Teainne - a bit of fact, a lot of myth

Shirahama: a little bit of Australia in Japan, Part 2

2009-09-23T21:01:00.001-07:00

Arriving in Shirohama, I met up with my friends and boarded a bus to the beach, about 15 minutes away. They'd arrived at an earlier train (the first one of the day), but had spent the extra hour or so looking for a hotel for the night (everything seemed packed to the gills, so the few spots still available were being hawked for a tidy sum, around $90 per person per night).

The beach was small, but beautiful. The sand, as promised, was white and reasonably fine. For a Japanese beach, there was little trash around, too. (Tip: don't assume that beaches in Japan are as clean as the city streets usually appear to be; over the course of the bike ride we did some beach cleanups and pulled out what seemed like an unlimited supply of bottles, cans, cigarrette butts, remains of fireworks and other assorted junk out of the sand.) The water was a very pretty blue and the area was a bay -- shallow for a long way out with very calm waters. Also, unlike the water around Hokkaido or even Sado, the water here was very pleasantly warm. There was plenty of space to lounge on the beach, great snorkeling areas, and a good handful of people walking around the beach in furry boots or high heels to make fun of.

After a few hours of enjoying the warmth (no direct sun, it was cloudy the whole time) and walking around the beach, we walked over to the hotel so my friends could check in. Took them a bit to get settled in, but I didn't mind in the least -- right outside their hotel was one of the "ashiyu", or foot baths, spread around the area. It looks a bit like a fancy bus stop on a street corner, with a nice bamboo reed roof. Underneath is what could pass for a small and pretty city fountain, except that it's surrounded by wooden seating (enough for about 9 people or so, around the three sides that aren't the street) and it's constantly flowing with natural hot spring water. Passerby are welcome to take their shoes off and soak their feet in the hot water, so that's what I did for a good 20 minutes, chatting a bit with the people who were sitting around me. (Tip: conversations in Japanese in such circumstances generally feature the word "kimochi" -- literally, "feeling", usually used to mean "feels good". Use that with slightly different intonations and you've covered about 70% of what most native Japanese would say. Another 20% are probably onomatopeas. :) )

We asked around a bit as to what else there was to do, since by that time there were some clouds rolling around and we felt an occasional drizzle. Most people there were a bit flustered when we asked, though. Not sure if that's because everyone else researches what they're going to see there before going (instead of just showing up and seeing what happens like we did), or because there really isn't anything besides the beach.

We settled on walking along the coast for a bit and, besides beautiful views, also found a small aquarium (they were closing for the day by the time we got there, though it didn't seem like it was quite the attraction to travel all the way there for), a small cave (with space to hide and scare the daylights out of your friends behind you), and a glass-bottom boat boarding area (would have been really pretty there, there were tons of fish even close to the main beach; sadly they, too, were done for the day). On the way back, we noticed several dozens of people had joined the handful of fishermen previously sitting along the coastline. Given the obscene number of cameras mounted on tripods facing a small island with a natural archway behind which the sun would set, we figured out they everyone was dutifully waiting for the sunset. Since it was cloudy and drizzling and the sun wasn't visible anyways, we left them to it and made our way back to town.

Although I'd brought my camping gear, I decided to call it a day and head back home. Camping on the beach is great, but rain takes away a lot of the fun. (Plus, if I want to get rained on at the beach, I can go to Half Moon Bay back home anytime. :) ) Fortunately, I did get a seat on the train back home. There are some advantages to boarding a train at its first station. :)

Shirahama: a little bit of Australia in Japan, Part 1

2009-09-22T07:20:00.001-07:00

Following the Japanese government call for more money to be spent traveling within the country, I decided that today it would be fun to spend some time in the sun, digging my toes into the fine white sand of a good beach, and set off to meet some friends I met recently at a lindy hop event in Osaka.

My destination was Shirahama. The place, as the name in Japanese suggests ("white beach") is known for its fine white sand. (What they only mention on the footnote, however, is that much of the current sand is imported from Australia.) It's in the Wakayama district, south of Osaka, and therefore a good 3 hours of train riding away from where I'm staying in Shiga. That meant getting up very early to get there in time to enjoy the day. Most fortunately, the sun still shows up for work at a very, very early hour in the morning around here. Nothing like the daft pre-4am sunrises we got in Hokkaido in August, but still early enough that the day was well along its usual routine by the time I biked off to the train station at 6:45.

Since it's a national holiday, the express commuter train I boarded towards Osaka was understandably on the empty side, with a few bleary eyed riders reading a book, plugged into a music player, or just simply passed out. In Osaka, however, I boarded a limited express train towards Shirahama (tip: "limited" express is faster than express... the "limited" does not refer to the train's speed OR the extra money the train company feels entitled to charge for riding those trains). Around here, you can be sure you're taking a special train when it has a name and number. I was waiting for "Ocean Arrow #5". Since I bought tickets at the last minute, I only had unreserved seat tickets (these special trains usually have a few reserved seat wagons and a few unreserved seat wagons). The catch is that an "unreserved seat ticket" only guarantees that they'll let you be in the unreserved seat wagon on the train (general laws of physics and biology permiting). It most definitely does not guarantee a seat.

Turns out I wasn't the only one to think Shirohama might be cool for the day, so I got to stand for a good hour and a half in the train, an honor I shared with what felt like at least 40 or 50 other people just in that one wagon. Not packed by Japanese standards (packed=so crowded that everyone is wedged in to the point where it's physically impossible to fall, tip, sit, turn, etc), but definitely cozy. Fortunately Shirahama wasn't the only destination, so I did eventually manage to grab a seat and catch a good 30 minutes of sleep before the little jingle came on over the loudspeakers and a chipper conductor announced we were arriving in Shirohama.

Japan Biking Tip: Dealing with the Heat

2009-09-19T20:44:00.001-07:00

It's not just hot, it's hot and humid, so heat management is very important while biking here in Japan in the Summer. Here are some thoughts so far:

- Drink tons of water. Seriously. I usually go through about 4 liters (over a gallon) in a day's ride, and I'm usually still a bit dehydrated when I arrive. Take every opportunity to drink a bit of water (barley tea or juice works great, too), it's better than trying to chug a liter of water every other hour. When you're close to town, traffic lights work well as reminders, farther out use road distance markers. :)

- Buy ice. Most convenience stores will sell a bottle of frozen green tea or orangeade for about $1.50. Put that in the back pocket of your jersey for instant cooling action. Plus, you get to drink something that's ice cold as it melts. (Note: if you drink all the liquid, the ice won't be touching the bottle walls anymore, meaning your back won't be getting cooled anymore. To remedy, just add water to the bottle after drinking. As long as you don't mind slightly diluted tea, it works great.)

- Towel and handkerchief. I've started carrying a towel on my handlebar to dry off occasionally. Unlike in dry climates, where sweat dries off and cools you in the process, around here it just soaks your skin for the most part. To avoid heat rash and make it easier for the sweat that remains to cool you off, just towel off occasionally. The handkerchief I soak in water and tie around my neck to help with cooling. (They also sell something for that purpose in sports stores around here for about $10. Advantages include keeping more water and dripping a lot less, so it cools you for longer. Disadvantages include not working as a handkerchief should you need one, possibly looking dorkier, and being pricier than a handkerchief.)

- Take a long lunch break. The hottest part of the day is usually around 1-2pm. That's also the best time to find a restaurant or michi no eki (see below) and spend sometime out of the sun and in the a/c while refueling and drinking as much water/juice/tea as you can.

