PHOTOS: Yakushima, and new photo system

To save myself a bit of time and streamline my photo albums, I'm changing the way I upload photos to this blog. I won't be posting photos directly in the blog anymore, but pasting a link to the Picasa web album containing the photos. Any photo post will have "PHOTOS" in the subject, as well as a photo tag. Captions are under each individual photo in the album!

So without further ado, here is my first Picasa web album link.

Yakushima, November 2010

Taiwan, Day Four

If you go to Alishan, one of the things you HAVE to do (apparently) is see the sunrise. I don't think I've ever gotten up specifically to watch the sunrise. It was cold and we were already tired from 5 hours of being on the bus in strong air conditioning followed by a 20 degree temperature drop and an hour of hiking through the damp forest. But we decided that since we were there, we may as well haul our butts out of bed at the ungodly hour of 3am (my 2nd time waking in that hour in one week, how warrior-tastic of me!) and catching the narrow-gauge railroad up to the summit. There were only two trains that would get us there before the sunrise (otherwise it was an hour and a half hike UP), so we got there early to get our tickets.

This picture shows how lovely we are at 3am, and how very joyous we are to be awake and on a stuffy train full of people eating smelly food.

Chushan station, from which we walked another 10 minutes straight up to get to a good viewing location.

Everyone else stayed on the first level, mostly, but we headed to the second, and then a lady running the lone food shop there told us we could climb over this wooden barricade to a "do not enter" area further up (apparently the rocks were eroding away there, uhhh...). I was skeptical, but Joe was fearless and we ended up waaaaay higher up than anyone else, with a fantastic and unobstructed view, which we shared with only two other foreigners.

Being super huge nerds who went through the Columbia Core Curriculum, Joe and I marveled at the "rosy-fingered dawn."

As it got lighter, we could see a bit of Alishan's famous "Sea of Clouds" in the distance- mountains rising out of a layer of clouds. Really lovely!

Day break approaches.

More of the "Sea of Clouds" on the other side of the mountain.

Oooooooooh. I may have to make this my computer desktop wallpaper.

Another view of the Sea.

The sun finally rose above the mountains, which wasn't as breathtaking as watching the dawn emerge (mostly because we couldn't get good photos or look directly at the sun, of course, duh). In fact it was a bit anticlimactic, haha.

The other side was mighty pretty too though.

We decided to hike down the mountain (about 30 min.) instead of packing onto the train with everyone else. The train passed us about halfway down, but it was indeed stuffed to the gills. so we made the right decision.

Since the bus had taken so long (though it was really cheap), we decided to ride in style back to Taipei via the Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR), which is just like the bullet train in Japan. The super smooth ride cut our travel time in half, and we were able to get a glimpse of some of the mid-sized cities along the way.

When we got back to Taipai I returned my stuff to the hostel and we went to relax in the teahouse of the National Museum of History.

It overlooked the Botanical Gardens, though it was too HOT to explore them. We stayed safely in the AC.

Mmm. Cashews and pineapple cakes and my own little bowl of jasmine tea.

We were there for at least two hours. Joe studied, I read, we chatted, and I think I drank about 20 cups of tea.

It was a somewhat odd but interesting museum.

Then we went to Sogo (I think?), a Japanese-style department store complete with a Japanese garden and teahouse indoors on the restaurant floor.

Teahouse.

And garden. Inside a department store. Oh, Asia.

Farming Part 2 and Kumamoto City

Ok let's continue rolling with my adventure in Kumamoto. First some more pictures of the Aso area, and then on to Kumamoto City!

Why, don't you look lovely on this fine morning.

The smoke to the bottom is probably someone burning brush/garbage, but the smoke coming from the mountain is actually a heat vent of the volcano :P Yup, Aso is a sleeping giant.

The weather takes a turn for the ominous and angsty.

Experienced Mother Nature's wrath first hand that day, as some wild winds snatched up the plastic sheeting we had spent hours laying over the pepper plant beds. Had to be re-tamped down, and oh, the mud was epic.

View from the farm. No more work today!

The next day, back to top-notch gorgeousness.

The fifth of May is known as Childrens' Day, on which these carp banners are raised for each child in a family.

OMG ASO IS SO LOVELY!

Show off.

The family's small field of organic wheat, and in the back are the pepper plant rows we so painstakingly sheeted with plastic.

