jules' pics

yum yum raw fishy

2012-01-30T17:09:00.000+09:00

All week we eay the inventions of the canteen at work, and, healthy though it may be, by the weekend we are bored of cold bland food and soggy rice, so we eat foreign-style. There is, however, one Japanese restaurant in Kamakura which we are allowed to frequent on ocassion. Called Bowls, it serves bowls of rice with stuff on. The stuff is somewhat novel, sometimes with a Korean or maybe Californian twist. Here's their raw tuna with exotic sesame seed dressing and peculiar foreign-style lettuce-stuff! Doesn't it look delicious!?

I saw three ships

2012-01-26T13:19:00.000+09:00

It seems that every New Year's Day, just after dawn, three yachts launch and go sailing by at Kamakura beach. It is a curious thing.Not a very up to the minute picktur, but I tend to build up a backlog of pictures I like that I haven't got around to blogging. Meanwhile, last weekend was the Wimmin's Conference. I took lots of photos, and they'll go online, but visible only to the other Wimmin. What happens at Wimmin's Conference stays at Wimmin's Conference... ;-)

pink and concrete

2012-01-20T10:00:00.000+09:00

Where there is so much concrete that the camellia can't take root, pink bicycles are grown instead.

Monday morning in Kamakura

2012-01-19T10:00:00.000+09:00

At Kosokuji. Greens and browns replace the reds and blues of Yokohama.

But the camellia are still pink!In the interests of balance, I should point out that while there is the occasional bit of stone and wood, there is still an awful lot of concrete in Kamakura. For some reason the Japanese like to coat every possible surface with the stuff.

Sunday morning in Yokohama

2012-01-17T21:29:00.001+09:00

The posh shops aren't open yet so the streets are rather quiet,which allows a crow to enjoy its breakfast in peace.Meanwhile, some dodgy manual handling is going on down a narrow staircase at the back of a building.Secure behind blue bars, the cat glares out territorialy.The camellia continue to flower pinkly.

Trees

2012-01-15T16:46:00.002+09:00

Earlier this month we climbed a small mountain called Hinode (which means sunrise). As it is a small mountain, most of the views are of, or through, trees. The tall straight trees are the Japanese cedars which will make people in Tokyo sneeze when they release their pollen in a couple of months time.But this huge leaf is not from a Japanese cedar...And some sides of the hill host a more natural forest.It was a clear day and Tokyo could clearly be seen from the top. Can you see the new tallest structure in Tokyo - The Sky Tree? It is actually more similar in height to Hinode itself than to a real tree! Some of the real trees were horizontal.And here is the ever faithful pack pony.

Dragons

2012-01-09T19:24:00.000+09:00

While last year was year of scary monster bunnies, we are now safely in the year of the cuddly dragon. The timber merchant celebrates in the usual fashion.All the other years have non-imaginary animals, which seems a bit odd to me.

BIF

2012-01-06T17:02:00.001+09:00

Having practically nailed a "BIF", which is internet photography speak for "Bird In Flight" (here on flickr and third photo down on Chrstmas Day post), I was emboldened to attempt the other sort of BIF - Boy In Flight.

The bigger boys went first, As the boys got smaller and smaller I was sure one was going to get wet, but even the tiniest one flew all the way across.
And here is a group of young adults gazing up at the flying boys, perhaps remembering the days when they too could fly...
BTW the "trick" for either kind of BIF, if you are as bad a photographer as me, is to get them flying roughly towards you, and use a camera with fast autofocus to do the rest.

2011

2012-01-05T14:07:00.001+09:00

2011, a set on Flickr.

That's it. I'm stuck. 24 photos for 2011.

The idea was to get down to 12, but the 24 seem to me to better tell the story of the remarkable year that was 2011. It certainly was the most interesting year of my life so far. The photos are presented in chronological order and weirdly there are none in the 24 that predate the apocalypse in March, the first being taken 2 days later.

Comments welcome!

New Year sunrise

2012-01-02T19:27:00.000+09:00

What everyone at the beach was waiting for. Due to some cloud, the sun did not appear until a good 15 minutes after sunrise, but people didn't start celebrating until they saw the sun. So I wonder what happens on a fully cloudy morning. Perhaps it has never happened in living memory! Pondering living memory, we had a large (magnitude 7) earthquake yesterday, off the south coast from us. The big ones last year were north and east of here. Hmmmm... On our road the shaking was not sufficient to knock James off his unicycle, but it did go on for quite a while. I will be looking out to see how it is explained in GRL. I suppose the advantage of apocalypses is an in increase in the number of Japanese authors getting published in high impact publications, which must surely improve the national papers-per-Yen factor.

2012-01-01T17:05:00.001+09:00

[First sunrise of 2012, Kamakura Beach]

2011-12-31T19:52:00.000+09:00

Historic Kamakura dates from the 12th and 13th centuries, so most tourists probably don't realise quite how much things change. Here's a shiny new copper roof on one of the buildings in Hachimangu. In just a few months it will start to become dull, brown and then in a few years it will turn dusty green.

Happy 42nd Birthday to me!

2011-12-29T18:56:00.001+09:00

It seems to me there is a place in the world for "trick(s) to hide the decline"... especially when it comes to the ravages of age:[Photo taken by James on 27th December 2011, in Kamakura St.Arbucks]

2011-12-28T11:40:00.000+09:00

I took 4 photos in Kaizoji which I thought were OK. I asked James which one was the worst, and he picked the one that I thought was the best. Then he said which one he thought was best, and it was the one I thought was worst. So here are both of them.

As for Christmas, and my birthday, which was yesterday, on which Steve Bloom wanted an update there were no gold Nikon boxes at all under the tree! Instead, yesterday I got to go to fabric town in Tokyo to buy yardage for making clothes for James!! Why has James has come over all austerity measures? You'd think he'd be feeling happy and generous what with having the most downloaded paper in GRL this week. It is a bit odd though. I wouldn't have thought that "On the observational assessment of climate model performance", was an obvious Christmas number one title. I see he has already written a post to brag about it! Tsk - and to think he's the one who teases people for checking their H-index on a weekly basis.

2011-12-26T22:30:00.001+09:00

Entrance to Hachimangu. In a week's time it will be a sea of people. I wonder how the pigeons feel about it.

