Kobe Earthquake Museum

My final morning in Japan, Nari took me for a drive from Kobe over to the nearby big island, though it was impossible to see anything across the long suspension bridge due to heavy rain and fog. Our target was the museum for the earthquake that rocked Kobe on January 17, 1995.

The museum itself was pretty amazing, as it was built right on part of the fault line from the large earthquake. About 6,000 died and much of the city was wrecked, with the epicentre right between the island and the city. So the bulk of the museum runs the length of 150 m of the fault line, largely preserved as it was from the quake.

So you can see on the left the big section of the fault line that's preserved at the museum. On the right you can see the actual shift that occurred ifyou look at the orange flags. In total, the ground shifted upwards about 0.5 m and right by 1.5 m, after a lot of shaking and shifting of course. They also had an earthquake simulator at the museum, where you sit down in a mock dining room and they rumble and shake the whole place like what happened during the quake! Unfortunately, a good portion of my flight home also consisted of heavy turbulence, so I got a lot of shaking into me over the course of the day! 

A cross-sectional view on the left of the fault line. Part of the museum also includes this house (aerial shot on the right) that the fault line ran right through the middle. Amazingly it shifted but still stood, and Nari tells me that the people even lived in there for another 4 years! 

Nari also asked me what I wanted for my last lunch in Japan - ramen obviously!

Genbaku Dome - A Bomb Memorial

Among the places Hiroshi and I visited during my quick visit to Hiroshima was the Genbaku Dome in the middle of the city. A building from the 1880s, it gained fame and infamy August 6, 1945, when the fireball of the first atomic bomb exploded about 600 m overhead and slightly southeast. Being ground zero for the A-bomb, ironically it was also about the only building in town standing after the explosion. Check on Google and you can find iconic photos of Hiroshima after the bomb, and the Genbaku is the only building you'll see standing. Post-war, Hiroshima was rapidly rebuilt, but in the 1960s it was decided to keep Genbaku as it stood as a permanent memorial. It was pretty powerful to stand there on a beautiful quiet night and realize that such horror occurred directly above your head.

Miyajima Island

After giving a talk and touring Hiroshi's labs at U. Hiroshima and a yummy udon noodle lunch, we took a drive over to the city itself and Miyajima Island that sits right offshore. Hiroshima is quite beautiful, with a setting right one the water with massive mountains all around. Descending into the city, I got the distinct impression of being back in Vancouver, which led me to thinking of what a horror it must have been to have the city obliterated.

The centre-piece of Miyajima is the Itsukushima Shinto shrine, another UNESCO site that I keep bumping into here in Japan. First built in 593 AD, it was rebuilt into its present scale in 1168 AD. The main corridor is about 280 m long, incorporating over 20 buildings. The main entry gate for the shrine is built right on the water's edge, so that the ebbing and flowing of the tides determine whether you can get near it. On the right is another family celebrating the 7-5-3 years. Didn't get to see anyone playing the massive drums, although I did hear them from afar.

I've got to say that fall is my favourite season, and it's not just because of cyclocross! I especially love the way the angle of the sun makes things just glow, like the shrine gates on the left and especially the red/golden pagoda on the right. Take a look on the left and tell me it doesn't remind you of Vancouver?!

The fall colours were getting very nice now in Japan! And oysters are a specialty and favourite around here. There's an oyster far between the island and the mainland, and the products are grilled all around at different kiosks. 

The Great Buddha at Nara

November 11, Nari and I took the train eastwards to the town of Nara, about an hour away. What makes Nara special is Todaji Temple, a Buddhist Temple that is the largest wooden structure in the world. Why is it so large? Well, Todaji houses the world's largest bronze sculpture, the Great Buddha. Both are rather immensely stunning in their size and scope, and date from about 1200 years ago (the wooden temple's burnt down a few times).

 Along the way to the Temple, besides dodging all the weekend tourists like ourselves, we also had to contend with the veritable swarm of tame deer wandering the streets of the town and everywhere you can imagine. They're pretty much more populous than the local residents, and maybe even the tourists too! They're also tame and very well-fed, with lots of vendors selling packs of deer cookies.

Next up was the Shinto shrine at Nara, a nice forested walk away amidst more deer. T shrine is another UNESCO site, and home to four major Shinto spirits. I especially liked the lantern room.

There were lots of young girls dressed up in beautiful kimonos. Turns out mid-November is a time to bless 7, 5, and 3 year olds. And of course, it's also time for Ichiro sightings, as was the case in the cafe where Nari and I stopped for a snack! Dinner tonight was Japanese BBQ: veggies, seafood, meats all cooked ourselves over a very hot BBQ built into our table. Certainly popular in wintertime to keep warm! I was also warm on account of the sake we had before supper too!

Mount Tsukuba

Last day in Tsukuba north of Tokyo, and Bun, Watanabe, and Akira took me on a pilgrimage trek up to Mount Tsukuba. The shrine there is quite famous, and Dr. Nishiyasu (my host here) actually got married here. It was a beautiful sunny day and not bad at all at about 16oC at the starting point partway up the mountain, so we were crossing our fingers that we might actually see Mount Fuji in the far distance. I had managed to see only the bottom half on the way up to Tsukuba thanks to the deep clouds!

Left is the shrine entrance at the base of the mountain. Right is the shrine atop Tsukuba. In between was quite the steep and arduous hike up of 2.4 km and about 600 m elevation gain. Think "Grouse Grind" type of hiking straight uphill, with lots of tricky roots and rocks everywhere. All good fun and games though, especially getting to relax and steam up in a hot springs afterwards.

