple's interior. There aren't any real pictures of this, because there wasn't much light to be had in the temple (and I wasn't going to use flash on a historic temple, whether or not it was allowed). From chatting with one of the women who worked in the temple, I gathered that it was a yet-functioning Zen temple, which dated back to the Muromachi Period (that's about 750 years old). This went a long way to explaining the antiquated-looking Kannon out back...

It was also nice to visit a bona fide Zen temple- most of the temples I've explored have belonged to the more "evangelical" branches of Buddhism that have been enormously influential throughout Japanese history, such as Nichiren and Jodo Shinshu.

The final picture from Tamagawaji is this bizarre fish carving, of who's function I have no clue, but it was hanging over the entrance to a room full of ancestor shrines:



The entrance to the sacred mountain was only about 15 minutes up the road from Tamagawa-ji, and that's where I went next.

The actual entrance to Hagurosan doesn't look that promising (hence the lack of a picture of the entrance)- A set of gift shops and restaurants that have sprung up around a largish stone torii, which has the name of the mountain inscribed upon it, and not much else. One thing that did catch my eye was that the jinja at the bottom of the mountain had actual tatsumaki (竜巻- more often used to mean tornado or waterspout, but also used in architecture to denote its literal meaning- "dragon scroll" or "dragon spiral."). The woodworking was beautiful, and probably quite ancient as well (although I couldn't get a detailed history out of the befuddled looking shrine attendant):



After passing the shrine with the tatsumaki and going under the stone torii, the whole place becomes swiftly more impressive. Massive sugi trees, some reaching 600 years in age, line a steep decending avenue of stone steps. The steps bottom out in a clearing with an initial 6 or 7 jinja, creating a kind of shrine village:



Immediately after the shrine clearing is is a cascading waterfall which splashes into a large clearing. Here's a picture of me in front of it that one friendly man from Aomori offered to take for me:



The waterfall itself:



At the bottom of the waterfall was a small statue of Fudo Myouou, whose statue is often placed next to waterfalls and inside caves in the mountains:



While technically a Buddhist deity, his statue was placed within this shrine complex because of his status as the patron deity of the Yamabushi (who are worth reading about if you're not all link-clicked-out by now). Hagurosan was a apparently a traditional Yamabushi sanctuary back in they day, whenever that may have been. Also, on a personal note- Fudosama is supposed to protect against temptation- so I keep an image of him in my wallet, to keep me from buying too impulsively. Time will tell whether he's doing his job or not...

Immediately after the falls, and for the rest of the trail, various ishitourou (石灯籠), or stone lanterns, dotted the sides of the trail:



Marker stones of various kinds were also pretty common. One Japanese aesthetic sensibility I've always liked is that if they're going to plunk a monument down in a landscape, it is usually made from somewhat rough-hewn stone, with a terse message scrawled down its face. Here is one such:



I'm not sure what the Kanji on this stone says- something about a palace (probably part of a person or place's name), and something about climbing and a shrine. I imagine it's a marker showing the way to one of the numerous jinja on Hagurosan. Judging by the advanced state of the lichens on it (the date is obscured by leaves), it must be fairly old.

Nearby was a massive, sacred tree- designated as such by its shimenawa, or sacred hemp rope designating the presence of Kami. I don't know anything about this particular tree, but it was very huge and probably ancient, which would draw respect in a religion that has a history of tree and nature veneration.



Also near the marker stone was the 羽黒山五重塔, or the Hagurosan five-story pagoda (sometimes names just look cooler if you leave them in Kanji), which dates back to the Heian period (794-1158 c.e.- during which time Kyoto was the capital). It is also the oldest pagoda in the Tohoku
region of Japan. While the pagoda as an architectural style was imported from Continental Asia along with Buddhism, this particular pagoda doesn't seem to have anything to do with Buddhism as far as I could find. Rather, it keeps with the Shinto tradition of its environment, serving in this case as a housing for the Kami Ookuninushi, who is responsible for all sorts of things (Wikipedia can tell you more). Here is a far-away and a detailed shot of the pagoda structure:




The pagoda was the last of the structures in a sort of initial valley just before the 1,000 stone steps up the mountain began. From that point on, it was all fairly steep, strenuous climbing. The stone steps are a traditional pilgrimage site, and are protected as a national treasure. I was also pleased to see that while the top of the mountain was available by road access, the vast majority of vacationers opted for the long, cruel climb instead-in America, the mountain would be overrun by people driving up in their SUVs and dripping soft-serve ice cream cones on the sacred stones. Here is a photo picked not so much for composition or anything like that, but because it gives a good sense of the steepness of the stairs and the scale of the sugi trees:



This was halfway up the first set of stairs- the signpost for this rock simply says "fire stone." No further explanation was provided. Curious.



Shortly after the enigmatic fire stone was this path leading off into the woods, through a torii gate. I overheard one of the tour guides say that if you went down the path a long ways, there was eventually down the shrine. I was eager to sea everything, so I blazed off into the woods. The path proved to be very long (I never found the shrine), and eventually blocked by fallen timber, so I gave up the ghost after a while. I did appreciate the torii, however:



About half-way up the mountain was another side trail to a glad with several ponds and some benches to sit down on. It was a nice place to get away from the rush on the stairs for a bit, and to relax among the trees:



Yamagata also gets plenty of rain, so the forest is always vibrant and full of quick-growing, water-loving plants. I almost managed to spare everyone a plant picture in this post, but I've always loved liverworts- when I was a child I thought they looked like the scales of slimy dragons:



The rest of the hiking was more of the similar- gorgeous, shrines, name-stones, but nothing that would look much different in a photograph. One thing I did notice was that people remarked more upon me as I passed them the farther up the mountain I got- nothing problematic, but I heard a lot of sugoi, ashi ga nagai! (Wow- long legs!). I was taking the stone steps about 3 at a stride, which was a little more than the average Japanese leg could manage. Several people that I passed on the way greeted me congenially later on- "Do you remember us? You passed us on the way up."