Merry Berry Christmas

2011-12-25T12:05:00.000+09:00

The leaves were all injured by a big typhoon this year, but I gave it my best shot.
And for those who prefer red and green...There seems to be something being cooked in the oven. The pigeons got away......but the ducks are looking plump.

2011-12-22T16:50:00.002+09:00

[Kenchoji, Kamakura]

Which continent?

2011-12-21T10:00:00.000+09:00

Another of jules' brain teasers.One of these cappuccinos was made in Kamakura and the other in San Francisco. Which is which?And which one tasted the best?

Gary Dankos

2011-12-20T14:07:00.000+09:00

After yesterday's brief diversion to the present, I'm diving back to San Francisco to share 3 silly pictures from San Francisco's best restaurant (says the internets).

Weird plates...

Poor Pigeon...

Poor Lobster...I thought in such a posh restaurant it wouldn't do to carry the SLR, so only took my tiny Sony. Shouldn't have worried - the woman on the table next to us had a huge Canon that fired sparks into the air. She was even worse than me, and photographed every little bit of food served, as well as taking romantic pictures of the couple she was with. Mind you, I think it was also her living...

2011-12-19T05:00:00.000+09:00

James' birthday present must be just about the cutest mid-life crises purchase ever. Luckily with the seat right down it fits me too. It is brilliant fun!

[Top photo taken in Kamakura on Sunday. The momiji (maple leaves) may be rubbish this year but the camellia are startlingly good. Although they flower all winter and so provide some welcome colour, usually they are sparse and boring. This year they are incredibly vibrant and abundant.]

San Franciscan kohi

2011-12-16T11:37:00.000+09:00

Kohi is Japanese for coffee. It's always a surprise that coffee in the USA is such appalling hogwash. Afterall, wasn't it the USA that invented Starbucks? Now obviously, a Starbucks capuccino isn't the same drink as an Italian capuccino, but they aren't so bad. In fact they are quite nice. At least in Japan. But in the USA even Starbucks seem a bit like...hogwash.

So we went to some effort to find a renowned cafe in which to drink coffee in San Francisco. There is one such place near the Moscone Center, called Blue Bottle. You have to queue for 30 minutes in the cold while the inefficient staff bumble around. Two Japanese could do the job of the six or so staff in a fraction of the time. Then you have to wait for some time while they create your coffee. And then you have to drink it quite fast, before it gets cold in the draughty cafe. But I suppose its as reasonable a ritual as tea ceremony...

The odd thing was that the Blue Bottle's 2 speciality coffees were imported from Japan. Not the beans, of course, but the coffee processes. This is surprising because Japan hasn't really had coffee for very long. And I assume they got it from America. Now it seems they've reinvented it and are selling it back.

We now realise that the rather mild but expensive coffee we get in a little cafe in Kita Kamakura is probably siphon coffee.

This is how you make siphon coffee in San Francisco:

In Kamakura you stick the flask over what looks like a Bunsen burner.
The other sort of coffee (which we haven't ever seen in Japan) is "Nel" coffee, which seems to be a long-winded extension of the convenience drip coffee. We didn't have time to try this one.

And here's the stupendous preparation - see the stopclock and weighing scales?

More importantly than any of that, here below you can clearly see the effects of siphon coffee on a jetlagged James.

1. Feeling quite sleepy before drinking
2. Enjoying the flavors (sic)
3. Post-kohi buzz

Hogwash does not have the same effect...because it is hogwash.

San Francisco buildings and transport

2011-12-15T15:58:00.000+09:00

The highlight of the week - hill running at dawn. This was the view from the top of Powell Street.

A pier off (of) the Embarcadero.

A not closed down bookshop. Having to queue for 10 minutes to pay while the person in front had credit cards rejected was a fun experience you don't get on Amazon.

A street with buildings and cars.

Market Street with buildings and cars and trams.

It's not the camera...

2011-12-12T21:05:00.000+09:00

...it's the lens.

Recently my victims have been complaining about the size of my camera. I thought this may be because cameras are shrinking, but whatever the reason, a frightened victim does not make for good pictures. At the AGU I tried an experiment and took 3 little prime lenses along with my "enormous" DSLR camera body. Not a single one of my victims flinched, most didn't notice they were being photographed, but some of them actually smiled!

Harry Elderfield being Keynotey. Harry has a calm soothing voice, the room was dark and it was Monday morning, but I read later on some blog that he gave a good talk. Actually I only slept through the review part of his talk, and woke up for the newer work part of his talk, which was interesting.

Americans "like comparing Apples and Oranges", but I find this phrase extremely irritating. At least Mark Boslough knows which he prefers.

Donald Lucas explains his poster to 2 interested people. This is atypical. AGU poster sessions are mostly crap.

A geologist...I suppose. They all have beards don't they? He reads his newspaper under the table like it was shameful, because he is the only person in the room without an electronic gizmo in front of him.

At beer o'clock on the 3rd floor of Moscone West, the light gets nice. I don't know any of these people, but it was apparent that most of them also prefer Apples.

She looks a bit dubious about his dodgy results.

Behind her is the queue for the beer!

She's got no beer so I suppose that's gin in her flask. At least it matches her Apple.

A real scientific discussion finishes with a smile.

Andy Ridgwell, the one person at the AGU worth photographing... but he can be quite elusive. Still, nice of him to pick a t-shirt to match his eyes. The T-shirt says "Are your cats old enough to learn about Jesus?"

"unusual landing"

2011-12-11T19:15:00.001+09:00

"unusual landing", originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Actually it was an unusual takeoff too, which was, I suppose, the first tyre popping, and the second one was on landing. It's a pity - we had wanted to attend a fun event in Yokohama this evening - the aeroplanes normally land on time or early at Narita, and it takes 10mins to get through the airport (for a Japanese resident with no checked baggage). But today we missed our train as we had to sit on the runway for an hour (so that if we caught fire we wouldn't take the terminal with us?) and then the aeroplane was towed slowly to the gate.

Greenwash

2011-12-09T15:15:00.001+09:00

Fortunately, the recyclable beer cups entirely offset the carbon emissions of everyone's travel to the AGU making it a truly environmentally friendly conference. Sarcasm aside, I think they should allow people to pull a Pielke, and give their talks by Skype.

