After the Kohechi: Akagi-goe & Kumano-gawa

I'd sweet-talked (cajoled/bullied) our hotel into picking us up an hour early, playing the pity card about us being cold and wet.  Watarase Onsen was a cluster of hotels, seemingly owned by a single organization.  Daniel was booked into one hotel, myself into another, but due to the low number of guests, we were all consolidated into a third.  So it was that I had to go back out into the still heavy rain in order to use the baths, across another old suspension bridge lit up with shooting stars after dark.  

Dinner was heavy, breakfast even more so.  And as we are driven out to the start of our walk, the sun shines for the first time in a week.  I've tried to walk the Akagi-goe at least four times while I was down here guiding assignments, but the trail crews can't seem to get on top of the typhoon damage from summer 2018.  This time I clamber over the ropes blocking the trail, saying fuck it, I'll deal with whatever comes. 

Which is nothing.  We descend into a narrow valley split by a small stream.  I well remember this as being one of the more attractive parts of the Nakahechi when I walking it 2009.  A large digger rests in the water, and we walk briskly and quietly to the site, expecting to be told off by repair crews.  But no one is around.  We cross a low, temporary bridge made of logs, which adds a nice new feature to the trail.  But we never once have to detour or scramble over anything.  Why is this section still closed?

A nice set of toilets marks the start of the Akagi-goe proper, which climbs stiffly from there.  We're doing the route in the reverse of how it is usually approached, and after a mere 10 minutes or so reach the highest point of the trail.  From here it is a ridge walk, offering near constant views of a breathtaking number of mountains that fold and fold and fold again upon themselves.  The wind is beginning to pick up as we reach first a massive (UNESCO World Heritage) clear-cut, then a crumbling old homestead that had been occupied until about 1970.  Teapots, furniture, and farm equipment still litters the place, and the sight of the graves of at least three children in the family plot out back is a testament to the hard life in the remote country.  

After a final knee-killing descent, we reach Yunomine Onsen.  I have another walk in mind from here, through the hills to Kawayu Onsen, then along the river to the main road where there is a country store and a bus stop.  It takes a few minutes to find this minor trail, and even then we get it wrong.  My GPS drifts to make it appear that we are going right, but what we're scrambling along can't be more than a deer trail.  But I'm enjoying the slippery bushwhack around a waterfall to get to the actual trail, which when looking back toward the source, seems to start where we'd been standing ten minutes before.  

The track is paved and leads through a quiet valley to a small hamlet where we meet proper road.  As we wend down toward Watarase, we pass a house that we presume is half-abandoned, and a few minutes later its apparent resident confirms it, this half-mad homeless type who looks to be squatting there.  

The climb out of Watarase is steep, so we rest a few minutes with the sakura trees and the view.  Kawayu is not long off, quiet today, its riverbed still scarred from the horrendous flooding it suffered in 2018.  The final slog is over concrete, and we finally meet the highway.  

 We're well ahead of our bus, so have our lunch in the bus shelter, out of the wind.  The bus finally sweeps us up, and traverses a meandering route on and off Route 311.  I'm happy for this, since I've never seen these side valleys during my dozen or so visits down here.  Finally we disembark at the Kumano-gawa boat dock, met by a woman in a conical hat and white happi who greets me by name.  

Our booking had taken some doing.  I'd called a week before, to be told that the boat only went with a minimum of three.  Daniel had changed his initial plans so was easy to sway into participating, but when I called the woman again and asked if I could pay two people's fare, thus a total of three, she resisted somewhat.  I thought that I'd try again a day or too later, offering to pay the rate for four (still cheaper than transport back down there), but before I had a chance she called to say that an actual third party had booked and the trip was on.  

The third party is also a Kohechi walker, or should I say runner, as he'd amazingly done our four day journey in two. The bulge of his calves under spandex confirms this.  The conical hats atop all out heads make us look like a box of pencils, as we make our way to the river's edge.  Traditionally pilgrims to Hongu had similarly boarded boats for the ride down to Hayatama Jinja in Shingu.  I'd walked that route last August, but still felt the need to do the journey properly.    

Due to the high winds and the river swollen with rain, the usual 90-minute trip took about an hour.  The happi-clad woman narrated much of the trip, most of them tales of a mystical land, of pilgrims and wandering nuns and hermit monks.  When she fell silent it was a pleasure to see her easy smile.  I'm sure she's done this trip dozens of times, but still seemed to be enjoying herself.  Not hard to do, on this the first fine after a week of bad weather.  I too knew the route well, having done it by pace of shanks mare, and my eyes rarely left the east bank, seeking familiar features. Nearly every boat trip in Japan seems to have a rock formation shaped like an elephant, but this one is called a dolphin.  I instead see a carp.   Near the end, we twice circle Mishima, a small rock cropping where the gods of Kumano gather, and is thus of limits to man.    