I just like how wheat looks.

Before I left, the grandmother taught me how to make mizuyokan, which is the easiest dessert ever. Five ingredients, no lies! Water, tenkan (a low, low calorie seaweed that turns gelatinous when boiled), sugar (lots, unfortunately), a dash of rice flour, and powdered green tea.

Kumamoto City, on the Ariake Sea, in Kumamoto Prefecture (straight south from Fukuoka). It's most famous landmark is Kumamoto Castle, one of the top four most famous/beautiful castles in Japan (along with Nagoya, Himeji, and Osaka castles).

Perhaps the world's most stunted, adorable city bus.

Castle moats: built for protection, or fitness?

Thar she blows!

Looking out from the top of the castle, towards the Mount Aso region in the distance.

I believe this turret is many hundreds of years old, and its architecture is particularly nice.

There were guys dressed up like warriors and guards around the grounds who you could take pictures with, but I was too shy to ask someone to take my picture with them since I was by myself. Perhaps if the fam comes to visit we can pop down to Kumamoto Castle and pose with the guard guys!

Just try and penetrate THAT.

Shochu, distilled liquor for which most of Kyushu is famous. I'm not terribly fond of it, but I drank this brand (a rice shochu, or komejochu) with the farm family at our BBQ and it was actually quite good. The other two most common kinds of shochu are barley (mugijochu) and sweet potato (imojochu).

Kumamoto Prefecture is also famous for its basashi, or raw horse meat. I didn't eat it while I was there, but I hear you can't get better than in Kumamoto. Take some home to your family!

Horse tongue.

Dried horse meat.

Ciao, beautiful!

I just couldn't tear my eyes away...

But now I have to go back to Fukuoka!

Golden Week Farming Adventure in Kumamoto (Part One)

Every year in Japan during the first week of May, there is a string of three national holidays stuck to a weekend that creates the five-day long public holiday known as Golden Week. Most of my friends took the previous Friday off, as well as the following Thursday and Friday, to make a 10-day long holiday. Some went to Thailand, others went to Laos or the Philippines. I had to work that Sunday and Monday for the parade, so I didn't get to take that luxuriously long vacation. But I did have plenty of holiday saved up, so come that Tuesday I hopped on a highway bus from Fukuoka to Kumamoto to do a week-long farm stay in the shadow of Mount Aso. This mountain is pretty significant to the island of Kyushu, as it erupted terrifically several times in the last gajillion years and basically shaped the island as it is now. The Mount Aso region is one of, if not THE biggest calderas in the world. What is a caldera you might ask? Well let me tell you, it is NOT the crater of an erupted volcano filled with acid blue noxious liquid. It is the ENTIRE remainder of a volcano that, when it erupted, nearly destroyed itself. So there's Mount Aso, a mountain with five main peaks, the valley of the caldera that encircles the mountain, and the outer mountains that encircle the valley. Basically, before it erupted, Mount Aso was a single gigantic super volcano more than 25 kilometers in diameter, and the outer mountains are the remainder of the base of the original volcano, before it essentially imploded. Ok, so I'm not too keen on the science, but in any case, it's pretty damn impressive. This was also my first trip to Kumamoto, the nearby prefecture south of Fukuoka that is famous for its raw horse meat and this beautiful mountain area!First glimpse of the mountain. My host's live in Minami-aso-mura, which means "Southern Aso Village."