AGU Day 3

2011-12-08T11:23:00.001+09:00

At 15:30 beer is served at the AGU, inhibitions are overcome and even us scientists become kind of chatty. After all, there would really be no point at all in gathering all those air miles if we never actually spoke to each other.

Quaffing with Ben Booth.

Kneeling humbly at the feet of Mike Mann.

Annan-Schmittner ~~face-off~~ sharing a joke about skeptics or some such frivolity.

AGU Day 2

2011-12-07T14:45:00.001+09:00

The day was as sunny as hoped.As James already mentioned, we sprinted round the Embarcadero for a morning pastry, and then got a bus back to the hotel. In the peace and quiet of lunchtime we toured Tuesday's posters, on regional climate, tsunamis, and bit of paleo. My favourite poster was one on using Twitter to chart climate change expressed in terms of the location of armadillos. Second favourite was a study which analysed whether the climate change people thought they had experienced was consistent with actually observed trends. The answer seemed to be on the whole yes, but sometimes no.

Meanwhile, I am getting quite concerned about the San Franciscans' want of taste. Who would paint their house a color (sic) that clashes with the sky?!And then there was this in the window of the supposedly top notch bakery... I read Hello Kitty Hell for a few years but gave up recently, finally overwhelmed by the horrors it reports.

AGU Day 1

2011-12-06T13:19:00.000+09:00

The day began with a chemistry experiment...on thin films and rainbows...

Apparently this is called siphon coffee. It was nice but the music was a bit dystopian, which probably wasn't good for the jet lag.The rest of the day was much as expected and involved science and stuff. The "stuff" being the highly entertaining late afternoon philosophy session.

Can't find any must-see talks to go to tomorrow, so hoping for another sunny morning...and a walk round the posters in the afternoon.

Political Correctness Gone Mad

2011-12-05T10:39:00.001+09:00

Many San Franciscans have a Portuguese water dog of just the right age. Bet they're feeling silly now it's not cool to like Obama anymore.
[beach - on the west side of San Francisco]

Sadly, for the rest of the week we must once again sit in windowless rooms and listen to geeks like us present interesting science badly.

Health and Safety

2011-12-01T20:28:00.001+09:00

Today we had health and safety origami with advanced knotting. Actually it was the most interesting and involving CPR/first aid/safety thingie I have attended. When we arrived in Japan a decade ago, I don't think the phrase health and safety had been invented yet, but there seems to be a bit of pressure towards it now, especially from the boat people of JAMSTEC (boats being such excellent places for losing body parts if you don't know what you are doing).

Let's pink

2011-11-29T15:21:00.001+09:00

In case anyone was wondering who on earth buys those brightly coloured SLRs... young women are powerful consumers in Japan...

"The real world is the one on the back of my camera"

[Hachimangu, Kamakura, Japan]

Vitamin C overdose

2011-11-28T12:49:00.001+09:00

I suppose it might be the same in all those exotic countries in which citrus grow easily, but I find it odd that Japanese people don't eat the fruits of their own trees. Instead, like in the photo, the fruits remain on the garden trees as decoration all winter long. A British person did once tell me that he walked the lanes and successfully gained access to his neighbours' trees in order to make marmalade. Japanese people do eat a lot of citrus at this time of year. There are many different varieties of delicious satsumary things available, and a family may have a big boxful to work on during the New Year holiday. I'm not sure if what my Japanese friend told me can really be true - that children sometimes turn orange from eating too many!? I also don't know why the Japanese do not grow grapefruit - they are available but imported from the USA. The grapefruity thing in the picture is probably a yuzu, which is generally smaller and sweeter and less juicy than grapefruit. The tree was growing in someone's garden in Kamakura, with the boughs overhanging the road. I could have picked it if I was James' height.

Spot the difference

2011-11-20T21:21:00.001+09:00

For those who found the last puzzle too difficult...

Spot the odd one out.

2011-11-18T13:48:00.000+09:00

Unless I have got my birds all mixed up, andrewt will get this in a trice.
Photos made posisble by Lan's lovely Nikon (now sadly returned to him). Great crow cam...

Affording the new Nikon

2011-11-16T14:00:00.000+09:00

I have a plan!Having seen that these Rhine horizontals recently fetched more than 4 million USD (that's 4000 Nikons!) at auction...How about some Kamakura horizontals...Anyone like to buy a print? I'll do you a great deal.

Actually, after looking on Wikipedia I found out that the expensive picture may actually be quite different from how it appeared at that first link above. Looks like I need not only more horizontals but also brighter colours before I hit the big time for real...I suppose one would actually have to see the original for real to actually appreciate the true work of art uninterpreted by pixels.

Quackers

2011-11-12T19:29:00.001+09:00

After our quackers week b~~eing Alice Through The Looking Glass~~ at work, Lan was kind enough to lend me his lovely new camera for recovery and relaxation. I think it is amazing, but am having a hard time convincing James to support Nikon this Christmas.

[Northern Pintail and Mallard ducks at Hachimangu, Kamakura]

Let's bizarre

2011-11-07T18:58:00.002+09:00

The best thing about Japan is the way it keep surprising with its bizarreness, even after a decade of continuous study. Today was particularly bizarre. I won't explain - you wouldn't believe it anyway. But here is James, with his hippo, hoping that the internets will make it all better.

Let's (not) Marathon

2011-11-05T16:16:00.000+09:00

While a walk in the park is harmless enough,and can even be fun,the reasons not to run a full marathon are legion...Worse, these are the good (sub-3hr) guys,natural runners,who should have been having fun...There was a shuttle bus back to the station which followed the course, from where we saw the carnage of the 4 hour-plussers... stumbling zombies, bodies piled by the roadside, wheelchairs, ambulances etc.But here's jules, happy to have beaten 1500 (wow) men! And I had a cold.

Denver

2011-11-01T21:44:00.002+09:00

We started as we meant to carry on (elk 'n' Guinness)...

The next day we explored downtown,

with Rob and Amity.

Rob is, officially, even cleverer than James, and he's almost as tall, but here he struck a deliberately daft pose in order to try and crack my lens. The lens survived and thus he is blogged!

Denver is the capital of the state of Colorado. Here is the centre of power.

The day was amazingly clear, and, looking the other way, the Rocky Mountains could be easily seen 40 miles away.