- Stop at michi no eki's (translates as "road stations"). They're really nice, have good food and a selection of local produce and goods, and plenty of space to relax for a bit from riding. Not all areas have them, though, so check ahead. If you're in an area where there aren't any michi no eki's, there will likely be convenience stores (not nearly as nice but, well, convenient, and they're always blasting the a/c at artic settings). Another stop that works is a Gasuto ("guest") chain restaurant. I like them mainly because they have a drinking water spiggot I can use freely during the meal, so I don't have to bug the waitstaff to refill the tiny water glass eight times during the meal. :)

Host Family Visit

2009-09-10T05:00:00.001-07:00

Left Uji this morning and made my way to Otsu, where I'm getting to visit my host family for the first time in 12 years! なつかしい！ :)

Kyoto Daytrip - Part 2

2009-09-09T19:40:00.001-07:00

A short ride on the subway later we found ourselves on the right side of the mountain, and within 10 minutes had arrived at our first large temple. It was already mid-afternoon by this point. Wanting to make sure we didn't get to Kiyomizu Temple too late to go in, we crammed 5 people into a taxi cab for the last 3 km of the way there.

Kiyomizu Temple is still one of my favorite places in Kyoto. Not only are the temple buildings themselves incredibly beautiful, but the whole thing is set on the Eastern Kyoto mountains, giving both beautiful green scenery and a view of Kyoto itself that even the 12 floor fancy department store rooftop terrace can't match. The main pavillion is made entirely out of wood (meaning no nails, glue, rebar, etc, went into its construction... it's sort of like a centuries old set of Jenga that, fortunately, no one has played).

There are (at least) three interesting 'side attractions' there as well. The first one is a temple with an underground passageway. A handrail guides visitors through a winding maze where part of the path is in complete darkness, underneath the temple area. Supposedly it's to simulate the experience of rebirth and renewal. Definitely fun as a self-powered "ride". Your spiritual experience may vary.

Next is a 'love' temple, where people come to pray for finding someone to be with. More amusingly, there are two stones at the temple, about 20' apart. Story goes that if touches the first stone, closes their eyes, then manages to walk in a straight line and find the second stone while thinking of a person, then that person is their true love (or equivalent). Makes for fantastic people watching, especially when a big group of students rolls by. Sadly, by the time we got there, that part of the temple was already closed.

The third bit of folklore I like is about the three branches of the spring at Kiyomizu. There is a platform, and from above that the natural spring water comes down in three streams. The original story I heard was that the spring is a wish-granting fountain. Each of the three streams would grant something different to the drinker: health, longevity, or wisdom (in some stories love substitutes one of those three). The catch: you only get to drink from one of the fountains in your life. Which one would you pick?

New to that area this year was a sign that, besides hawking the new 'holy bowls' that people could buy for 200 yen to drink out of (the old steel ones are still there, still hold water just fine, still cost nothing), also talks about the fountains. It explains that, although many believe that each branch of the spring grants something different, "the Temple has no comment" on those stories, and holds that the fountain is a wish-granting fountain. So apparently you get a long, wise, healthy life (with great love to boot), and you can drink from one or all three of the fountains, as many times as you like. (They did stop short of mentioning that wishes would work better if one drinks from the 200 yen holy bowl. Though I suppose it might be healthier, since you're not sharing with hundreds of other people.) Definitely more pleasant, but it does kinda take the introspective aspect out of the legend of the three fountains of Kiyomizu Temple. (Kiyomizu, by the way, means something like 'clear water'.)

Leaving the temple, we wound our way through the densely packed tourist shop street that leads up to the temple gates and sells everything from local sweets, tea, ice cream, to chopsticks, painted fans, keychains, and whatever doodahs you might wish with 'Kyoto' printed on them somewhere. We picked up some suprisingly bland green tea ice cream (come on, Kyoto, you can do better!) and some really great black sesame sweets.

Back in the streets of Kyoto, we stopped at a kimono (traditional Japanese clothing) store. One of our friends wanted to get a yukata (less formal clothing, generally worn during festivals; seen on the streets of Kyoto more often then elsewhere in the country), so we spent the next hour or so watching as she tried on and eventually was outfitted in a beautiful yukata. (She actually got a very nice yukata, on the formal end of the spectrum for that style.) The woman at the store who helped us and who patiently taught her how to put on the yukata (hint: there's more ties than just the big pretty 'obi' holding eveything in place... two extra for yukata, three for kimono) and how to tie that fancy bow on the obi (sash).

One interesting bit of trivia: in Japan, dressing someone into a kimono is a licensed profession, and takes three years of night school to get licensed into it.

From there, we walked (slower now that one of us was wearing traditional Japanese wooden shoes, 'geta') to a nearby Japanese restaurant that the shop clerk had recommended. Beautiful tatami room (with the merciful cutout under the table, so we didn't have to sit on our legs for the whole meal), great decor. Only catch: the menu was entirely in Japanese calligraphy. No pictures, no translations, nothing printed. Fortunately, the place specialized in odengo, or essentially bits of various yummy things cooked in broth. Since there were only 12 different things on the menu (that number keeps coming up, no?) and 5 of us, I just ordered one of everything.

About halfway through, the lady who helped us at the kimono store stopped by to say hello, on her way to her own meal. She really stood by her recommendation. :)

On the way back to the hotel, we still stopped by some temples in Gion that were lit up at night for some photos. We also made a stop at a hole-in-the-wall place for some really yummy croquettes. (I actually got an egg croquette, which is essentially a sunny side up fried egg -- made inside a small metal circle to keep it croquette-sized -- that was then battered and deep fried like a croquette. Quite good.)

From there, my friends headed back to their hotel and I made my way back to the train station and eventually Uji.

Kyoto Daytrip - Part 1

2009-09-09T06:28:00.001-07:00

It cooled off significantly around Kansai today, making for perfect weather for walking around town. Uji is part of greater Kyoto, so a quick 20 minute train ride had me at Kyoto station with nearly two hours free before my friends arrived from Tokyo.

The Kyoto station was thoroughly rebuilt twelve years ago (the new building opened round about when I was leaving, so I never got to explore it much). I don't know the story behind it but, roughly, a big department store asked wouldn't it be nice if there was a 12 floor fancy department store and hotel on top of the Kyoto train station. And while at it, why not make it more exciting by cutting out the middle of the building out and putting stairs and escalators that go in an uninterruped, 45 degree angle, straight line from street level to the rooftop 12 stories up? I don't get vertigo easily, but the sheer scale of looking directly up (or down!) 12 floors of steps is a bit daunting. Sure, there are landings every floor or two, but those do little to dispel the mental image of slipping and tumbling 12 floors. Very nice view from the top, though! (Oh, and the terrace at the top is called 'Happiness Terrace'. No explanation given.)

Once I met up with my friends, we went in search of food. Since the whole escalator thing is an experience in itself, we went to the top and checked out the restaurants there. Food prices in Japan are often relative to how far off the ground the restaurant is situated, so after a quick tour of menus with lots of zeros, we decided that it would also be fun to ride the escalators down before lunch. Somewhere around the 2nd basement level, two floors below street level, we found tons of yummy food at good prices. :)

From there, they went to check into their hotel. That place, too, is new since the time I lived here. Of interest, it's right next to what used to be the street car stop I used every day to go to school in Kyoto. There used to be a small garden there and a few houses and buildings. Now a subway line took the place of the street car, and a very nice, very, very fancy hotel has taken over for the garden and houses.

From there we took a beautiful walk around the mountains. Unfortunately for us, being on the wrong side of the mountains from the temple we wanted to see, the pass on the map the hotel provided didn't actually exist according to the more accurate maps by subway stations along the way. (Note: if you're ever lost in Japan, look for a subway, train or bus station, they generally have very detailed local maps. Note 2: if, like me, you're a purist and like your maps oriented so that North is up, be ready for North to be just about any direction BUT up on those station maps.)

To be continued...

Tea Time in Uji

2009-09-08T02:08:00.001-07:00

My current stop is Uji, a major tea producing region in Japan, and possibly the one with the best tourist industry built around it.

The city lies along a river, close to some mountains that make the whole place incredibly picturesque. Along a few streets, tea shops and restaurants line up and compete for attention from the passerby. This morning I was up before most restaurants opened, so I headed to Byodo-in, a temple complex nearby.