We say goodbye on the bank adjacent, which is mere steps from the shrine.  Daniel and I offer a quick prayer, then walk through Shingu's shuttered arcade back toward the station.  I've just missed my train, and have about two hours to kill.  Daniel plans to take a bus back into Kumano and do the high mountain traverse to Nachi the following day, thus completing the triptych.  We buy beers and head toward a small park to kill time, but when he checks the bus schedule along the way, finds one leaving in 10 minutes.  Then he's gone.

I walk over to the park that celebrates Jofuku, known by his native Chinese name as Xu Fu.  This wanderer arrived in Shingu 2200 years ago, seeking immortality.  The Green Shinto blog has a recent series of posts which speculate that Xu Fu was actually the emperor Jimmu, who according to legend was guided by the yatagarasu three-legged crow to the Kumano area, which he then consecrated as sacred.  But I'm not thinking about this as I crack my beer.  I'm thinking about how good it feels to sit with the final rays of the day's sun striking my face, and while immortality may or may not be attainable, it certain feels good not to be in a rush, to have all the time in the world.           


On the turntable:  Garland Jeffreys: "Matador and More"
         

Along the Kohechi IV (Miura-toge & Hatenashi-toge)

For each of the three days on the Kohechi, we'd begin the day with an enormous climb, each day more challenging than the last.  Yamamoto-san drives us to the suspension bridge which will usher us out of town.  The ishitatami stone path begins just the other side, its pitch set at an eye-wincing angle.  As the trail finally levels off, the eyes are in turn treated to the sight of a set of massive cedar trees, their ancient forms twisting ever upward in phantasmagoric shapes.  Where one sees tall trees on ancients trails is an indication of a former settlement, or at least teahouses, protected by the man-made arborial windbreak.   Daniel and I stopped a long while to admire them, and our conversation stays on trees for far up the trail. 

It doesn't take too long before we arrived at Miura Pass, The trail deteriorates rapidly from here, scarred by landslides that adds a bit of excitement to a somewhat uneventful day.  As we have no real views to speak of, we focus on the odd stone statue, the small clearings where teahouses once stood.  

Our pace too is getting faster, and we are back down in the next valley by lunchtime.  A small shrine provides a nice picnic spot, which gives us the energy to trod the nine kilometers of pavement to follow.  This begins with a few pleasant villages, but midway through we come across an immense construction project, where they've graded the entire valley and covered it with concrete and grass.  At the center is a dirt pile of near-mountainous proportions.  When we ask a workman about it, he says that it's a refuse dump of sorts, where debris is brought after landslides and other typhoon damage.  It makes some sense, but not really.

Just beyond the Subaru Hotel we cross another suspension bridge.  This one dances and bounces under our weight.  I'm not great with heights, so stop and wait for Daniel to cross before I continue, trying to make three points of contact where I can.  About 3/4's of the way over, I think, screw it and stride across as quickly as I can.  

Our reward comes with a beer and a foot bath just up the road in the center of Totsukawa Onsen.  Our hotel is around the corner, but it is still not check-in time.  The hotel itself is pleasant and clean if a bit dated, the staff friendly enough, but not as warm as the owners of the inns of the last two nights.  We have come to civilization once again.    

Someone from the inn drives us back to the trailhead in the morning.  We'd wanted an earlier start so as to beat the rain, but they were a bit fussy about the breakfast time.  The driver is about to take us slightly up the hill, but I, ever the purist, ask him to drop us off down at the river.  I'm glad he did, for this initial section is one of the prettiest of the whole Kohechi, with ishitatami climbing at a degree gentle enough that we can admire the wet green after the night's rain, and the mist filling the valley for the rain to come.  

And it does come, though thankfully after we've climbed through the hamlet of Hadenashi.  It is a pleasant little snippet of homes and vegetable plots that clings to the spine of the ridge which peels away toward the roll of dozens of mountains on both sides.  The hamlet's name is almost a synonym of the commonly heard expression sumimasen, it never ends, it never ends. And for awhile, neither does the ascent, and it is apparent why this is the toughest day on the Kohechi.  The rain adds to our misery.  While we'd had light drizzle on and off over the past few days, today it is merciless. I stop at a small Kannon hall to pull on my rain gear.  The weather spurs us to climb more quickly, and before long we reach the pass.  Maps show this route to be a perfect bell curve, and within minutes we're again fighting gravity down the other side, the stonework tricky in the rain.  Along the way we startle no fewer than three huge bullfrogs, one of them taking a near suicide leap out into space.  

We finally reach the road, completely drenched.  I pull out my umbrella for the next stretch, which follows the Kumano-gawa to a michi-no-eki that promises curry rice and a hot bowl of noodles.  Inside is a small exhibit showing the day by day travels of a traditional pilgrim, making a 28-day return journey from Kyoto.