The leaves were also looking very autumnal.

Unfortunately, this was the only cowboy we saw.

Denver generally shows signs of gentrification with sculpture,

and prettied up old buildings

like the massive brick REI cathedral (of which this is just one end).

Next day it was down to the basement to play with our phones,

and before long we were flying home on a chikinorbeef airline

Let's Merry

2011-11-01T14:50:00.001+09:00

Let's Merry, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Clearly we're not in Denver any more...

You might hope this is the Christian response to Let's Zen, but actually "Let's Merry" appears to be the slogan for St. Arbucks Japan's winter campaign.

Oh it's so nice to be back to normality...

Climate Science explained - by GooBalls

2011-10-31T13:23:00.000+09:00

On Friday we were fortunate and unfortunate enough to be invited to sit in on a committee meeting. The picktur explains what I learned during this 2 hour revelation.

The snapshot is taken from World of Goo, the best game ever until the next one, which I completed last week while not sleeping, due to jet lag. The idea is to build structures made of gooballs and have enough free gooballs roaming through the structure left at the end, that some are sucked up when you reach the spout. The arrow points the way to the spout.

I've labelled the structure with some of the acronyms from the meeting. I do not know what they all stand for, how they work, or how they are interrelated, but mostly these acronyms represent committees of people that may or may not have access to some limited funds. Mostly they are pretty powerless, except they can "endorse" science that they like, and enable scientific meetings. So the structure is really built upon mutual endorsement.

In the way of our goal lies the fly-wheel of death. I've written climate deniers on the flywheel, but I suppose it could also be any normal thing that gets in the way of climate science and funding - competing interests/ economic collapse etc. Touch your gooball structure against that and the whole thing is smashed to pieces. So we have to build a huge structure of endorsement all the way around the top of the fly-wheel and down the other side, absorbing innocent sleeping gooballs which we use to build an even bigger structure as we go along. The sleeping GooBalls are the free-thinking climate scientists, who do science and write papers, naively expecting them to be read and built upon. They mistakenly think that they are building a structure - one made of scientific knowledge. They are unaware of the real structure of endorsement hanging below. When the structure hits a sleeping gooball, they wake up and a "!" appears and then they roll up and join the structure.

By the time we get wherever we are going, will there be any free thinking scientists left to actually do the science?

Art

2011-10-28T04:48:00.000+09:00

The conference gay-la (which, surprisingly, is how the funny Amercians pronounce gala) was last night, at the art museum. Snowy Denver seemed just as artistic as the actual exhibits in the museum. The gay-la itself was as gay as you could reasonably hope a party of 2000 dweebs could be(*), but we made the evening even gayer by going back to the bar with many beers after returning from the museum. We seem to have given up on attempting to sleep properly ... perhaps it is better to not to try to adjust to Denver time, since we are going home in a couple of days anyway.

(*The EGU conveners party is definitely gayer, but tends to be ruined by smokers.)

Abrupt Climate Change

2011-10-26T23:26:00.000+09:00

It's all gone a bit Day After Tomorrow...

Yesterday, about 25C:

Today, about -1C:

Facemail

2011-10-26T07:42:00.000+09:00

It is of the utmost importance that we climate scientists continue to fly around the world. Otherwise we would not be able to ~~sit surfing the internet below pictures of local scenery that we can't see because we are stuck in a windowless basement~~ have valuable face-to-face interactions.

[The short one with the big H-index is Gavin, and our James is the one on the right.]

Night-life

2011-10-21T20:33:00.000+09:00

Under the railway tracks in Yurakucho, Tokyo.

Tsukuba... again

2011-10-20T11:00:00.000+09:00

The last time we were in Tsukuba, the most boring town in Japan, was tsunami day. This week we had another downscaling workshop. We have the habit of attending such "international" workshops even if we have nothing to present on the topic, as it is very useful to hear about what our colleagues are doing in English and also to hear the wider context set by the honoured international visitors. Crashingly boring though Tsukuba is, we are gradually exploring.

Avoid the restaurants on-site at the conference centre. A light and tasty ramen lunch is just a few minutes walk away:

The first breakfast after our run the next morning was rotted soya beans, cold fried egg, rice and seaweed. Delicious, but a little small, and we had plenty of room for a second breakfast at a newly opened Tully's before heading back to the conference centre for day 2:

The Chinese restaurant on the top floor of Seibu isn't super-exotic but on the three times we have visited the food has always been hot, fresh and tasty:

James eschewed the Okura hotel - expensive, unexciting, attached to the Conference centre, and with the history of not being particularly welcoming on tsunami-night - in favour of the Hotel Matsushima, in the Tsukuba hinterland: cheap, dirty, but fully functional with lots of clean tanks full of exotic fish (pets not food). Woo Hoo - some character in Tsukuba!:

Descending Yarigatake - Day 3

2011-10-19T11:22:00.000+09:00

Dawn dawned clear at the hut near the top of Yari.

It was interesting the way the sun apparently rose through the clouds behind Jounendake, and yet the mountain was clear. It is only one or two hundred metres lower than the hut on Yari.

The sky became startlingly blue so we visited the Tengu Ike again on the way down, adding an extra hour and a half to the trip.

A pause on the way down.

Although the autumn colours were less vivid than usual, the tatty leaves and muted colours were atmospheric.

Down from the mountain and only 8km of forest path to go... Feet washing in the icy Azusa river.

Climbing Yarigatake - Day 1 and 2

2011-10-18T17:05:00.000+09:00

Because of the apocalypse, which caused us to go volunteering, we haven't had our proper share of mountains this year. A holiday weekend lay between Lauren and Ruza's visit and out next trip. Unfortunately everyone else also decided to head for the hills and the huts were full. So we headed out on Monday, returning on Wednesday - time off we have no time for due to having to prepare stuff for our upcoming voyage.

The usual view from the kappabashibashi at Kamikochi. Only clearer and bluer than usual.

The lower hut 2 hours from Kamikochi was still full so was walked another hour and a half in pleasant evening light up the very pretty river to the next hut (Yarisawa hut - a first visit for us).

The next morning, we skipped up Yarigatake, but here is someone struggling to make it look tough.