The main feature is the Phoenix Hall, so named both because the building layout has two wings and a rather unusual "tail" hallway extending behind it, and because the two main ornaments on the highest roof are phoenix statues. The hall is a World Heritage Site, and the phoenix statues themselves are rated National Treasures in Japan. The building has a beautiful reflecting pool in front of it, and is surrounded by well maintained gardens, winding paths, and about 100 middle-schoolers on field trips, all taking turns posing for photos in front of the Hall. (Number of middle-schoolers may vary.) The inside of the Hall is said to have been designed to portray the land of the Buddha (it gets more complicated than that, but the intricacies are best left to someone who actually knows more about Pure Land Buddhism than me).

Since I was last here, they've built a gorgeous museum and used computers to simulate what the Phoenix Hall probably looked like when it was first built, around a thousand years ago. Wars, reconstructions and time have taken most of the glitter off it, but it must have been quite dazzling at the time. The Hall itself has escaped fire damage for its whole life, so much of it is actually original. A lot of the surrounding buildings did not survive, however, and the current area is smaller than the original complex.

After sightseeing, some of the stores were opening for business, so stopped to get a green tea ice cream, with powdered green tea on top. Except for inhaling green tea on the first bite (not recommended, though it amused everyone around who had already choked on their powdered green tea earlier), it was truly delicious.

I eventually found a place serving handmade green tea udon (thick noodles) for lunch. In the afternoon, a tea house overlooking the river served me some kabuse cha (green tea that, for part of the growing period, had nets spread over the plants; the shade forces the plant to increase the amount of chlorophyl, making the tea a darker green) and as much hot water as I wanted. (The tea was strong, but really smooth and rather sweet. Delicious.) Finally, to top off the late afternoon, I got some green tea shaved ice that was probably the best shaved ice I've ever had. I think I actually had enough green tea for the day. :)

As the day drew to a close, I stopped by the Tale of Genji Museum (also quite new and beautifully done). Besides lots of kimonos and drawings, they had built a few scenes from the story, put together a "smelling area" with samples of the smells referenced in the story (fortunately, being a romance, they were largely very pleasant smells), and had a movie theater with an HD projector showing a 20 minute enactment of the story. Not bad! (The Tale of Genji was actually writen, supposedly, around Ishiyama, close to Lake Biwa, to the Northeast of here. However, part of the story was set in Uji -- something along the lines of "we'll always have Uji".)

Although the day was quite warm, a strong wind cooled things off in the later afternoon. The place I'm staying at overlooks the river and, besides being a hotel, is also a souvenir shop and small restaurant. My room is enormous by Japanese standards, with two 6-mat rooms and dividers between the two (that's about two 12'x12' rooms). Interestingly, looks like the inner room used to be a tea room (there's a telltale cutout on the tatami mats for where the water heater goes for a tea ceremony). No wonder I slept so well last night. :)

"Riding" through the Mountains

2009-09-07T04:52:00.001-07:00

I've gotten used to people here saying 'oh, you can't do that' when I ask about routes for biking from one city to another. Generally, they really just mean 'I would never bike there'. For the most part, telling them that I've already biked to where I'm standing from the northernmost point in Hokkaido, about 1,600km away, is enough to chance their concept of what is doable.

However, this time I got the full 'dame', with hands crossed in front of body in an X shape. (That's the most common way of expressing something that is prohibited, wrong, unavailable, etc. It doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation. The greater the certainty, the higher up the arms for the X. :) ) There are mountains between Tsu and Uji, today's destination. That's pretty common in Japan, and no news to me. However, it turns out that the two mountain passes within biking range of Tsu are expressways that neither allow bikes nor have provision for a place to bike on. Oops.

Generally, when looking at a map, anything marked as a bypass (baipasu) or as IC will not allow bikes. Everything else has some way for bikes to make it through, even if drivers there pretend otherwise (I'm looking at you, Route 12 in Hokkaido). The catch is not all maps bother to mention when something is a bypass (IC's are large, require tolls, and are generally very well marked).

So, today I am enjoying the gorgeous view of the mountains between the coastline where Tsu and Ise lie and the valley where Kyoto is from the air conditioned comfort of a local train. (Yes, they're slower, but they're also cheaper and, more importantly, it's easy to bring the bike case in because they have space for people to ride standing. Express trains, with reserved seats, look more like airplanes inside and therefore are a bit trickier when it comes to cramming a 32" suitcase.) Plus, you get to see a lot more from a local train (this brings back memories of going to Hiroshima on nothing but local trains... took 8 hours there, 8 hours back, leaving us with two and a half hours to see Hiroshima... but it only cost $20 for the train tickets! :) ).

Tsu, and the various cities around that area, seemed primarily industrial and bureaucratic. Lots of cement buildings, likely designed with a big brick as muse and inspiration, and wide paved roads formed most of the scenery. It's unusual for Japan in that it combines that wide open space, stripmall 'je ne sais quoi' with a few struggling elements of Japanese culture, making for something with what I think may be a rather narrow appeal.

Ise, with its shrines and nearby mountains, was the first to really show something like character in the area. As the train made it past Ise, where I'd biked to, and up into the mountains, it was like riding back into Japan. Small towns with more traditional Japanese houses with ornamented roofs (even a few bright blue roofs, something I hadn't noticed since leaving Hokkaido, where for no reason anyone there knew, ALL roofs are painted blue), shrines, and something planted in every available flat(ish) open surface.

As we come back down the mountains, the cities gradually got more densely packed. Soon, it was the end of the school day and kids in uniform started packing into the trains.

The sun was setting as I arrived in Uji. As I wheeled away from the station, the first people I talked to asked me if I knew of a good place to have tea around here.

Uji is off to a great start. :)

Greetings from Uji!

2009-09-07T02:58:00.001-07:00

Arrived safely in Uji, one of the major tea centers of Japan, really excited to go exploring tomorrow! Travel updates soon.

Ride Report: Ise

2009-09-05T16:53:00.001-07:00

Total distance: 80km

Rolled out this morning after about 12 hours of sleep. At 10am it was already quite hot out. The cloudiness from Nagoya has completely dissipated now, and the temperature was around 32C (90F) by the time I stopped for a break around 11am.

The road, still route 23, was still nicely paved, wide (two lanes each way plus space for bikes) and blissfully free of broken glass. Got some nashi (asian pear) juice during the break -- really refreshing!

Since this is a round trip, I got to ride without the trailer. (Kind of feels like an engine upgrade, makes it easy to accelerate from a stop or climb up bridges.) Within about two hours I'd cleared the 40km to Ise and was pulling into the outer Ise shrine.

The Ise shrines are supposed to be some of the holiest places in Shinto, and are dedicated to Amaterasu-omikami (nerd reference -- this is the same as the deity who's the main character in the PS2 game Okami). The shrines are in beautiful condition, partly due to the huge amount of care they put into it, mainly due to the custom of tearing down and rebuilding the whole thing every twenty years, simbolizing the cicle of death and renewal. So the shrines I got to see today were actually the 61st incarnations of those shrines. They're still built to the same specifications as the originals, supposedly, and their design is unique among all shrines. Each shrine has an equally sized, mostly empty spot next to it, where the next shrine will be built before the current one is torn down. Over the generations, the shrine switches between the two sites. The only thing that stays constant is the center post in each site. It's not removed or destroyed; instead, they build a tiny wooden "hut" around it before taking down the shrine around it. The hut only gets removed once the next shrine is built on top of it, so the center posts are never visible to the outside. The next rebuild is due for 2013.

Uncharacteristically for Japan, some areas of the shrine do not allow photography. Although heavily patrolled by security, it was interesting to note that they only wrote "no photography" in Japanese on the signs... I wonder if they just don't get very many foreign tourists here, given that it's out of the way and has a much greater spiritual and historical signficance than it has postcard appeal...