Watanabe, Akira, Bun, and myself atop Tsukuba. There are actually two separate peaks, the "woman's peak" and the "man's peak." Like many cultures, mountains are holy places in Japan, so there are usually shrines atop most mountains. Despite it being nice and sunny, there was still too much haze to see Tokyo or Mount Fuji.

Rock formations are big here on Mt. Tsukuba. The frog is the mascot of the mountain, and here's why on the left. At the top of the mountain sits this rock formation that looks quite a bit like a frog's mouth. The story is that if you can toss a pebble into the mouth and it stays there, that will bring you happiness - I got it! And on the right is the "Buddha Rock" partway down the mountain.

After a lot of hiking and exercise, what better way to refuel than fabulous ramen noodles? The cafeteria at the uni is the uni cafe of my dreams - a full huge lunch of real ramen, rice, and potstickers for 500 Y, or about $6.50! 

Talking for Food

Jet lag really is a wonderful tool for increasing productivity. What with tossing and turning at 0200h and finally giving up and getting up at 0300h, I put in a full day of productive work before breakfast! Indeed, yesterday morning I peer-reviewed a paper from start to finish, prepared my symposium talk, reviewed Geoff's ethics, read a chapter of "Citizen Soldiers," and went for a run before I even got to breakfast at 0800h!

Nari and I have been making a tag-team in my talks so far, as he's been roped into being my translator for talks and slides he hasn't seen at all before. It's tricky enough sticking to a time limit when you're speaking by yourself, it's exponentially harder doing so not knowing how long the translation might take! We've done a grand job altogether, although hopefully the talks are understandable and assuming Nari's got my main messages across!Well, thanks to Omega-Pharma Quick-Step cycling team and its fashion-house sponsor Pablo Nero, at the very least I'm looking very fine in the process with their swanky team tie! 

Needless to say, I've been gorging on as much Japanese food as I can possibly get my hands on. Ramen and udon noodles, sushi, even fine Kobe sake! Nari took me to a sushi bar in downtown Kobe the other night, where they make it to order right in front of you.

Long Lost Twin?

So is this my long-lost twin? I've been riding an enormous wave of popularity everywhere I've been going in Japan the past week, and Nari's been killing himself laughing. Everywhere we've been going, he keeps hearing people whispering "Hey, is that Ichiro?" It started at the symposium at Kobe Design Uni last Thursday, when two of the attending scientists both said independently of each other over dinner that I look just like Ichiro. Funny enough, but then we were at a cafe in Nara prefecture and we hear the same thing. And then checking out of the Sheraton, the doorman told us that people have kept coming up to him asking if Ichiro was back in town and staying here! The same thing has been happening in Tsukuba north of Tokyo, with the restaurant owner the first night thinking Ichiro was in his restaurant!

Oh yeah, who's Ichiro? That'd be Ichiro Suzuki, the biggest baseball star in Japan. With baseball being the #1 sport in this country, that's a big deal, a bit like being in Canada and looking like Gretzky! Ichiro was the first Japanese position player to join Major League Baseball, playing for the Seattle Mariners 2001 until this year when he was traded to the New York Yankees. Ichiro was a huge star for the Kobe team beforehand, which greatly helps my popularity here. Unfortunately, I don't quite have his 5 year, $90 million contract with my CRC!

Rocking Rokko

After giving my talk for Nari's undergraduate class today bright and early in the morning, the weather was beautiful and sunny. So we did what academics always should do when such opportunities present itself - we skipped out and had an adventure instead! Namely, we went up into the hills above Kobe via tram, bus, cable car, and train.

Mt Rokko right above Kobe (it's one of many mountains overlooking the city) is about 950 m elevation. The first stop walking up from the Uni was to the train that takes you pretty much straight up the mountain, 1.7 km of track at 26% grade! It's a "double-weighted" rope car, where there are two train cars on opposite end of the single track that are joined. The only spot where they pass each other has about 50 m of double train tracks - sure hope they have their math right!

From the top of the train at about 750 m elevation, we took the bus to the top of Mt Rokko, where there's a slightly hazy but otherwise very nice view of all around the big bay, from Kobe through to Osaka and beyond. More importantly, we had a nice bowl of hot ramen noodles out on the sunny porch. Afterwards, the cable car took us down to the town of ARIMA (Geoff and Andreas will get a kick out of that!), where we went for a walk through the parks. 

The colours are turning here in Japan, but it's definitely different to Canadian colours. The dominant colour is red and I haven't seen much yellow or orange, and indeed most of the trees are still fully green (of course, it's averaging 15-20oC here! Locals are all bundled up and I'm in my shirtsleeves). The colours are somehow a bit more subdued in intensity, but the light also makes it seem to glow somewhat, so it's quite nice.

While in Arima, we also went to the natural hot springs to get some hands-on hyperthermia going. There's a lot of iron in the water, so we all looked a bit rusty by the end of the long soak. After that, we took the trains back down to downtown Kobe. Interesting note - the trains all have women-only cars to avoid women getting molested in the busy commuter traffic. 
And of course, what better way to end the day than sushi? 

ChEUng Adventures - Japanese Style!

A rather whirlwind 72 h of activity (fly to Calgary Friday morning for meeting with Mark's, two symposium talks in Kananaskis Saturday, and LONG routing from Cgy-SF-Osaka), and I find myself on the other side of the world in Kobe, Japan. I'm here at the generous invitation of my colleague Nari Kondo, and will also be visiting colleagues in Tsukuba and Hiroshima.
Still jet-lagged, so here's the most important shot - of dinner last night!

Hot Pot supper - everything goes into the yummy hot broth pot to be cooked.