If you are a keen photographer you have to visit this special pond (Tengu Ike) which God has arranged to reflect the peak. At least I think man doesn't "maintain" it. The autumn colours are rubbish this year due to the massive typhoon a few weeks ago that has burned the leaves over a large area of the country. Naturally the best shot was by James on his LX3. He is so good at getting things straight. Don't know why I bothered carrying my 2kg of camera...

The ptarmigan are changing colour - from brown to white from the feet up. I think this is the first time I have seen one showing any of its winter uniform. This is probably why I carried my 2kg of camera.

From the hut on the top of Yarigatake in the evening, we could see out to Jounendake (that we climbed last year), and also one of the huts a few hundred metres down from the peak.

Early Saturday morning at Kamakura beach

2011-10-17T16:46:00.000+09:00

Visitors

2011-10-09T20:45:00.000+09:00

Last week some less gnarled climate scientists came to visit. On the left is Lauren Gregoire and on the right, Ruza Ivanovic. They are both at the University of Bristol in the UK. The photo was taken on a day tour of Kamakura, which a mandatory event for all foolish enough to visit us for more than a day. They put up with it all cheerfully enough. We also got lots of work done!

Higanbana

2011-10-05T17:23:00.000+09:00

The equinox lillies (spider lily/higanbana) were delayed by the typhoon but are now man kai (full bloom). Mostly they are red, but Zuisenji operates a white theme at this time of year. It was James that found this elegant group containing both kinds.

Haguro-san

2011-09-30T21:16:00.001+09:00

In Japan, shrines are Shinto and temples are Buddhist. While Zuigan-ji is thoroughly let's zen (rinzai sect - same as the much posted about Zuisenji in Kamakura) the templey shrine on Haguro-san was built at the time when someone influential decided that Shinto gods were cool for Buddhists too. Later on the templey shrines and shriny temples were re-segregated, so I suppose that the shrine on Haguro-san is now officially Shinto. It still has a flavour of Buddhism about it - most obviously in the Shojin-ryori-ish nature of the food served at the hostel.

Breakfast...

is followed by a walk round the shrine.

The main building...

...is quite grand

A side shrine...

Then off into the forest...

Zuiganji

2011-09-29T13:26:00.000+09:00

A couple more photos taken in Zuigan-ji, Matsushima, where we went on almost our wettest summer holiday ever (It might even have been the wettest ever in terms of inches of preciptation, but the Outer Hebrides beats it handsomely in terms of cold rainy desolation).

The entrance in the rain

James in the rain. Please look only at the rain, steps, fence, James, and trees. There's a no photography sign on the fence, which surely cannot apply to those particular elements.

A witch and her broomstick. Perhaps it was a little less rainy under the trees, but by now I was learning to shade the lens with a finger to keep rain drops off.

Our summer holiday in pictures

2011-09-24T16:04:00.000+09:00

Day 1

The reward for successfully taking a tandem on the Shinkansen was a succulent steak in ugly rainy Sendai.

View from our hotel room in famously beautiful Matsushima Bay.

Day 2

Zuigan-ji temple, Matsushima.

Then into the countryside, where the shrines are a little more rudimentary. It was still raining. Hard.

At Naruko Onsen there was no shortage of food, baths and towels for hungry wet cyclists.

Day 3

On the road in the rain to somewhere... Convenience stores appeared as shining havens. The normally inedible hot tinned coffee and snacks became delicious. And they had pristine dry toilets.

That night we stayed in the temple on top of Haguro-san

We had 2 rooms. A bedroom and a tearoom. The building rattled in the wind but the tired tandemmers slept soundly through the typhoon.

Day 4

Touring the temple (Actually the first shot below was taken on the way out on Day 5).

Main shrine

Pond

Bell

Stairs.

Pilgrims should climb the 2446 stairs to the shrine on the top of Haguro-san, but this was hardly practical with a loaded tandem so we had innocently headed up the toll road. Thus we climbed down and back up.

There were lots of trees and things, and it didn't rain all the time.

To prove we did it, here's a five-storied pagoda sits near the bottom of the stairs.

Day 5
As we headed home the sun came out briefly, and the rice fields started to glow.

The local railway station at Kiyokawa was unmanned and unmachined. We didn't pay a penny until we got off the Shinkansen in Tokyo.

Tearoom

2011-09-22T17:41:00.001+09:00

Tearoom, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Fortunately we had our own private wattle and daub tearoom from which to enjoy the typhoon. In fact it is practically our own private temple. It is so nice decided to stay a second night. Must remember this clever way of dodging the crowds and often go cycling when a typhoon is due. The only problem is that it is still raining, which is not supposed to happen - after weathering a typhoon one expects to be rewarded with bright clear skies.

The Big Wet

2011-09-21T19:16:00.001+09:00

The Big Wet, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

David Benson asks if we are prepared for the weather...

With two typhoons approaching we thought it was a good time for a cycle tour across Tohoku. After 210km of continuous rain we are safely ensconced in a rickety draughty temple lodgings at the top of a small mountain all ready to sit out the storm tonight. It's just starting to get a bit windy.

Tetrapods

2011-09-21T18:25:00.000+09:00

My supposedly rugged camera turned out to be not 2 weeks of volunteering proof, and is now unusable. Thus a shiny new toy arrived on Friday evening and it passed the salty splash proof test on Saturday morning. Kamakura beach is presently almost as dirty as some of those up north, thanks I suppose to the typhoon a few weeks ago. Lots of rubbish and even whole trees have been washed up and half buried. Is it possible we are getting tsunami rubble? We shouldn't really get too much as, in terms of ocean currents, we are upstream of Tohoku, but perhaps it is possible - the ocean is a more complexly swirling place than our simple models pretend.