The inner and outer shrines are about 5km away from each other, so once I was done strolling around the beautiful woods surrounding the outer shrine, I headed in the direction of the inner shrine till I found a nice looking italian restaurant that served me some pizza and really icy water and let me sit in the a/c for a while. :)

Another 4km brought me to the Inner Shrine (Naiku). This one is significantly bigger than the Outer Shrine, although the layout is very similar. The Inner Shrine is also where all the tourists go, apparently, for unlike the Outer Shrine, this one was packed with flocks of tourists (though still hardly any foreigners, and no signs in any language other than Japanese... gotta give them credit, even 'bathrooms, this way' looks good when written in Japanese calligraphy on a wooden sign).

The inner shrine is set along a creek at the foot of the mountains, and although it also has wooded areas, it has much more of a landscape than the Outer Shrine, with gorgeous mountains in the background. I picked up a mango shaved ice from a store that had an absolutely dizzying number of flavors for shaved ice and followed the throngs for a tour of the Inner Shrine.

With everyone there, it wasn't a meditative experience, but it was beautiful and nevertheless inspiring. Having been to some of the most important spiritual sites in Europe, I really enjoyed being somewhere so full of light and trees and water and people laughing and generally having a good time enjoying the beauty of the surroundings.

Around 4pm, having made the full rounds, I chugged an iced tea and started on my way back to Ise. The weather was beautiful -- still sunny, but the temperature was already dropping to a more comfortable range (sun sets between 6 and 7pm around here... also rises around 5am). The headwind from this morning was still around, but this time as a tailwind it helped me zoom along, returning the strength it had sapped in the morning's ride.

Along the way, tractors tilled the fields with flocks of white birds happily plocking along behind the blades.

Made it back to the ryokan riding on the tailcoat of the last of today's daylight and headed straight for the bath to scrub off the road grime (the stuff collects really fast on top of sunscreen) and soak my muscles. And now, for some dinner. :)

Ride Report: Nagoya to Tsu

2009-09-04T02:20:00.001-07:00

Total ride distance: 85km

It was cloudy as I rolled out of downtown Nagoya this morning. Within the city center, the roads were comfortably wide, althogh the traffic lights at every intersection slowed me down a good bit. Early on the ride there was a bit of rain spitting down from the sky, but by lunch time the sky had cleared completely.

As I found route 1 and followed it southwest out of Nagoya, the road gradually narrowed and the sidewalk turned into the more common collection of potholes, traffic signs, cones and random bumps that characterizes the shoulder of most roads around here, so my pace continued unabashedly slow through largely uninteresting low density city areas. Occasionally a larger intersection had an overpass for pedestrians and no pedestrian crosswalk. The first one I came to, I hauled bike and trailer up, over and down the other side. Having thoroughly proven to myself that that was a far more hazardous venture than just following traffic across instead, I ignored overpasses after that.

After two long bridges (both of which had nice cycling paths separated from the car traffic by several inches of solid steel), got to Kuwana, where the road widened again and I found a nice cafe to grab some lunch and rest during the hottest hour of the day.

Right after lunch, found a bike shop and finally got some chain lube. (I'd been borrowing some from the team before, and the suff we had wasn't very water resistant, so it had all washed off in the downpour in Tokyo.) My chain had been quite unhappy, so cleaning and lubricating it made it feel like I was riding a new bike. :)

Soon after, the path I mapped shifted from Route 1 to 23, which goes along the coast till Tsu. If navigating 1 had been tricky, then (excuse nerd reference) 23 was like doing the Deathstar trench run on a B-Wing. Instead of enemy fire, I was dodging the ridiculous amount of broken glass on the road. The cycling area itself wove in and out, up and down, passed through one tunnel with a 1.6m clearance (wtf? I'm 1.76m tall, for reference), randomly disappeared into patches of grass or shot off away from the highway and didn't tell anyone how to get back, and a few times ended inside some random factory's parking lot, leaving some gate guards rather puzzled as to while a touring bike was leaving the factory...

Got a nice reprieve when said path dropped completely away from 23 and landed on 6 for a few km. A much nicer route, with less traffic and more space to bike, not to mention less broken glass. By the time I rejoined 23, it had turned into a full highway with a nice, unused frontage road. Also met a stiff headwind at that point, but since I didn't have to deal with ADD paths, broken glass, potholes or traffic, it was still quite pleasant. :)

The last part of the ride went by fairly quickly, and soon I was passing that weird zone just outside a bigger city where all the outlet malls and big chain stores plunk themselves (yea, it's just the same in Japan now as in the US). Stopped for directions a couple of times to zero in on my ryokan and was comfortably installed in a very nice 8-mat room before 5:30pm. The place is really hard to find, which may explain why it was so cheap ($30/night).

Now for some dinner and a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I head with the bike unloaded to Ise and back.

Arrived in Tsu

2009-09-04T01:42:00.001-07:00

Beautiful riding weather, though mostly city riding. Now safely in a ryokan, full update soon.

The Mexican

2009-09-02T04:09:00.001-07:00

You know you're in Japan when you're at a pub called The Mexican, the waitstaff is wearing black cowboy outfits, the decor involves victorian chandeliers with orange lighting, the beer on tap is Kirin, and Black Eye Peas is playing. :)

PS: You know you've been in Japan for a while when it takes you 30 minutes to notice the place is actually named "Mexigan". I asked them about it, it's actually on purpose, and apparently the reason why the waitstaff has gun holsters on their belts (filled with those pre-packaged moist napkins used in restaurants here).

Puns aside, it's actually a really nice place to hang out. The staff was awesome and gave me all kinds of tips on what to eat and what to see in Nagoya. They just opened a few days ago, so if you're around Nagoya's Sakae area, definitely check them out. :)

Going to the Movies

2009-09-01T01:05:00.001-07:00

Since yesterday was such a windy, rainy day, I figured I'd engage in the time-honored tradition of spending part of those days at the movies. Having picked a japanese animation movie, I went up to the cashier, who proceeded to cram about eight paragraphs of information and questions into about two minutes. It roughly boiled down to finding out my preferred seating area in the theater and assigning me a specific seat, for which I proceeded to cough up about $18. Ouch.

Having my seat already secured, I knew I could take my time, since I didn't need to fight the crowd of about 9 other people who were also watching a movie aimed at kids on what happens to be the first Monday of the Japanese school year. I eventually installed myself on seat H18 just in time to catch the beginning of the commercials. At that theater, there weren't any ads like in most US theaters, and they contented themselves in alternating short clips of puppies playing (yea, it was cute) and random informational clips (gems such as "don't trip on the stairs", "don't kick the chair in front of you", and the more usual "in case of fire here's what we hope you'll do instead of panicking and hiding under your folding seat"). That was followed by maybe 3 or 4 trailers for upcoming movies, and before we knew it, the feature film. All in all, most enjoyable if rather pricey.

As far as flasbacks go, I guess this one is right up there with biking in the rain. Last movie I saw in Japan, twelve years ago, was a japanese animation (Princess Mononoke, from Ghibli Studios; it had just come out, so my seat preference then had been boiled down to "what's still available", which turned out to be a seat roughly 3 inches from the projection screen... I mostly remember the characters being reeeeeally tall, with tiny heads).