Warm now but still very wet, we return to the tempest, which has lost none of the typhoon-like fury we've experienced all day.  Luckily this is without wind.  We climb again over the next kilometer, to the teahouse that marks the intersecting Nakahechi route.  I've passed this a half dozen times, and never failed to look up the trail we just walked, thinking someday, someday...  But now the Kohechi is fianlly done.  

But we still have a couple of kilometers down to Hongu proper. The trail is more a series of interconnected lakes, waterfalls spilling through the stonework steps on the hill.  We eventually pass that odd housing develop that sits behind Hongu, and a minute later, are praying before the grand shrine itself.        


On the turntable: Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond, "The Complete Storyville Broadcasts"

Along the Kohechi III (Mizugamine & Obako-toge)

As I've made multiple trips to Kōya-san, I try to choose a different temple each time.  Eko-in is still my first go-to choice with clients (though their prices have gone way up over the years). Or Fukuchi-in for those with deeper pockets, A third I won't mention prompted the only review I've ever written on TripAdvisor, and a scathingly negative one at that.  Tonight's temple, Sekisho-in is my seventh, out of the fifty offering accommodation on the mountain, a deliberate choice due to the controversy it stirred up a couple of years ago.  Despite this, I find the staff friendly if somewhat perfunctory, the gardens and grounds lovely, the rooms surprisingly large and comfortable.  

I find Daniel at dinner.  As the Kohechi had always made me a little apprehensive somehow, I casually asked a couple of friends to join me.  All had other commitments, though as Daniel too saw his guiding work fall victim to the coronavirus, he popped up a week ago and said he would come along.  When we meet again at breakfast, we decide to wait out the rain, then set off.

The morning is cold, and the rain returns soon enough, in the form of snow.  The views to the south that I'd admired here while guiding are lost to mist.  After skirting Koya's face we drop steeply into the small hamlet of Otaki, where we have a mid-morning snack in a covered shelter pointed out by a villager of considerable years.  The food gives us the strength the push on up to the Skyline road, quiet for the most part, though every ten minutes or so we're buzzed by a cluster of vehicles, no doubt released by a traffic signal somewhere.  The road takes us in and out of Nara prefecture three or four times in about 15 minutes.  Finally, a slight climb leads us to a forest path and Mizugamine, the high point of the day.  Not far along is shelter, where we have lunch before an unseen sea of sugi trees that I know are out there.  Then the road leads us down to the town of Omata and our lodgings.  

The day has been surprisingly easy, and as we arrive early, we walk another 20 minutes to our inn.  The words "onsen" are barely out of the owners mouth before Daniel and I mount bicycles for the ride over to the baths at Hotel Nosegawa.  Daniel draws the short straw, and is forced to ride a bike the size that an 8th grader would use for his paper route.  It always feels good to ride after a long walk, and it is an enjoyable few kilometers out along a river that shows some previous flood damage, including one tremendous piece of concrete than may have once "coaxed" the river's flow.  

After a quick visit to a small shrine that honors some local gods, we soak awhile, looking out over the river and cherry trees not yet into bloom.  It is still hours to dinner, so we enjoy beer and fried octopus before riding back.  As we are the only guests, we talk through dinner with the owner and his delightfully ancient mother, the flow of conversation dictated by the bad news coming from the TV screen.  

I awake beneath my now dry clothes, hung along a rope like signal flags.  Rain again threatens as we face the quick and steep climb out of the village.  We rest when it levels off at Kayagoya-ato, a beautiful cabin stocked with wood and bedding for the benefit of travelers. Beyond this we climb and climb, up and over the peak of Obako-san, one of the Kansai Hyakumeizan.  Its open summit is supposed to offer the best views of the whole Kohechi, but all we see is white.  The trail down a perpendicular trail is even less inspiring, a veritable mudbog impossible to navigate even with poles. At the base of this slalom course is another hut, stocked bizarrely with ample rolls of toilet paper, which I suppose could be used as pillows if you should overnight here.  

We opt instead for lunch, before heading back into the mist.  The trail is narrow as it hugs the forest wall, moving along big drops and over rickety bridges.  Moss covers all, the ferns thick like tempura.   The mist adds some mystery to a clearing where once stood tea houses, and supposedly even an old hag who used to frighten off travelers.  The ishitatami stonework down proves scarier, gravity conspiring with the unsure footing.  

Once down safely, we again laugh at the early hour, and decide to move along the road to the inn.  We've chosen the wrong bank of the river as a half hour later, we find the entire hillside has given way.  My eyes scout a route across, but any attempt promises to be fatal.  In the end we call Yamamoto-san, who graciously picks us up. After a long quiet afternoon in a small bungalow built adjacent to the main house, we join the Yamamoto family for dinner, our running commentary accompanying the news, until we all fall silent at the tribute to legendary comedian Shimura Ken, who the virus has taken that day.