Priestboat

2011-09-20T17:34:00.000+09:00

Now you've read the post all about the festival, the carrying of the mikoshi around the town and out to sea, this picture may have some meaning. It shows Oginohama's Shinto priest and one of the fishing boats on which the livelihood of the village depends.

matsuri

2011-09-16T11:32:00.000+09:00

As I mentioned previously (here and here) our main volunteering task last week was cleaning up a shrine. The annual festival in the little fishing village of Oginohama was scheduled for the Friday but there were not enough people left in the village to put on the event. So Peaceboat took on the task. They cleaned in the shrine building, around the building, all 200 steps and their verge and also the area at the bottom of the stairs where Peaceboat volunteers cooked lunch afterwards. James I and felt that with so many volunteers and 4 days, we could have cleaned 4 shrines. So we worked hard in the hope of getting a different task later in the week. But that wasn't how it worked. Instead, they just cleaned unnecessarily deeper! Actually our small team of 5 was the only one that happened to go to the shrine all 5 days (4 days cleaning plus the matsuri itself), so that was a little unfortunate. Apart from the over-manning, which actually is a typical Japanese approach to a problem, the goal was reasonable enough. Most of the sludge has now been removed and building deconstruction must be done by professionals. Meanwhile the surrounding desolation must be very depressing for those living there, so getting the shrine back in use and putting on a meaningful and fun event felt right.

Peaceboat also overmanned the matsuri itself. It would have been nicer had the locals (about 35 attended) not been outnumbered by volunteers! Here are some photos.

First we went up to the shrine building where an hour long service of the priest singing was held. Apparently the goddess protects the village from the sea and keeps safe the boats and fishermen and that sort of thing. We think she should be sacked. Then the mikoshi was taken from its little shed and taken to visit all the houses in the village. I suppose this is to symbolise the goddess visiting and blessing the village.

The mikoshi is taken from the shed. It is quite heavy and naturally only men can carry it. I suppose that otherwise their willies would shrink away to nothing.

Visiting the houses in the village. Almost everyone (about 10 families?) seems to be living in these temporary houses a couple of minutes walk up the hill from the shrine. Even James could not carry the whole mikoshi himself, so, being a foot taller than most, had to adopt a different carrying style from the others (that's him at the back).

We walked through the "old village", empty lots, rubble, diggers. I usually despise shinto for its encouragement of superstition among the population, but this bit was actually rather moving. The guy with the black hat and prayer stick is the priest.

Then on to the fishing boats. The mikoshi was taken out into the bay where a twig was thrown and some sake was poured into the sea. The volunteers not involved in mikoshi carrying, followed on 3 other boats, where some fun swooping around and racing went on.

Then everyone retired to a tent outside the former "city office" where a late lunch was served. This was fun to do as it was a BBQ. And there were so many volunteers that we (non-mikoshi carriers) only had to stand in the raging sun over the hot coals for about an hour each. Afterwards, a curious game. The priest took the first go and was curiously good. He makes it look too easy - later contestants really struggled to stay upright and walk in right direction and required a lot of help from the audience.

Volunteering photos

2011-09-15T07:47:00.001+09:00

Ishinomaki, a set on Flickr.I've made a set on flickr of my photos from Ishinomaki and around. It includes photos from both trips, 2 months apart. A huge amount of clearing up has been done, but there isn't much sign of rebuilding yet.

Oginohama

2011-09-14T13:39:00.001+09:00

Oginohama, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

A couple of volunteers wandering in Oginohama

Hase Dera

2011-09-14T13:17:00.001+09:00

Hase Dera, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Couples wandering in Hase Dera, Kamakura

n11 commemorations

2011-09-11T17:42:00.000+09:00

As well as being a decade since "911", today is also the half-year anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake. They even call it "311"! We got back from Ishinomaki yesterday. While there, and before my iPod broke, I read this blog post by Steve McCurry and, apart from the 311-911 thing, I was struck by a few other similarities and differences between the Al Quaeda attack on the USA and the tsunami attack on Ishinomaki.

Some similarities:
About 3000 people were killed in the attacks on the US, and about the same number in Ishinomaki.
Both events produced a huge amount of wreckage.
In terms of rebuilding, both events produce dithering among bureaucrats, and take many years to recover from.

Some differences:
According to the Japan Times, Ishinomaki lost 44,000 houses with another 34,000 damaged beyond repair, which is obviously far more than the USA.
The total number of casualties of the tsunami (~20,000) is possibly about 5 times less than those from the war on terror. Hopefully there won't be a war on tsunamis.
Steve McCurry's photos are infinitely better than mine.

Anyway, here are some 6 months later photos from Ishinomaki and nearby villages:

Ishinomaki

Nagatsura used to be some way from the coast but is now dramatically under water. It is going back to nature - there were a lot of egrets and herons around. It would have made for great photography but we only drove through.

Onosaki - near Nagatsura

Oginohama - where the shrine we deep cleaned is located.

House boat in Oginohama

Ishinomaki Warhol art? Is that whale or tuna on the tin?

The rise of the machines

Sunset over Ishinomaki

Tea break

2011-09-08T08:18:00.001+09:00

Tea break, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

James taking a short break from digging.

The tsunami turned many people's lives upside down. That must be why, no matter which way I turn my iPod, this photo stays this way up.

Personal Width

2011-09-07T01:00:00.000+09:00

Actually I think this is wrong. Your seat should be = max(width of bottom, width of shoulders). A related issue is that, in trains people often fall asleep on the shoulder of their neighbour. In a way this is cute as it seems so trusting, but after a while it gets annoying. If the sleeper is elbowed hard enough they will sometimes start leaning the other way, and then it become a competition between the people on either side as to who is prepared to be the most violent. Only rarely does this cause the sleeper to actually wake up.

Big business

2011-09-06T21:08:00.001+09:00

Big business, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

The digger companies must be doing very well. It feels a bit like some post apocalyptic movie in which the machines have taken over the ghost towns...

Shrine polishers

2011-09-05T20:46:00.001+09:00

Shrine polishers, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

The two at the front are quite cute, although they have fewer teeth than one might hope for.

Deep Cleaning

2011-09-05T20:44:00.001+09:00

Deep Cleaning, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

By the end of the day it looked very clean to my coarse foreign eyes, but apparently there are several more days of deep cleaning required before it is fit for the annual festival on Friday. Being up a huge flight of stairs the damage here is a bit of earthquake plus six months of vegetative neglect, rather than tsunami. The village below is obliterated, of course.

Follow the Hat

2011-09-05T02:00:00.000+09:00

Shinjuku Station, one of the busiest in the world. It is on the West side of Tokyo so is the gateway to everywhere.

Kamakura Daibutsu on holiday

2011-09-03T20:09:00.001+09:00

Kamakura Daibutsu on holiday, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Back in Tohoku, today we found the Kamakura Daibutsu doing zazen on the tsunami wall, which now sits only about a metre above sea level.