Just Biking in the Rain

2009-08-31T03:34:00.001-07:00

It had been a while since I'd biked through one of Japan's torrential typhoon-level downpours. Twelve years, in fact.
Last time I had no waterproof gear (I'm not counting the umbrella, since that gave up and ran for cover whimpering when faced with the wind that day), and must have been quite an amusing sight by the time I made it home, given how long it took my host Mom to control the giggles after seeing me drip into the entrance hallway.
This time, I have full rain gear (worked quite nicely, my clothes and hair stayed dry in spite of being under a waterfall for a good hour straight), my shoes are sandals and attach to the bike pedals (so no slipping off), and I have strong lights on the bike. However, I'm also carrying every possesion I have in Japan with me in a trailer behind the bike. (The trailer is mostly waterproof... it did leak a bit underneath, I'm guessing where the axle connects to the suitcase.)
I made the trip from Shinbashi to Asakusa with no trouble (though I'm not as much a fan of the pedestrian dodging game on a bike as I used to be in High School), checked into a hostel for the next two nights, and now I'm tucked into a restaurant booth cuddling a cup of hot tea.
Some lessons learned: my bike bell doesn't make much of a useful sound when it's waterlogged (but whistling works ok in all but the worst downpours); wet polished metal is slippery (and having four wheels is more stable than just having two); people in Tokyo do a great job of not noticing that I'm biking with a big trailer behind me while at the same time managing to dodge me, the bike and the trailer; the ubiquitous transparent plastic umbrella is really useful when trying to navigate crowded streets in Tokyo's diagonal or horizontal rains (people who couldn't see through their umbrellas did remarkably poorer on dodging).
Also, hot tea makes everything better. :)

Smell the Roses

2008-05-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

One very warm weekend a bit ago heralded the blooming of the roses in our garden. Just wanted to share one of them.

Even when life is crazy, and it feels like we're doing nothing but trying to keep up, somehow there's always time to stop and admire the incredible beauty that is right by us.

The trick is remembering to look.

Lost in the Details

2008-04-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

It's easy to get lost in the details, especially when there's a whole lot of details and just one of you.

It's easy to follow that calendar from meeting to meeting, hack away at that inbox from urgent email to urgent email. Every day feels like it ought to be Friday already, except for Friday, when it feels like it's only Tuesday and where did the week go? Somehow, the wisps of leaves that I photographed in March are now grown into full loincloth-sized fig leaves -- where did the month go?

In the middle of it all, we look at someone else and, from our vantage point, see them mired in their own forest of details. It makes us wonder, how in the world can someone get that lost in details? And, at the same time, our vision is working furiously to not point out the fact that we, too, are buried in details, and our memory is doing overtime making sure we don't remember that we were lost in very similar details to those we now see someone else swamped in.

So here's a reminder to myself to get up and breathe, and to look at the present in the context of everything that I've done and everything that I aspire to accomplish.

Here's a reminder to myself to look beyond what's yelling for my attention and notice the important stuff that's perhaps quieter.

Tesla: High Speed Four-wheeled Batteries

2008-04-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

I love commuting by bike, it's hard to beat that for saving on fuel and getting exercise at the same time (other benefits may include reduced seasonal allergies, great parking spots, and a stylin' farmer's tan).

I'm also not a big fan of driving fast. (Actually, I'm more of a stickler for rules. I had no problems going fast when driving in a German autobahn when conditions allowed.)

However, as far as combining fuel efficiency with incredible speed and beautiful design, Tesla Motors really seems to have delivered. (And it's convertible, so you may also get that farmer's tan to boot.) With so many car companies decrying the impossibility of improving gas fuel efficiency by even a few percent, it's great to see a few companies coming up with uncompromising designs that ditch the aged internal combustion engine for something new. (Of course, with an electric car what really matters is the energy source, and with a lot of the US energy coming from coal-powered plants, even with electric cars we still have a lot of work ahead of us if we're hoping to avoid having to start colonies in Mars.)

I got to check out a Tesla roadster live this past weekend at Yuri's Night at Moffett Field. Sadly, no test-driving allowed, but we did get to check out the view from the driver's seat. It certainly looks and feels like a sleek and very, very fast car. If it keeps to its promise of 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds, it will certainly be leaving a whole lot of sporty-looking cars in the proverbial dust (now pollution free).

Beginners' Luck

2008-04-07T08:58:00.001-07:00

Whenever I go out with my camera, I tend to come back with a story. It's not that something happens in the "you'll never guess what happened to me" way (I seldom seem to have my camera around for those times), but rather that I've noticed that the camera tends to record more than just what's in front of it.

Each photo has a story to it -- the place, the time, the weather, what I was thinking at the time, who was around, what happened to catch my eye, how much time I put into creating the shot. Together, a series of photos tells a story in a way that no journaling (or perhaps even video, though I seldom have someone follow me around with a video camera) has been able to capture.

This weekend I went with a friend on a photo hike to the beautiful Filoli Gardens. (A "photo hike" is usually much more about the "photo" than the "hike", and can only really be done with others who, like me, when in possession of a camera tend to walk in no particular direction, stop randomly and spend minutes getting into yoga-like positions to catch a particular angle on a scene.) I hadn't been there in a long time, though years ago I used to go there nearly every week to study and relax.

This week's photo happens to be the very first photo I took out of about a hundred that afternoon. Call it "beginners' luck", but out of the whole set my eye keeps getting drawn back to this one. There are some other shots that I'm very happy with in terms of detail and color and composition. They often also took a lot more consicous effort to produce. This one was pretty much the first shot that caught my eye as I walked into the garden and pulled my camera out of its bag.

It's possible that "beginners' luck" is less "luck" (we just tend to give that term to any positive, not fully explained event) and more "intuition-driving-before-my-slower-more-analytical-self-kicked-in". It always amazes me what people can accomplish when they aren't trying to do something consciously.

It's a bit like walking into a garden and, next thing I know, I have a photo on my camera, almost like it took itself. It also tells me a thing or two about what my eye is instictively drawn to.

What are your photos that just "happened"? What is your eye drawn to?

The Art of Making Time

2008-04-03T18:38:00.001-07:00

We've been devising ways to measure time, that most ephemeral of humanly perceivable dimensions, pretty much since our time began. We've used cycles of the sun, the moon, the ebb and flow of a river, the seasons (yes, even California has seasons), mechanical clocks, digital clocks and, of course, the cellphone (for which "clock" is now listed at least 20-30 features higher than "makes phone calls").

What I am curious about, however, is how long ago humans first realized that, beyond merely measuring, we also have the ability to make time.

It might have gone something like this:

Human A: Grunt. ["Hi! Mind if I share this nice, protected spot with you for a bit."]
Human B: Grunt. Grunt? ["Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Can't you see I'm busy?"]
Human A: Grunt... ["Pity, because I just hunted more food than I can eat before it goes bad..."]
Human B: Grunt! Grunt! ["Oh, I didn't even recognize you! I can always make time to see you, take a seat!"]

As technology and human knowledge march onward (if not always forward), we seem devise more ways to fill in every last moment of our conscious lives. Everything only takes a fraction of a second, so we jam multiple things into every second, aiming towards that ever-elusive instant gratification. So it's only to be expected that we are more and more often busy, and too often too busy to do something that, really, we'd love to do.

This can be a problem (we can get so caught up on being busy that we forget to do things that we like) as well as a crutch (being busy, while technically often true, is often used in place of "I'd already planned on doing other things during that time, and what I've planned is more interesting to me than whatever is being proposed").

The catch is, all the things that are keeping us busy are, for the most part, things we have chosen to do. That means we could also chose not to do those things, which implies that we can make time to do other things. Sadly, that's easily forgotten.

Whenever I realize that I'm telling someone that I'm busy, I'll try re-phrasing it (usually in my own head) as "I'm not willing to make the time to [whatever it is that the person is proposing]". If the gut reaction is that this just sounds wrong, then it's likely that I'm busy with the wrong things.

I make time for my family; for my friends; for photography; for drinking tea. And thinking about it, I want to make more time for getting in touch with friends I don't hear from as often; for meditating; for social dancing.

So, what do you make time for? And what would you like to make more time for?

Of Tulips and Droplets

2008-03-31T16:09:00.001-07:00

I've talked before about how I love macro shots for their ability to reveal something that even I didn't notice while taking that very photo. (From a recent conversation sparked by Futurama -- it's like having better resolution that the real world.)

This weekend I went outside to take some photos of the beautiful tulips that are opening up in our backyard (apparently, it's the season for tulip photos). This particular photo caught a water bubble, which itself reflects the whole flower bed, upside down (close crop below).