The top of the mountain is marked by another enormous torri, after which the mountaintop mercifully flattens out quite a bit.



Inside the grounds is the most massive Shinto shrine complex I have yet seen, with multiple structures spanning over an area the size of several football fields. Here is a view around the center of the grounds. This shrine wasn't the largest there, but the main shrine was undergoing restorations and covered in scaffolding:



Housed in the smaller structure in front of the larger shrine is a large, hanging bell. As far as I know, this is another convention imported from Buddhism.

On the Eastern side of the grounds was a long line of shrines, at each of which pilgrims would stop to pray. I can't remember all the sundry deities they were devoted to, other than the nearest one in this photo was probably devoted to Raijin:



The complex was actually more impressive on the micro scale than the macro, however. One cool thing about jinja is that they occasionally complement their structural austerity with spectacular woodcarvings, such as these:

Dragon- 'nuff said:



This carving was intriguing not only for the level of skill that must have gone into it (presumably the bird had a head once upon a time), but also because representations of human figures are very rare in shrine architecture. It could be any number of Shinto deities, possibly Izanagi
(one of the creator gods in Japanese mythology), or possibly not. Birds are slightly more common- it might be a Ran (鸞 - page in Japanese, but there is a picture)- a mythical bird which features in several far Eastern myths.



No matter how hard I look at this gargoyle-like countenance, the nearest thing I can imagine is a one-eyed chicken. There are a number of different creatures, real and fantastic (dragons included) that are placed by the entrance of jinja. Their purpose is almost always the same- to ward against evil in someway (I find elephants particularly interesting- as they are eaters of evil dreams).



Here is another tatsumaki. Sadly, I couldn't get a good picture because of the protective grate, but the woodwork was amazing.



The last of woodcarving images is this: the best piece of woodworking I have ever seen anywhere, in or outside of a museum. It left me speechless for several minutes while I looked it over:



As with so many trips I've taken here (and so many posts I've posted), the way back was basically the same as the way there, so there's not a lot of new material to share. One thing I did photograph on the way down is this "classic" Japanese wooden bridge, which I neglected to photograph the first time by the waterfall:



After departing Hagurosan, I made my way to the last destination on my trip- a temple in Tsuruoka that houses a mummified monk/Buddha (depending on how successful you believe the process was, from a supernatural standpoint). Here is the woodwork over the main door to the temple:



This photo was the only one I was able to keep from my mummy encounter- I missed both the signs saying to push the button for assistance, as well as the other one saying photography was prohibited. I snapped some photos (respectfully, of course) of the mummy, but then deleted them when I read the sign on the way out. Because I also didn't ring the doorbell, I had the unique experience of a one-on-one with a very obviously dead mummy. There weren't any of the complex wrappings we've come to expect from Egyptian mummies- this man was sitting in lotus position wearing a robe and a hat, with the outline of his skull well-defined under his preserved skin. He also held the same prayer beads that he must have been holding when he died.

This particular process of self-mummification is unique to Japan, and Yamagata in particular. I would recommend reading about it here if you have the time. I think it's fascinating.

I'll finish up this post by adding that this was probably, from a cultural standpoint, one of the most interesting and also beautiful places I've been in Japan. I may be going again with some friends later this month (many of these experiences are better shared), and I recommend it if you ever find yourself in the vicinity of the Dewa Sanzan.

Takatsuboyama (高坪山)

The Wednesday before last was a national holiday: Showa Day, which commemorates the birthday of this fellow. I find the level of comfort that the Japanese sometimes (but certainly not always) show towards their totalitarian past to be a little unnerving, but the holiday does have other purposes, and moreover we got the day off.

I and some ALT friends decided to use our day of freedom to hike Takatsuboyama, which is the only mountain worth mentioning within the immediate vicinity of Arakawa (I climbed partway up this mountain in August, what I thought was the summit turned out to not be). It's not terribly tall- probably less than 1,000 meters (the height wasn't posted), but it is steep and comes straight up from sea level, so it's a good hike if you have several hours free. The weather was strikingly beautiful, as was the mountain itself, but there wasn't anything that remarkable in terms of things to write about, so I'm just going to post photos with a caption or two, and leave it at that.

Flo and Naomi, my companions on the journey:



This scene is pretty typical of what you might see anywhere in the inaka (rural Japan) in the Spring. Things are sprouting all over the mountains, and people are starting to get out and work in their fields:



The forest on Takastuboyama is mostly beech trees, which in addition to putting out pretty spring leaflets (first photo), also warped into a variety of fantastic forms (second photo). I'm not sure why this was, but we encountered a number of shapes on the way up that were more like wind-sculpted rock than still-living wood.




Some signs of spring on the trail- everything putting out leaflets and blossoms:





I could have sworn that these were violets...but they look yellow to me. Are they not violets, or is there some yellow variety I wasn't aware of?



At summit of the mountain, there was a Jizo statue, clad in the standard red cap:



Finally, this is the view looking out over Sakamachi:



That's all that's to be said about Takatsuboyama, really. Spring keeps warming up, and things keep getting greener and more beautiful. I'm hoping to take advantage of the good weather while it lasts, since the rainy season is supposed to start soon. Next time I have some time, I'll put up some photos from my day-trip to Hagurosan. Until then, またね.