     
On the turntable:  The Birdland Stars,  "The Birdland Stars On Tour Vol. 2"

Along the Kohechi II (Chōishi-michi)

As I've done all too often with this region lately, I play a staring game with the rain. It blinks first.  The tell-tale drops in the hotel car park cease, and I make my way toward the door, energized and with a full belly.   While most business hotels are of the cookie-cutter variety, I tend to go for Route Inn, partly because the name always reminds me of Luton, which the Pythons got so much comedic mileage from, but more so because they generally have hot baths and an izakaya pub on site.  Oddly, the latter was across the car park rather than attached.  So it was that at dinner last night, I found myself sitting at a counter seat in a pair of rubber room slippers and those loony-bin pajamas that these types of hotels always provide.  In these days of corona, there weren't many other punters besides myself, but I did get a few stares.  From a distance.  

The train takes me a brief way to Kudoyama, an old castle town associated with the Saneda samurai clan. I detour along the town's main street, past a funky little coffee shop that sits at the edge of town, and whose views of the spreading rice fields make me envy the location.  All is quiet at the early hour, as I bisect the low earthen walls with a live album by The Decemberists in my ears. 

Sakura are in full bloom at Jison-in Temple.  I remove my earbuds upon entering, and am about the engage the friendly priest in conversation, but my attention is pulled to all the breasts on display, affixed to the ema prayer boards, as this temple looks after the spiritual needs of women, affiliated as it is with Kobo Daishi's mother.  Women were traditionally forbidden to climb Koya-san, so she reputedly visited her son here nine times a month, hence Kudoyama, "nine times mountain." 

A long staircase takes me past the first of the Chōishi route's 180 stone markers, many going back to the 13th century.  They accompany me up yet another paved path, which meanders up through another orchard. The clouds are beginning to hem in, and before I reach the relative safety of the trees, the rain gets its final say.  Verbose it proves to be, keeping up its chatter for a good hour or so.  

Forms of Koya culture appear now and again, many with good English explanation about the amazing exploits of Kobo Daishi.  And of course, there are ever present stone markers, ever marching out of the mist.  Somewhere around the 150 mark, two trail runners come past.  I hear their voices looming up from behind, and after a quick greeting, they disappear again into cloud.  Not long after arriving at the Ropponsugi clearing, I catch the jingle of a bear bell rising from below.  A college aged guy greets me from beneath an umbrella, a greeting I return, but before he can overtake me I am off again, not wanting to hear that incessant ringing for the next three hours. 

I have my lunch at Futatsu Torii, under the same shelter as yesterday.  I shiver as I eat, and decide to pull on all my rain gear.  Of course it is then that the rain stops for the day.  But even after it lifts, the mist remains.  Things loom out: tall broken trees, massive bullfrogs.  I rewatched Apocalypse Now a few days before, and I'm reminded of those sections near the middle of the film, when things get mysterious and foggy, north of the Do Lung bridge.  Frogs and insects creak just out of sight off trail.    
          
I'm getting close to the top, way ahead of the estimated course time.  This is the advantage I guess to walking in the rain, that you just put your head down and power on.  While I've had absolutely no views as promised by the guide book, I know that there is a shelter ahead, and I need another snack break for the final push.  When I arrive, the picnic table is crowded with a hiking group, all over 60, as usual.  They offer me a place to squeeze in, but as I'm carrying a bit of coronoia, I say thanks and go to sit on the ground. As I begin to lower myself, my hand slips on the damp concrete floor, and I come down hard on my right knee.  Not a good thing as I still have a week of hiking ahead. One of the women drops a handful of chocolate into my outstretched hand, which crawls with virus in my mind's eye.  

I only have an hour left to Koya's main gate.  This section of trail seems to have gotten the brunt of the 2018 typhoon that devastated the mountain's southern flank.  Enormous trees have been toppled, some resting atop the canopies of their younger brothers.  It feels like walking through a mine field.  Then, the trail suddenly and steeply switchbacks upward, and I find myself at the edge of town.  

Stone marker Number One is a little further down the road, and then I'm in town, familiar from many visits.  It looks like rain at any moment, not that it matters, as I've been wet all day.  I'm relieved to find Bon On open, one of my favorite cafes in Japan.  There are only two customers, an Italian researcher busy at his computer, and an older local playing classical guitar in the corner.  I chat with the owner a little, then he joins the music on his cello.  The Italian and I talk softly from our respective tables, and distance.  At a time when it feels like the whole world is shifting, we are already making the necessary adjustments.