Technorama Jubilee

2011-09-03T01:00:00.000+09:00

While many Japanese are undressed without a camera round their necks, it is rare to see a senior Japanese gentlemen this well dressed. This is a Linhof Technorama Jubilee, and only about 100 were made... nicely coordinated hat, shirt and trews too...

Big Beetle

2011-09-02T18:21:00.001+09:00

A big green beetly thing in タマムシ "jewel beetle" (Chrysochroa fulgidissima)

From Wikipedia:

"Tamamushi-iro

Since this bug has iridescent wings that glow lengthwise with different colors depending from the light angle, one cannot be sure about which color it exacly is. Therefore it gave rise to the expression tamamushi-iro (tamamushi color), in reference to a convoluted statement that can be interpreted in more ways than one. The term tamamushi-iro is used in the context of Japanese officialdom, when politicians or bureaucrats use language that is unclear."

[photographed on our neighbour's wall]

Lions

2011-09-01T12:32:00.000+09:00

So what do you make of Lion, Apple's new operating system? I find it needs a lot of taming.

It is just little things - like Safari automatically spell checking my beautiful English and turning it into some foreign crap. I thought it was Blogger - but no it was Safari itself! And then there's the way the applications automatically reopen with all the crap windows that you only closed the app to get rid of. Those issues are fixable, but the lack of a "save as..." in TextEdit and Preview seems permanent... I used to use that often to work out where files were located and then save new versions in the correct location - now I keep losing files. Need a "show in Finder" replacement. Getting the Library to reappear in Finder was easy enough, but the greyed out icons (and lack of personalised icons) on the sidebar seem unfixable and that slows navigation down.

[These very well behaved lions live at Kenchoji, Kamakura]

Hydrate or die

2011-08-31T13:55:00.000+09:00

We lost some cpu and some vending machines over the summer but fortunately the freezers were kept on so we can still make ice at work. Best purchase of the summer was huge clear Starbucks cups. We only need fill them twice a day.

And they are particularly pretty with pycnocline drinks...

camouflage

2011-08-30T21:27:00.001+09:00

camouflage, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Purple flower and a mothy thing.
The mothy thing is a シマゲロオオヨコハイ, or Black-tipped Leafhopper (Bothrogonia ferruginea).

New old gate

2011-08-30T14:47:00.000+09:00

The Karamon gate at Kenchoji got refurbished. Last year it looked more like this:

[Not our photo - clicking on the image will hopefully take you to the source]

How nice that someone still has enough money to do things properly.... at least I assume it's not a plastic veneer...

And on other side of the gate? Zen central...

More dangerous than nuclear meltdowns...

2011-08-28T21:26:00.000+09:00

The Hornets R Back!!! You will remember that, back in 2009, Japanese hornets (which kill about 40 people a year in Japan) were plentiful in our neighbourhood, and we tracked the source down to radical Buddhism at Zuisenji, our local temple...

All seemed quiet last year and we thought perhaps the monks had gassed the sleeping hornets over the winter. Perhaps the colony just died off. But they're back and they're setting up a shiny new home.

For those who don't remember what they look like, here's a massive hornet sucking on a medium sized camellia flower:

Lotus and lily

2011-08-28T17:13:00.000+09:00

I took the above photos with my telephoto lens at Hase Dera temple in Kamakura. With a telephoto, you stand well back and the narrow field of view enables control of the background. Most people ignore this pond as it is just to the side of the route through the temple so, when I arrived, as usual, no one was there. However, all you have to do is wave your camera in a certain direction and a few seconds later...the view was fully obscured by umbrellad photographers pointing their cameras the same way as me. :-)

Downtown Kamakura

2011-08-26T11:18:00.000+09:00

Even though Amanawa, the oldest* Shinto** shrine in Kamakura, is located in one of the busiest parts of town, it doesn't get many visitors. Don't know why. Because entry is free?

*8th Century, although of course none of the buildings are that age - I suppose, in UK parlance, one would say that there has probably been a shrine on this site since the 8th Century....

**It looks very Zen to me - just show what I know...

hooked noses

2011-08-25T21:39:00.000+09:00

I sometimes wonder if the goal of climate science papers is for the last line of the conclusion to consist of just acronyms, a few little words, and a verb. By comparison photographers use hardly any acronyms. One is BIF which stands for Bird in flight. So here we have BOP - Birds on posts.

The ravens in the top photo are at Bryce Canyon while the crows in the lower photo are hanging out at the temporary huts on Kamakura beach. The ravens seem to like having their photos taken, but pointing a camera at the crows pisses them off and they soon flap away in a very deliberately annoyed manner.

The young duds

2011-08-25T13:39:00.000+09:00

There was a request to know what the young duds are wearing. Or something. Well here you go. All these were taken at the Daibutsu in Kamakura.

Stupid T-shirts are still very popular:

A not quite so young dud:

Beach Life

2011-08-22T20:11:00.000+09:00

Kamakura summer beach life is in full swing. There are already plenty of surfers, even at 8am on a raining Saturday.

A beach rescuer - just like Baywatch:

No one seems to need rescuing though:

And the ocean's a flat calm:

Oh - here's a wave they all missed:

But he's caught this one - surfin' a 2 inch wave!

When there are no waves, why not try all alternative sport - ocean footie - I'm not sure there's that much future in it:

Obligatory surfer babe:

In Kamakura there are two kinds of people, late-night beachsiders and in-bed-by-10pm mountainsiders. It seems the same is true of the pigeons. These beachsiders looked very much like they were experiencing the morning after the night before.

One of us

2011-08-21T08:30:00.000+09:00

While the Daibutsu looks nice with a blue sky background, in the even lighting of a cloudy mizzly day the he becomes one of the people.

A man was lying prostrate on the path in front of the Daibutsu. Some checked to see he was OK. Perhaps he was deep in worship. Then it became apparent he was worshipping - but his object was the Nikon rather than the Daibutsu.

wingnuttery

2011-08-19T16:51:00.000+09:00

Many barking wingnuts have Galileo complexes. They think that because Galileo wasn't believed, they are as right as Galileo.