Modern homes in the countryside.
Looking up towards the outer mountains. The big sign is for a lovely hotspring that I most definitely partook of later during my stay.
The first day of my stay I didn't really farm much, but helped the women of the family make shojin ryori, which is vegetarian temple food. Turns out the grandfather is a temple priest of sorts, and the family runs a small local temple.... right next to their house. This is the youngest granddaughter Sakura-chan, who was quite adorable, if not incredibly snotty from a cold.
Tea and tea-flavored mizuyokan, a simple desert made with sugar and gelatinous seaweed.
It was a pretty old house. By the way, this isn't the one I stayed in. This was my host person's parents house. Cool old stove with shiitake mushrooms drying overhead.
Japanese people don't live with much space but they sure do pack a lot of crap into that space.
Making this fabulously delicious healthy dish with tofu, tons of ground sesame, and spinach. You have to stir it like crazy. I wasn't doing a good enough job so Sakura-chan's mom took over.
Yummmm.
View from the family temple.
mizuyokan setting in cold water
Homemade chunky miso in a huge plastic bag. People who live in the country are serious about fresh, handmade foods.
The setup was kind of complicated. I think this was for a family who was having a remembrance ceremony of sorts.
Everything had to be meticulously placed into the dishes. You can't get any on the sides of the bowls and plates. I have got some mad chopstick skillz.
The drying shiitake yom yom.
Good morning, beautiful. View from my window :)
Adorable post office.
View from the greenhouses.
The crappy family temple. Sorry, but this is the crappiest temple I've ever seen in Japan.
Their house was pretty old and pieced together. There were some very questionable soft spots in the flooring, ewwww.
Cute garden.
Rain today.
And loads of fog and atmospheric clouds, ooh.
Today we did no farming, but ran errands like taking Megumi (or Megu-chan as we called her) to her doctor's appointment, picking up stuff for our BBQ, etc. Megu-chan is three, the youngest of four siblings, and incredibly cheeky. But we got along swimmingly.
Children in Japan often do not wear seat belts. It's quite terrifying.
I'm proud of this shot. Windmills on the way out of the valley, heading towards Kumamoto City.
Of course, she wouldn't leave unless her dad bought it for her.
Then they took me up the mountain!!! The rain cleared and it was a glorious day! That's looking towards Kumamoto and the Ariake Sea, across which is part of Nagasaki Prefecture. Kyushu rules, dudes.
As you can see, the caldera is BIG. That's looking across the northern part of the valley.
The Komezuka, meaning "Rice Hill," which is a beautiful, naturally formed hill. Yes, that adorable indentation is 100% natural! No nip/tucking, all Mother Nature.
The craterrrrr! We couldn't go to peer inside because the noxious gases were blowing in a dangerous direction. Apparently this happens all the time but I was pretty bummed. Wanted to see into the heart of the volcano!
Flatlands, on top of the mountain (five peaks, remember? not just one...).
On the road (still on top of the mountain).
Beautiful day for mountain adventuring.
Mount Aso is known for its dairy cows and a special kind of cow known as aka ushi ("red cow") that has less marbled fat than Japanese cows typically do, but is very tender. We had some at the BBQ that night. Absolutely delish. This is where some of them graze. ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN.
Yummm, I mean, moooo.
Again, looking west over the mountaintop pastureland towards Kumamoto City.
It was beautifully verdant. Springtime in Japan!
More lovely green and cows.
Those mountains in the distance are the southern outer mountains, near where my host family lives.
And there she is, Minami-aso-mura!! Gorgeous valley hamlet village town thing We came down the mountain to lots of rice paddies.
So quaint, so lovely.
In addition to running an internet business and his family's pepper farm, my host dude runs this tiny tea, baked goods, ice cream, coffee, etc. shop in the Minami-aso-mura tourism center.
Specially imported Sri Lankan tea. I bought some for my Kyoto host dad, of course.
Baked goods made with flour ground from their own organically grown wheat. Rad!
This place was funny. We picked up some meat here for our BBQ. The sign says "No high quality meat sold here." What they mean is the specialize in horumon, which is cow offal. It is particularly popular in Kyushu, and Fukuoka is famous for its offal hotpot known as motsunabe. Interesting Japanese lesson: a lot of people are confused about the word horumon because it sounds like how the Japanese say the word hormone, which is horumo~n. But horumon the offal version comes from the Osaka dialect words horu mono which means for "thrown out thing," since offal is often thrown out instead of consumed in other parts of Japan. Horu is a verb that is only used in the Osaka region, hence the confusion. Yay! By the way, if you get "good quality offal" (which this place actually does sell), it can be quite tasty.
A wooly worm, known as a "bear bug" in Japanese. Cute but apparently not pleasant if you touch them.
Can't wrap up a fun and relaxing day without a trip to the hotspring prior to a BBQ!
Sunset over the rice paddies, one of my National Geographic shots.
We also got pigs' feet. They are mostly tender fat, the collagen stuff that Japanese women are mad for.
My pig's foot.
It was ok, not offensive really, just not something I would go nuts over. It was also so hot that it was nearly impossible to hold. What weird thing will I eat next?
Japanese kitchen. Organized chaos? No, just chaos. More to come!