On the turntable:  Chet Baker, "Chet"
  

Along the Kohechi I (Koya Kaidō & Mitanizaka)

A man on the train has what I first think is a shinai in a cloth case, but as I step closer I realize that it is a wooden staff.  As we walk away from Myōji Station I ask him where he's going, and he tells me that he's going to take the Chōishi-michi up to Koya.  He smiles as he says this, his eyes bright over his white Van dyke beard, giving him a stereotypical wizened look. I'm a little surprised, as it is just about noon and he's got a good seven hours of climbing ahead.  He'll have a long day.  

My own day was half complete.  It started with a taxi driver taking me to a place he knew, not the place I wanted to go. But in fact it started well before that, back on January 20, when my wife saw something brewing in Wuhan, and talked me into cancelling our mid-April trip to China.  What went next was all my guide work for the spring, followed by the inevitable school closures.   My daughter went to visit granny in Hiroshima for 10 days, and with no work or daughter in town, and my wife in self-isolation down in Singapore, I decided to head for the mountains.

I stepped out of the taxi at Eisan-ji, nestled between the Yoshino river and a low bank of hills.  It all smelt of spring.  In the car park there were a number of kayaks stacked beside a Montbell shop.  This must be a popular stretch of river.   The temple was founded in 719, five hundred years before the adjacent shrine that brought the place favor with the gods.  Both held their age, particularly the hexagon prayer hall at one end of the compound.  I truly love this part of the world. 

I was forced to walk the old road out front that brought me back to the present day for a while, despite it being part of the old Kōya Kaidō, the route that brought pilgrims down from Osaka and the old capital. After far too long on a highway running through the busy town of Gōjō, I finally detoured off to the town's older main street, which kept some faith to an older feudal look, but for being spectacularly draped with powerlines.  I popped back onto the highway again at the far end, and after a quick visit to the Inukaisan Tenhorin-ji (itself draped in the spreading canopy of sakura), I wended my way through a quiet rural stretch before arriving at a small unmanned train station.  I sat on the platform with my simple lunch, until a light drizzle relocated me onto the old wooden benches within.  

The rain is going to be a problem.  I'd been fretting about the weeklong forecast of rain, unfortunately timed to fall between long parades of sun marks.  I'd been tempted to push the trip back a week, but then I'd be away after my daughter was back.  More worryingly, Japan appeared ready to go into lockdown any day.  The latter concern would be a steady companion through the entire eight days I was away, the plans formulating and reformulating every twelve hours.  

I leave the wizened old pilgrim and move over a long bridge that spans the Kii river. I remember crossing a similar span ten years ago, as my ex-wife and I began our long ramble into the Kumano region.   Today the rain begins to increase, but I remain optimistic, refusing an umbrella kindly held offered me by a shopkeeper I pass.  By the time I arrive at an old shrine around the corner, the weather clears. Nyusakado Shrine is the "male" in a pair of shrines on this side of the mountain.  I'll spend the next couple of hours getting to its "female" companion.    This climb begins up a narrow concrete slope, slippery with muck.   The steep hillside is covered with orchards, and along the way I'll pass a number of rock formations, including one long staff atop which another rock perches like a propeller.  As expected, this bizarre Kasa-ishi, along with the nearby Hakotate-ishi, are remnants of Kobo Daishi's own pilgrimage up the 
mountain.

I curse the concrete as I climb.  Who decided it was a good idea to pave mountain paths?  I move along at about half my stride so as not to slip. These little mincing steps are wearing me out.    Though much like as with a headache, it is gone before I realize it. Matō-iwa is just off trail, a stone cube emblazoned with two ancient Buddhas.  I am tempted to sit in its quiet and splendor, but the threat of rain drives me on. I move upward, past stonework suggesting the teahouses that once lined the path.   

Rain falls lightly again just after arriving at the female Niutsuhime Shrine, erected by Kobo Daishi in honor of the female deity of the mountain.  The grounds are quiet, shaded by massive trees and with a tall arched bridge that acts as approach.  Around the side is a quiet grove that has tall stone stele commemorating important shugenja from nearby Ōmine-san, including founder En-no-Gyoja.        

The rain is falling in earnest as I walk over to the old hut that once served as hermitage for Saichō, the founder of the Tendai sect of Buddhism.  Though the hut has been obviously rebuilt, the graves of his wife and daughter just below are most certainly real.  It is a lonely place, and I'll pass another ancient grave as I undergo yet another steep, concrete covered ascent to a pass.

Futatsu-torii is true to its name; the two tall stone gates have been here since 1649, replacing older wooden ones erected by Kobo Daishi 800 years before.  I take a rest in a covered shelter nearly, recharging with chocolate as the clouds close in over the scenery below.  I race on, trying to beat the inevitable rain.  Luckily it is all descent into the adjacent valley.  As I make my way down one of those earthen half-pipe landscapes that define most older mountain routes, I meet the earlier pilgrim from the train, now engarbed in white and striding strongly uphill with his staff.  