Mine is more like a Marie Curie complex. This is a special complex only for women who work with their husbands. They believe that because people only realised quite how clever Marie Curie was after her husband was tragically run over by a cart, that they are also eclipsed geniuses. Mustn't let the lack of handfuls of Nobel Prizes get in the way of the fantasy.

Actually I cannot imagine how she kept going at such a high standard after losing her best friend and colleague... especially since people are almost always better as either a team or a solo performer.

Very Loud Outside

2011-08-18T13:02:00.000+09:00

Japan seems to lack noise pollution laws, so we get annoying vans shouting all sorts of rubbish anywhere, stupid gangs who drive around on motorbikes without silencers, and when the temperature rises above a certain threshold we get these - cicada! The internet says there are 30 different types in Japan and they are clearly the real reason that people don't riot. It's too loud outside to riot.

Note for David Benson [see comment here]: This cicada was wearing this year's new wave fashion of a simple brown wing wrap, but was otherwise naked.

whi O whi O whi?

2011-08-16T12:55:00.002+09:00

...is all that is to be a heard from British people presently. (the subject is the recent riots, of course). In answer to the question, everyone just trots out their favourite thing they disapprove of about how things aint what they used to be.

As I walk past this bar in the middle of Yokohama early on a Sunday morning I have often marvelled at the neatly arranged empty sake bottles, and wondered if the British police would even allow this kind of decoration - after all, to most British people, an empty bottle is a weapon, and anything left out on the street belongs to whoever can grab it first.

There are so many differences between British and Japanese culture, and only one of the two countries had riots last week. I could point to so many things, as I stare out of the window making things up... but I suppose that the British social scientists must be pretty happy, as now they'll hopefully get lots of research grants to work out the real reasons why(owhyowhy).

2011-08-09T21:41:00.000+09:00

Passed this delightful venetian canal in Shibuya on the way to a symposium about how Japan is going to rebuild after the tsunami. It didn't half stink.

butterfly and flower

2011-08-06T09:44:00.000+09:00

[Jomyoji, Kamakura]

Happy cool summer

2011-08-03T17:00:00.002+09:00

Luckily for TEPCO (our electricity provider, who is mysteriously short of watts this year) the summer has turned remarkably cool. A couple of weeks ago we had a typhoon and since then the temperature has barely touched 30C, and overnight it has been positively chilly (diving to around 23C). Here is Jomyoji temple (home of the 2nd blue dragonfly) on a cool and misty July morning.

Another blue dragonfly

2011-08-02T13:43:00.000+09:00

Well I was wrong. The dragon fly viewing is even better at Jomyoji "English" garden that at Kosokuji Juniso. At least it is better in the sense that the garden is much more accessible, and you can sit down and enjoy a nice cup of coffee while you are there.

In other news I joined Google+. It seems very handy and to have a very pleasing interface. Of course, whether it is ever useful depends on whether anyone else joins in! So far I have 2 friends!

yin and yang

2011-07-29T20:03:00.000+09:00

A year ago James purchased plant pot watering electronics, which gently water the plants in our concrete parking space for 10 minutes each evening. This clever piece of gear amazingly kept all the plants alive while were away in the UK in August and September last year. Unfortunately now it has led to the death of 2 camellia, as there were not enough watering gizmos to hydrate them as well as James' more newly acquired chili plants, so the poor camellia got left to fry. I didn't notice until it was too late... Still, nice chillies...

...apparently there are lots of ways of spelling chililie.

blue dragonfly

2011-07-27T14:58:00.000+09:00

First thing on Sunday morning we headed to the small temple Kosokuji-Juniso in Kamakura for a half hour of dragonfly watching. We visited a couple of years ago, and although many temples have ponds and many ponds have dragonflies, only here can one get close enough to really appreciate the dragonflies. There are red ones, blue ones and black ones with white stripes. This blue one seemed to get friendlier as time went by, and came and sat right by me a couple of times. Of course, this tele-lens doesn't focus closer than 6 feet so those images are only in my mind.

Four months after the tsunami ...

2011-07-20T15:14:00.001+09:00

The extent of the devastation is what I found most devastating, and the only way I could think of demonstrating it was by letting the video camera roll for a few minutes as we journeyed through town in the minibus. Thus, nothing happens in these 3 minute videos, except, hopefully, the scale of the problem becomes sadly apparent. In Ishinomaki itself, we passed through about 20 minutes of this kind of thing each morning, and then travelled on to the annihilated fishing villages. While the large dusty spaces round the houses may look normal to people from the USA, in Japan houses should be crammed together, and the vegetation lush.

Uncut video of Ishinomaki town:

Apart from devastation and the estates of temporary housing, the other feature of present day Ishinomaki is the miles of sorted debris. This part seems to be cars and metal and cars:

Download the plugin if you don't have it, and then you can zoom in to see the high resolution satellite images of Ishinomaki.

View Larger Map

Koamikurahama, annihilated Fishing village on Oshika peninsula. This video has been lightly edited to cut down the really very boring footage of the tsunami wall:

"A" marks Koamikurahama. Zoom out to see the Oshika peninsula. Ishinomaki is to the NW.

View Larger Map

Day 7

2011-07-16T08:13:00.001+09:00

Day 7, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Day 7

2011-07-16T08:12:00.003+09:00

Day 7, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Some prime minister built a manga museum in Ishinomaki. And erected shiny statues of manga characters all over town. Suppose the tsunami can't have been divine retribution for idol worship, as they apparently survived the tsunami as good as new.

Day 7

2011-07-16T08:12:00.001+09:00

Day 7, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Finally the girls were allowed out on the boats! At the end of the last day, a tour round the bay!

You'd think that in such times when so short of staff they'd allow the women onboard to work. What I wonder is whether women went out on fishing boats during WW2...

Day 7

2011-07-16T08:06:00.001+09:00

Day 7, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Temporary housing - Ishinomaki

Day 6

2011-07-16T04:32:00.001+09:00

Day 6, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

More oyster farming for the lucky boyz, while the women finished removing anchors from the beach. Not sure why the men get all the fun...

Day 5

2011-07-15T21:01:00.001+09:00

Day 5, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

More beach combing for the wimmin, while the boyz got to pretend to be oyster farmers out on the boats, followed by some entertainment by all 15 kids from the local school!

Day 4

2011-07-15T07:15:00.001+09:00

Day 4, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

Ooops.