I wonder whether someday we'll be able to take photos where a "close crop" of a water droplet could contain enough resolution for us to find another droplet on a nearby stem and see what image it reflects.

Now picture having enough resolution to find an image of the world that is a good dozen droplet-levels deep. Compare that to the "real world", and it might begin to give us an idea of the difference between any concept of "actual reality" and what any given individual actually perceives.

The fun question is, just what is the shape and substance of the droplets through which you perceive the world?

Attack of the Visible Dust

2008-03-26T17:37:00.000-07:00

When I first got a digital SLR camera, it somehow prompted stern words of caution about the horrors of dust from a number of acquaintances. One friend took me aside, pointed at the button that releases the lens from the camera, and solemnly proclaimed, "once you press that button, it's all over, you have to worry about dust".

Quick aside for those who haven't spent much time listening to photographers go poetic about their gear... A digital SLR (dSLR) uses a fixed sensor to record images, and the design allows the user to change the lens among a wide range of wallet-busting choices. However, since the lens can be removed, that also means the inside of the camera (and, thus, the sensor) can be exposed to air and whatever else may be floating in your air of choice (dust, oil, hairspray, ~~imprecations,~~ water vapor, etc.). Back in the ancient, ancient world of 10 years ago when people used film (yea, people used film), it really didn't matter too much if dust got into the camera. At most, there would be a little bit of dust on one frame, but then the camera would move on to the next piece of the photographic film and (assuming you weren't procuring your film supplies from some shady person in a trenchcoat on the corner) that new frame wouldn't bring any dust with it. With digital, that changed -- the sensor is the same physical bit of electronic circuitry for every single photo the camera will ever take, so any bit of dust that lands there will stay there until something else disposes of it.

Ok, that wasn't as quick an aside as I thought. But, moving on.

After clocking over 17,500 photos on my camera without any visible dust appearing on any of my photos, one will hopefully forgive me for starting to wonder what the whole dust paranoia was all about (actually, I still do, but that's besides the point). After all, that's more photos in 15 months than I'd taken in the rest of my life put together. I even remarked as much in a recent conversation.

Of course, as soon as I got home after that conversation and went out to take some photos of the new figs our tree is working on, I noticed that there was a slight dark blob on the photos that didn't exist outside my camera.

A quick, highly scientific test (also known as the point-your-camera-at-a-patch-of-sky-and-take-photo test) confirmed that, indeed, I had some of that fearful dust on my sensor. (Red circle added later, for emphasis. Though it would be kinda cool if there just happened to be a big floating red circle on the sky right where that bit of dust appears. I wonder whether this is how some UFO photos come about?)

I opened up my camera and peeked at the sensor. Sure enough, there was a bit of fuzz in the equivalent spot on the sensor, of about that shape. There's a zillion products out there (I found out) to let one clean/swipe/swab/wash/brush the sensor. There's also, unsurprisingly, a zillion bad ideas on how to clean your sensor (my favorite for actually-sounding-like-it-might-work-until-you-think-better-about-it is the scotch tape method; just like cleaning lint off your jacket, except it's your digital camera sensor that you're de-linting; having worked with semiconductor manufacturing before, take my word for it: Bad. Idea.).

Going for simple-is-better, I got myself an air blower. Going for why-not-get-the-funny-one, I got one called Rocket Air Blower. (It actually has really good reviews.) That took care of it in about 10 seconds. Repeating my test from earlier confirmed a clean sensor (for the photo-geeks out there: yes, I was using a small aperture for the tests). With a bit of luck, it will stay that way for another 17,000 photos. (Or, I'll need to clean it again after writing this post. But at least now I already have something to clean it with, and it will make for a funny story to boot.)

Blue Skies, smiling at me...

Instant Gratification

2008-03-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

Our fig tree is waking up from its winter slumber, and along with the first leaves also appear the first proto-figs, each smaller than my thumb. The tree will work on these for the nearly six months before they're ready to be eaten by us (or, on average, by the many birds that live nearby). We'll go from early Spring, right through Summer and out the other side to early Fall. These tiny fig leaves will grow large enough that they could actually be used for clothing in a pinch. And, in spite of the (relatively) long advance notice, the figs will most likely take us by surprise (again) when they're finally ripe.

In this age when everything is competing to be more 'instant' than everything else, it's refreshing to have something that's still connecting us to the actual cycles of nature and the seasons. And, if past experience is any predictor of future performance, the figs will be well worth the wait.

Where is your gaze at?

2008-03-17T09:23:00.000-07:00

Cats have an amazing ability to gaze out a window with apparent complete and utter focus. It's as if they can concentrate their entire being into a single point in space and time.

It's only when you, say, open a cupboard (on the other side of the house) that happens to contain some cat food in it that you realize that, somehow, cats manage to pay attention to absolutely everything around them at the same time as they're focusing on whatever bird/piece of string/dust particle/potential food source/potential source of amusement.

While it would be overwhelming for me to aim anywhere near that level of utter, focused zen, watching a cat do this is a great reminder.

As we cram more appointments into our calendars, more cores into our computer CPUs, more gadgets on our belts/pockets/purses, and seemingly more hours into our days, it's easy to start thinking that we, mere humans, can keep up with more and more multitasking. Tempting as it may be, it's unlikely that one can drive to work, have breakfast, talk on the cellphone, think about the day's appointments, and compose a blog entry at the same time. (Don't try it. I certainly didn't.)

So this week's post is a reminder to myself -- focus on one conversation, one task, one thought at a time.

It's a Small World

2008-03-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Best Shot ~~Monday~~ Tuesday

I've been on vacation in the south of Brazil for the past week, so in the time-honored tradition of doing everything on when-you-get-around-to-it time, this week's Best Shot Monday happens to land on a Tuesday.

Every time I travel somewhere, it's the differences that jump out vying for my attention (humans are wonderful at seeing differences; it's what's right under our nose all along that we have a hard time seeing).

It's the way people walk slower, or stand more relaxed. It's that uncanny, locally universal need to stand in lines for the apparent need to satisfy a curiosity as to what lies on the other end (the longer the line, the more interesting it must be, right?). It's the totally different vegetation, birds and bugs. The different sounds, smells, colors.

Yet, underneath all that, what also struck me this time around is just how connected things are becoming. I remember, growing up, that movies would often come out in the US a good 6 to 12 months before they would make it all the way to the southern hemisphere. A few years ago, not all that many people had cellphones, and public phones (called "big ears" here -- really, I swear that's what it translates to) where still (mostly) functional and all over the place. Now everyone has cellphones (there are more mobile phones than landlines here now), there's wi-fi everywhere (through which my own phone can connect back its network and make calls back in the Northern Hemisphere as if I was no further away than the cafe' down the street from where I live), and public phones are generally non-functional and (still) located optimally for slamming your head into when you're walking around looking at the scenery.

The world really is getting smaller from some vantage points.

And, of course, all this also means I can still post to my blog. Eventually. :)

So, on that note, this week's photo brings me back to my world of macros. Not the sharpest shot ever, but I love the colors on the plate where this little bug was stretching its wings along with the (appropriately) Brazilian colors of the bug itself.

The Big Picture

2008-03-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

I love macro shots. It's like a game, finding the "hidden" shots within the larger landscape. It's just fun to look at pictures on a bigger screen afterward and find that the camera captured some cool detail I hadn't even noticed at the time.

But, in the spirit of regularly trying things outside my comfort zone, I picked a wide angle, landscape shot for this week's photo. It's not what I would consider my overall best shot from this past week, but it helps me make a point. :)

This weekend I was up in the mountains. All of a sudden, the world back-pedaled from early Spring to middle-of-Winter, and got all full of snow to boot. Now, I'm not a snow person. I didn't even see snow until I was in high-school, and it wasn't until college that I saw enough of it in one place to allow for anything like, say, skiing. People say the best part of skiing is getting back to the cabin and hitting the hot tub after a day's worth of ~~plummeting towards one's doom~~ gliding down the mountain. Yes, I've taken downhill skiing lessons, and I've gone cross-country skiing. But really I prefer to skip the skiing bit and going straight for the hot tub along with a pot of tea. :)

Given that background, one might imagine how easy it is for me to end up grumbling about the cold, about how slippery the ground is, and how it was Spring 8 hours ago. And since I often end up doing some of that (hopefully more in my head than aloud), it's good to put things into perspective...