I find my trail junction, which drops quickly down a set of steep switchbacks.  Once at the valley floor, I am amazed by a massive wild boar trap.  I've seen many before made of steel, but this one is all thin cedar trucks, open to the air like a corral.  It isn't long before I get to a village, and across the valley, I see a train pulling away from the station.  It'll be an hour until the next one.  The landscape forces me to drop all the way down to the river, then climb steeply to the station.  I'd hate to be a villager here, to do this climb every time.   And I'm hating to be myself at the moment, as the sky completely and definitively opens.  I'm far too close to want to stop to pull out on my rain gear, but the pitch of the path slows me and I'm soon drenched.  Once inside, I sit awhile, my shivering marking cadence until my train pulls out.           


On the turntable:  Horace Silver Trio and Art Blakey, "Sabu"

Sunday Papers: Gaby Bamana

"It is not nature as such that people worship; rather people worship what nature tells us about the sacred.  Nature is transparent and expresses a reality that overwhelms the human mind. People feel that they are and should be connected to this reality, and they create spaces for communication and connection with the sacred." 


On the turntable: Echo & The Bunnymen, "1984-01-17, Sun Plaza Hall, Tokyo"

(untitled)

No rain,

But the clouds are daring you

To make plans.

On the turntable:  24-7 Spyz, "Harder than You"

Stuff from an Old Notebook #1

- Sleeping in the sun is a spiritual experience.

-As I've nearly always been self-employed, I have plenty of time to explore the things that interest me.  I often feel that I am living a child’s life, with a salary.

-It is harder to unlearn than to learn.

-Is food related to language?

-Anger as ultimate expression of Ego; “I’m right, you must be wrong.”

-Assorted Teas / A Sordid Tease

-The Japanese are by nature sentimental, and I find myself quite at home with Japan’s sentimentality.



On the turntable: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, ":  A Night in Tunisia"
 

Stuff from an Old Notebook (Prologue)

Inspired I guess by Chatwin and Kerouac, I've been a carrying around a Moleskine notebook for 16 years or so.  I recently began to go through them, reminiscing as I looked over the entries.  Poems, travel fragments, random thoughts and ideas.  Notes from yoga seminars, Buddhist lectures, martial arts workshops. Addresses and phone numbers, recipes and lists, hand-drawn maps and directions.  Not to mention the names of books and albums, places and films, all presumably recommended by someone I was sitting across from at the time. There was even a signed 'receipt' from an former landlady.  

Although in more recent years I've 'upgraded' to the more convenient voice recorder on my iPhone, the old tattered Moleskines have been a true record of a large part of my life.  I appreciated this nostalgic walk through my own history.  

While a large majority of the entries have already found their way here to this blog, for a number of months I'll jot a few items down, as means of archiving.  Older poems will appear intermittently, beside the new.     


On the turntable:  The Dave Brubeck Quartet,  "At Carnegie Hall"

Sunday Papers: Murakami Haruki

"Memory can give warmth to time."

 On the turntable:  Cal Tjader, "Bamboléate" 

(untitled)

Trash bags lined up 

Along the streets like yellow chicks,

rain beading on their skin

On the turntable:  Enrico Caruso, "Artists of the Century"

Reproductive Structures

Reproductive structure - the parts of a plant involved in its reproduction.

Ume -- foreplay
Sakura--penetration
Full Spring -- orgasm


On the turntable: Marvin Gaye,  "Trouble Man"

 

(untitled)

Old man in a white mask

Covers his mouth

When he coughs.

On the turntable:  Bee Gees, "Mythology"

Sunday papers: Big Juice (& Yuriko Kotani)

"The queue for the bar is like human jazz. It’s unpredictable and hard to access."


On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, "Dead Set"

Shonan Jinja (Singapore)

Thanks to the good folks at Green Shinto for excerpting from my Shonan Jinja piece, which can be found here.
 

On the turntable:Charles Aznavour,  ‎"Duos"

Walking the Kumano Kodo

Thank you to Kyoto Journal for excerpting from my Kumano journals.  Follow the link here.   

On the turntable: The Allman Brothers, "1973.12.31, Cow Palace"

Sunday Papers: Gary Snyder

"English became an international language only by virtue of British and American adventurism. (English is a rich midden-heap of semi-composted vocabularies further confused by the defeat at the hands of the Normans—a genuine creolized tongue that lucked out in becoming the second language to the world.)"


On the turntable: Level 42,  "World Machine"

Maybe

 

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.” 

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”'  

Maybe this virus will lead to some positive outcomes:

 

-Maybe the environment will improve, as the toxic air quality over China has already cleared with the slowing of industrial production;

 

-Maybe animal lives will improve, as China has already banned the consumption of live animals;

 

-Maybe people will reexamine unnecessary travel, as the banning of flights has already led to less fluorocarbons in the atmosphere;

 

-Maybe overall hygiene will improve, as people fearfully scrub and scrub;

 

-Maybe the bumbling Japanese government will be pressured to resign;

 

-Maybe American voters will oust Trump, whose reaction to this crisis will be ham-fisted and disastrous;

 

-Maybe this same lack of American medical preparedness will lead to better health-care overall;

 

-Maybe the growing distrust and unrest within China will lead to large-scale political changes;

 

Maybe.

 

The Groundhogs, "BBC Radio One Live"

 

 

The Light of the South

The first thing I saw when I arrived at the MacRitchie carpark was a group of Falun Gong-sters trying to levitate a tree.  A half-dozen or so were walking clockwise around it in the heel-toe steps of the Bagua practitioner, right arms extended toward the trunk. 

At least this time energy was being projected upward.  On the day of our previous attempt at finding Shonan Jinja, it had poured rain, a dense tropical rain that in the old films spells disaster.  Prudence made us call the whole thing off.  But in the intervening few years, the old lost shrine had haunted us somehow, as if the spirits of the place wouldn't leave us alone. Chris sought out GPS coordinates, I followed bloggers who had either had or had not found the place.   Finally, we both happened to be in Singapore at the same time, and with the weather clear, we laced up our boots. 

I knew Chris from the Japan mountaineering community, and this excursion into dense jungle was a far cry from the rocky spires of Japan's middle reaches.  I joked to Chris that he could lead since I was anxious about cobras, he told me that was fine as he was more concerned with crocodiles.  Damn, I'd forgotten about those. 

MacRitchie Reservoir is one of Singapore's nicest green areas, out of the many that dot this garden-cum-city.  A well-groomed walking path led us around the reservoir's northern reaches, beneath a pleasant canopy that the signs told us was the lair of a vast number of birds as well as mischievous monkeys.  Just a few days after Chinese New Year, the trail was busy with walkers, mostly older couples doing their ablutions before the heat of the day found them.  In our boots and long trousers, we must have looked suspect among the T-shirt and running shorts crowd.

Luckily no one was around when we left the path and stepped into jungle.  It was a lot less dense than I'd expected, with the hint of a trail left behind by previous explorers.  That said, there were a fair number of fallen trees around which we had to navigate, not to mention vines thick with thorns that would have shredded clothing, not to mention skin.  One of the latter was an expressway for commuting ants, and the sight of thousands and thousands of them racing along brought out my inner Rider Haggard. 

As we'd read that some bloggers had needed a handful of visits to find the place, Chris and I had anticipated that we'd be in for some tricky navigation.  But surprisingly the route puzzled us only a few times, and happily both of us were too polite to step up and play alpha male.  We'd instead patiently confer over where our respective GPS routes contradicted one another. 

Finally, we found a power station, its floor having collapsed to form a little lagoon.  The concrete walls appeared to be covered in spiral graffiti, but closer examination had it proved to be mold and water damage.  Odd pieces of concrete spread along the trail led us to the old shrine's chōzubachi water basin. We had arrived. 

It was the Tiger of Malaya, Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who first conceived of Shonan Jinja, to be built in order to commemorate the Japanese soldiers who died in Malaya during the remarkable 70 day dash to take Singapore, hyperbolically called the "Gibraltar of the East" by the British defenders. The design of the shrine was based on Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, but expectations were even greater, as in time it would be second only to Tokyo's Meiji Jingu, the centerpiece for a new city that would arise over the subsequent 30 or 50 years.   

Nearly ten thousand British and Australian POWs from the nearby internment camps of Changi, Sime Road and Adam Park were forced into labor, clearing a large portion of heavy jungle to build not only the shrine complex, but also a lengthy bridge akin to that found at Ise, and a flight of 94-step granite steps that led upward toward the gods.  There was also apparently a Christian Cross adjacent to the shrine, erected for the souls of the Allies killed in the fall of Singapore. History differs on whether the impetus for its construction came from a Japanese Colonel, or from the POWs themselves who balked at the building of the Japanese shrine unless they were allowed to construct their own memorial as well.  In any event, Shonan Jinja had a grand opening nine months later, on 15 February 1943, a year after the fall of Singapore.

The water basin was the only intact part of the shrine.  A trio of stone "doughnuts" were at each corner, indicating that a small structure had been built to provide shade for those who purified themselves before the climb to the honden further up the adjacent stone stairs.  These we found covered in vines and debris, though the surrounding network of roots had yet to displace the massive set of stone work that supported this upper level.  We moved along the jungle here, but found no trace of the network of buildings that had stood here.  Remarkable, since they had once covered an area of 1.9 square kilometers.      