We spend so much of our lives in the details. The chilly wind, the left boot that doesn't quite fit, the snow that is now melting inside the right one, the water bottle that is now about half an hour's walk away in the car, the dirt on the glasses that the glare from the sun now makes obvious, and wouldn't it be nice if we'd brought along a map?

Yet, zoom out even just a bit in the grand scheme of things, and all of that disappears. We now have a sunny, snow-covered landscape with beautiful tall trees. Oh, yea, and a hiker, off to the side.

Looking past the at-the-time-annoying-but-really-insignificant details, I had a great time snow-shoeing with a bunch of fantastic friends among some amazing scenery. Although I can easily see myself remembering the afternoon as "time I could have spent in a hot tub drinking tea", the memory is, ironically, warm and happy. I guess I really ought to know from years of dancing that it's important to look up from your own feet. :)

Not to say that details aren't important. They often are crucial. But details without a frame of reference are mostly useless, and it's amazingly difficult to get caught up with the unimportant ones while completely ignoring the important ones.

So, what do you see, when you look at your own experiences from a distance?

Blossoming Company

2008-02-27T17:26:00.000-08:00

Remember that first plum blossom I posted about, oh, three days ago? Well, it most definitely has company now, and the garden is starting to look like Spring (just in time for March, I suppose!).

On Monday, Tali blogged about changes in her life, and asked her readers about their own experience. Well, can't say that I'm going through sweeping changes, but what I do see is what tends to follow the seasons. Much like the moods of a garden and the antics of wildlife, I feel my own rhythm tends to go through cycles. I think I'm not quite as awake as these plum blossoms yet, and still in "slow", home-centered, sleep-a-lot (yea, there's times I don't sleep as much!), introspective mode.

In general, I feel every moment is the moment to feel the way you're feeling in that moment

(Parse that out in 2 seconds or less... Actually, never mind -- take your time. :) )

What's often easy for me to forget, in this culture fueled by instant gratification and constant stimulation, is that feeling sluggish, introspective and sleepy are all natural and part of an annual cycle of recovery. And, that out of this recovery generally comes the renewal and energy and joy of Spring. As the garden starts to wake up outside, most likely so will I. Until then, it does make for some pretty photos. :)

One Moment in Time

2008-02-25T11:28:00.000-08:00

A 1/640th-of-a-second-thin sliver from a beautiful, sunny February day.

The thing about photographing hummingbirds is that, besides being beautifully irridescent, small and cute, they generally move way faster than we can move a camera. And even when they are hovering in place, there's still a lot of uncertainty to each photo. Even if the shutter is fast enough to catch something more than the photographic equivalent of a probability curve of where the wings might be, there's no way to predict just how the hummingbird will be posing on the still photo.

Maybe that is one of the things that is so appealing about photography, though. In a world where time always seems to be moving, something as simple as a camera gives us the power to stop time, to essentially freeze for eternity a thin slice of our reality that we can then share with everyone around us.

Definitely not the best shot of a hummingbird, but certainly my best so far (and, as these things tend to go, captured when I really wasn't looking to photo birds at all, but just happened upon one at Huntington).

The Plum blossoms have arrived!

2008-02-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

You know you're in California when it's still February but the plum blossoms are already, well, blossoming. There's always something reinvigorating about, one day, noticing that what has been bare wood in the backyard for the past several months suddenly went whoomp! and got all kinds of little green shoots on it. That was about a week ago over here, and today the first blooms appeared. So, of course, I ran out in between rain showers and snapped this photo to share.

I'll probably get better photos of the plum blossoms later, once we start getting blooms that don't require leaning out from a wet wooden bench and sticking my camera out at arm's length to get close enough for a photo. But we all seem to have a thing for firsts and, well, these were our first ones for the year. :)

Smuin Ballet: Winter Program

2008-02-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

Just got back from Smuin Ballet's Winter Program performance. We've had season tickets to their performances for several years now and, as always, the company gave a great performance with a wide range of styles. (If you haven't gotten a chance to see Smuin, the company mixes classical ballet with jazz, tap, modern, showdance, samba, and whatever else seems fun. Smuin's choreographies tend to feature amazing lift-work, wonderful musicality and a great sense of humor.)

Their Winter Program started off with a premiere of Amy Seiwert's Objects of Curiosity (after Smuin's death in 2007, she's taken on artistic direction of the company). I cringed a bit when I noticed, looking at the program, that the piece was done to something by Philip Glass (if you don't know his music... well, when I was a kid, my parents had a big electronic keyboard/organ in the living room; although I never learned to play it, I was great at playing with it, and would often pretend that it was the flight deck of a spaceship, making full use of the wide range of buttons, knobs, dials, switches and, of course, the keyboard; the sound I produced in those games is, to me, very reminescent of Glass' music). Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised by the piece. Definitely some great use of lighting and shadows to give depth to the piece, and some strong lift work.

The next piece was about as close to classical ballet as Smuin gets, with a pas de deux and two solos. And a pink tutu. Koichi Kubo, although not the strongest at partnering, showed off some absolutely incredible jumps and spins during his solo.

Sabat Mater, the third piece, was a much more somber dance, done to music by Dvorak. Beautiful use of texture and flowing movement throughout the entire dance, and a strong performance by the lead couple (Robin Cornwell and Matthew Linzer).

The finale piece, Reinin' in the Hurricane, was actually done by a guest choreographer, Kirk Peterson. Although playful like many of Smuin's pieces, some of it was rather flat (often two or three couples doing the same moves in a single-file line, lacking the sense of flow or depth that many of Smuin's pieces use to great effect). Nevertheless, Courtney Hellebuyck's terawatt smile was, as always, fun to watch (even when she wasn't in the spotlight), and it was great to see Shannon Hurlburt moving more gracefully than at times in the past (he's the best tap dancer in the company, so he's my hero anyways).

By far the best duet in the whole night was by Vanessa Thiessen and Ikolo Griffin. She is probably the best at partnering in the company, and Ikolo is a fantastic dancer and partner (props to Ikolo for the skillful off-stage air guitar, executed to the opening riffs of the song right before he got on stage; extra props for remembering to put the air guitar down on its air stand before going on stage... I love having front-and-side seats :) ).

Overall, not the best I've seen from Smuin, but still a fun evening. They'll still perform it in Carmel in March. Otherwise, their third and final program for this season looks like it should be a whole lot of fun -- Dancin' with Gershwin.

iZon: First Impressions on HD eyeglasses

2008-02-21T21:48:00.000-08:00

Seems like everything is going for high-definition nowadays, and apparently eyeglasses are no exception. A company named Ophthonix came out with "high-definition" lenses. Then their marketing department went nut-so on it and the world got iZon®, which supposedly uses an iPrint(tm) of one's eye to give one WOW(tm) vision. (I was a bit disappointed when the glasses didn't come in an iCase with a WOWlenscleaningcloth. Ah, well, can't have everything.)

So, what is a high-definition eyeglass?
Marketing aside, the idea behind iZon® is really neat. As far as I understand, they use a scanner to measure the optical correction needed at several thousand points on each eye (I vaguely remember my doctor throwing the number 16,000 around), instead of the usual method (which is basically an average measurement of the correction needed and, much like physics problems in school, relies on the assumption that the eye lens and the retina are perfectly smooth in their imperfections).

The following is mostly my guess at how they do this... Having that map, they then create a lens that gives the average correction, but that contains a polymer film sandwiched in the middle of two halves. That film can be adjusted on a point by point basis to locally alter the optical properties of the lens and correct for the that particular person's eyes. The company's site offers a marketing version of how iZon® works.