There is some debate about who destroyed the shrine upon the Japanese surrender, either the British in a frenzy of revenge for the brutalities out at the POW camps, or the Japanese themselves as a means of preventing the allies from doing just that sort of desecration.  What is certain was that the locals would have made off with the scattered materials as they attempted to rebuild their kampong communities after the war.   Much later, even after those same kampong were replaced by modern Singapore's trademark HBD flats, the ruins of Shonan Jinja were declared a historic site by the National Heritage Board, though nothing has been done with them in the eighteen years since.   

Today, all that was left was the tangle of trees, a far cry from the typical cypress and camphor that tower over shrines on the Japanese mainland.  We made our way past the chōzubachi again to descend the steps down to the water.  A long sandō causeway had once led to the low wooden bridge.  We followed a concrete drainage awhile, but never did find any remnants of the old sandō (which later Googling revealed to have been to our left).  We bashed through jungle to get to the edge of the reservoir, looking for the remnants of the old bridge, namely the support posts that poked their heads above water in the photographs I'd seen online.  The posts proved elusive, as the most recent photos were a decade old, and it was high tide anyway.  Admittedly, we didn't look too long, as my mind was ever on crocs, Chris graciously letting me advance to draw them out.  

We retraced our steps out, the difference in light now tricking us into a few wrong turns.  When we were within ten meters or so of the park's proper walking trails, we could hear the voices of other walkers, one group going suddenly quiet as they heard us bashing about.  Chris joked that we'd now get really lost, and he proved prescient.  I was leery of the lateral path we took, over ground better suited to snakes.  Then we were through.

I for one was a sopping mess, the high humidity on the return not only soaking my clothes, but causing the sole of one of my relatively new shoes to peel away like a proverbial banana.  And sure enough, the monkeys then began to appear.   Thankfully my shoe had waited until we were out of the actual jungle to do so. I tied the flapping sole to the upper, which caused me a rolling gait that drew stares, coupled as it was with the rest of our admittedly disheveled state. And we pressed on, into the rising heat brought about by the omnipresent glare of the light of the south.  

(Chris's own take on the day provides an even greater look into the history of the shrine, accompanied by a series of historical photographs. )


On the turntable: Hoagy Carmichael, "The Jazz Craftsman "

Sunday Papers: Woody Allen

"Art is like the intellectual's Catholicism, it's the promise of an afterlife, but of course, it's fake -- you're only doing it because you want to do it."  


On the turntable: Depeche Mode, "Music for the Masses"

Imbibling Bibliophile #99

  

Vertical by Rex Pickett

Buckwild Stainless-Aged Farmhouse Ale, Oxbow Brewing Co.

On the turntable:  Doobie Brothers:  Stampede 

(untitled)

Forgotten warriors,
Failed to heed eternal lessons
Etched in stone.

On the turntable:  Cocteau Twins, "Four Calendar Cafe"

The Wistful Bibliophilic Imbiber

Back in university, I quickly grew to love the works of Hemingway, for the clarity of his style, and the no nonsense nature of his derring-do.

But now rereading them 30 years later, especially his later novels, I like the nostalgic voice of middle-age, reflecting back with fresh perspective on those realized dreams of youth. 

Particularly with ‘A Movable Feast,’ reading it at 20 got me dreaming of the potentialities of a life in Paris, on being a young man there. But reading it again at 50, I dreamt of what I did instead.


On the turntable:  Lee Ritenour & Larry Carleton, "Larry & Lee"

Sunday Papers: Don DeLillo

"To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don’t cling to you the way they do back home. You’re able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity. You’re expected to be stupid. The entire mechanism of the host country is geared to travelers acting stupidly. You walk around dazed, squinting into fold-out maps. You don’t know how to talk to people, how to get anywhere, what the money means, what time it is, what to eat or how to eat it. Being stupid is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence. Together with thousands, you are granted immunities and broad freedoms. You are an army of fools, wearing bright polyesters, riding camels, taking pictures of each other, haggard, dysenteric, thirsty. There is nothing to think about but the next shapeless event."   -- The Names

On the turntable: The Flying Burrito Brothers, "The Flying Burrito Brothers"

Imbibling Bibliophile #98

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Red Rooster Tropic Ale, Palau Brewing Company

On the turntable:  Grateful Dead,  "Postcards of the Hanging" 

 

Sunday Papers: Craig Mod

"Attention is a muscle. It must be exercised."

On the turntable: The Cure, "Three Imaginary Boys"

The Bad, the Good, and the Bubbly

The final installment of the Deep Kyoto streets series...

http://www.deepkyoto.com/three-arcades-the-bad-the-good-and-the-bubbly/?fbclid=IwAR0UWQarOQNuYzHrJVoojz2OnApO0DdRMav1d03Bbi0bHrp3N94ZlfUsD-s


On the turntable:  Black Lips, "Let it Bloom"
On the nighttable:  "Singapore Noir" (Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, ed.)