The site claims great, wondrous feats of magic will happen if you get one of these high-definition lenses. Well, not really, but the visual marketing is quite amusing (check out the WOW-o-meter at the bottom of the linked page).

My very own high-definition eyeglasses
In any case, the marketing worked well enough that I went and got myself one of these made. I've now been wearing my very own high-definition eyeglasses since yesterday.

Am I seeing better than before?
Yes, definitely. Images are crisp, vivid, &c. But it's hard to tell how much of that is due to an updated prescription and wearing eyeglasses that haven't collected four years' worth of scratches. Now, they also gave me a plot of the local adjustments needed on my prescription and, it turns out, my eyes aren't that far from the ideal (if horribly near-sighted) eyes. Since there isn't that much variation, then my normal lenses probably weren't doing too badly by me.

Another benefit claimed by these lenses is that they may reduce flaring/glare/halo'ing around bright lights (especially on car headlights at night).
Of course, that means I've spent the past two evenings walking around staring at bright lights. (Yea, bright idea, haha. But oddly difficult to stop doing.) I haven't noticed a huge improvement, but that isn't to say that the image isn't great. I'm still trying to figure out a good way to do tests on this one (nothing useful yet, but I do now have a series of vaguely amusing photos taken through eyeglasses... it's kinda fun to see what I can get by focusing my camera lens really close, then shooting something far away through the eyeglasses... I suppose it's a good demonstration of just how incredibly near-sighted I am :) ).

Any disadvantages?
Well, although these lenses don't seem any heavier than my previous ones, they are thicker. From what I remember, the refractive index on these is 1.68, versus the current standard for high refractive index lenses at 1.74 (what I had before). [Aside: the higher the refractive index of the material, the thinner the lens can be for the same optical correction.]

I'm guessing that they went for the lower refractive index as an attempt to reduce chromatic aberration on these lenses (since so much of their selling point is visual clarity and crispness even in high-contrast scenarios), though it may also have something to do with the process of locally adjusting the prescription.

To sum it up -- your mileage may vary, but at the very least these lenses seem to provide good results. And, if normal lenses have been cheating you out of the optical correction you need, you may actually find some WOW(tm) in these. :)

On dry socks

2008-02-20T21:01:00.000-08:00

I bike to work nearly every day.

That means I'm often biking during the handful of days when it actually rains 'round these parts.

When I started commuting by bike, I promised myself that I would do whatever it took to make biking even more convenient than driving. Not that hard, given that my commute is less than 6 miles each way -- often faster than driving the same road during rush hour.

Things got a lot more fun when the rain really picked up. So I got myself some rain gear. Mountain bike jackets are about as waterproof as one could want (if I'm getting too sweaty on the way to work, I bike slower... similarly, when it's really cold, bike faster... :) ). Toss in some waterproof pants -- I think mine are fetchingly named "aqua-no". Oh, and at least slap a fender on the back of the bike (in spite of apparently vehement opinions against clip-on fenders, one of those seems to keep pretty much all the water from creating that characteristic water trail down my back and/or bag), though something fancier will likely keep your bike happier. A waterproof messenger bag has kept all my stuff, lappy included, quite dry through the few downpours I've ridden through. (You can find a lot more awesome information on gear for rain commuting on sites like commutebybike.com. Rain is no excuse for not starting to bike!)

What I really haven't totally solved yet is how to keep my feet dry while commuting. I've used "booties" for a while (they go over your shoes, and do get a few bonus points for neatly tucking my pants out of the way of the chain... plus they have that geek ninja look to them... which, come to think of it, may not be bonus points), but even those leak. And when that material is wet, it seems to stay wet for a while. Hiking boots keep everything dry, but make it impossible to pedal. Eventually, I've settled on just wearing sneakers. They seem to keep most of the water out, and dry reasonably fast. The real secret for me is to take along a pair of clean, dry socks.

I might be soaked, exhausted, full of mud and bruised from smacking my shin against the pedal, but somehow putting on some fresh dry socks makes the whole world better in an instant.

So maybe that's not the ultimate solution to commuting in the rain. But it seems to do the trick for me. And anything else can be solved by a hot cup of tea. :)

Best Shot Monday: A splash of Huntington Color

2008-02-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

So it's Tuesday, but still... Just heard about Best Shot Monday through Lara's Message in a Bottle, and figured I'd make my own (belated) contribution and share some of the amazing color that was all over the Huntington Gardens this weekend. The entire Chinese Garden had been decorated by two incredible ladies who came from Taiwan to create flower arrangements. The garden itself hasn't quite grown in yet, and the arrangements added a lot of color and beauty to the place.

However, my chosen photo is actually of a blossom that has actually grown right there, in the gardens. It is, as it were, an early herald of the abundance of color that will sweep through as Spring gradually makes her way through in the next months.

Happy Spring! :)

New Tea House at the Huntington Gardens

2008-02-19T12:08:00.000-08:00

This weekend I got to preview the new Garden of Flowing Fragrance that will be open to the public on February 23rd at the Huntington Botanical Gardens. It's been under construction for many years, and I've gotten to watch a good portion of that construction in my various visits to the gardens there. I'm happy to report that the new gardens are absolutely beautiful and inspiring.

Perhaps even more exciting, though, is the fact that there is a new Tea House at the Chinese gardens. The old Rose Garden Tea Room with its traditional-English-tea-turned-buffet-style was already one of my favorite stops in the area, so I couldn't wait to try out the new Tea House.

As it turns out, neither could a lot of other people there that day, so there was a hefty line. But, no worries -- unlike the limited indoor seating of the Rose Garden, the new Tea House simply handed you your tea and left you free to find a seat among the many tables spread out on a large platform overlooking the gardens, so it actually moved fairly quickly.

For reference, I've included a photo of their current menu below.

Tea selection and serving - 3.5/5.0
Not many teas featured here, but some very good picks among them. (And quite an expansion from the usual 2-3 tea selection available at the Rose Garden.) Most of them are, fortunately, loose leaf, and are served by putting the leaves directly on a tea cup and adding hot water. The good news is that they provide hot water refills (it'd be a sin not to, with some of the loose leaf teas they're serving!). The less-good news is that you have to get up from whatever beautiful garden view you've found and walk back to the Tea House in order to get that refill. (And if you go through 5 or 6 cups, as one ought to with, say, their oolong, that makes for a lot of losing your seat. If anyone at Huntington is reading this -- how about some tea pots with hot water to go with the tea service? :) )

And, of course, the disadvantage of serving loose leaf tea directly on the cup is that, if you're not into super-strong/overbrewed tea, you'd better not be into contemplation or slow sipping, either.

We tried both the Jade Spiral Spring Tea (a green tea, with pale green, long thin leaves that made for two good infusions; a very clear taste, though not quite strong enough to punch through the snacks they served), and the Flowing Fragrance Oolong (large, deep green leaves with a strong and incredibly sweet and flowery taste; definitely my favorite of the two, and could easily have made it through more refill brewings than I had the determination to go back to the tea house for).

Overall, for $2.99, a pretty good value.

Food - 2.0/5.0
They pretty much had two options: very greasy, and very greasy vegetarian. Bonus points for having a vegetarian option (not often I find a vegetarian pork bun; looks like they used mushrooms, and actually made for a pretty decent bun), but the what-looked-like-a-dumpling and the what-was-probably-an-egg-roll tasted like they'd made buddies with a whole vat of oil, and while it is possible to brew tea strong enough to cut through anything, this really wasn't worth it. (Or, for that matter, worth $8.59 for the very small portion.)

However, this was their first day, so maybe they'll get the kinks in the recipes (or cooking method) worked out over time.

Atmosphere - 5.0/5.0
Can't beat sitting by a lake within a beautiful garden on a fresh, warm February day (gotta love California weather...).