As any of the locals will tell you, Japan has four distinct seasons. It’s late spring here, which means that some fields are planted and others are being prepared for crops. Today, in this fourth set of pictures from my April 30th bike trip, I’ll show you what some of the farm wives in this country have to go through. As you’ll see, it’s less of a farming club and more of a labour camp for grandmothers.
Yearly Archives: 2005
Rural Kitakyushu: I Hope You Like Frogs
Here’s the third installment of photos from my April 30th bike trip. I spent a long time taking pictures at a very old-seeming shrine called Nishi Ono Hachimangu (西大野八幡宮—West Big Field Hachiman Shrine) in the Takazuo (高津尾) area of Kokura Minami Ward. While I have lots of photos of the building, today I’m going to limit myself to the local fauna.
Rural Kitakyushu: Not a Temple Nor on My Map, but Strange
In this second story about my April 30, 2005 cycling and hiking day trip through rural Kitakyushu, we’ll go explore a temple complex that I can’t find anywhere on my map. Though as you’ll soon find out it turns out to not be a temple complex after all.
Rural Kitakyushu: It’s All About the Snakes
This is the first in a series of anecdotes about a cycling and hiking day trip I made on Saturday, 30 April 2005 through some of the more rural areas of southeastern Kitakyushu.
It’s all about snakes.
Rural Kitakyushu: Introduction
It’s Golden Week—a series of public holidays—so we have a bit of time off. We took two vacation days (Monday and Friday this week) which gives a grand total of ten straight days off. We’re staying in Japan but we’ll be travelling a bit this week—day trips, but I’m not sure how much time or energy I’ll have to write—so I can’t guarantee daily posts. I’m going to schedule my blog software so that over the next couple of days it automatically posts the entries I’ve already written. But I won’t be sending out email alerts so either check back regularly—I’d suggest after 6am JST—or else use the RSS feed. You can find the RSS link at the bottom of each page.
With the housekeeping matters out of the way, let me tell you about what I did last Saturday. I went for a day-long bike, hike, and photo expedition through the southeast part of the city, an area that included the easternmost part of Yahata Higashi-ku (八幡東区—East Yahata Ward) and the southern part of Kokura Minami-ku (小倉南区—South Kokura Ward). I’d like to post about the entire trip at once, but there were so many interesting things that I’ll have to split it up into a number of posts. My outline shows between eight and eleven individual subjects but we’ll see how many of them blend together. And whether or not I run out of energy or lose interest.
sushiPod Shuffle
Last month I stumbled by chance upon Mike Davidson’s web site. I don’t know who he is beyond what’s on his bio there—he’s a web designer/developer guy—but he’s running a monthly iPod Shuffle contest. The contest for April was to make a “meatspace shuffle.” That is, make something that looks like an iPod Shuffle entirely out of food.
I couldn’t resist.
Kitakyushu Strange, Part 4
I hope the barrage of Kitakyushu Strange isn’t getting tiresome, because they’re easy to write and I haven’t had a lot of time lately.
Welcome to another neighbourhood temple, this time in the Showa-machi (昭和町) area of Yahata Higashi-ku. It’s within walking distance of my school, and is home to a 2-storey bell tower complete with pigeon-resistant green netting. I found the place on an overcast day in late January this year, while I was out wandering around on my lunch break. There I encountered a down-on-his-luck otherworldly hero moonlighting as a security guard.
Kitakyushu Strange, Part 3
Today, a photo and a pair of haiku about my encounter with an urban warrior who has seen better days.
Lamenting, a lone
samurai scarecrow. Distraught,
group cannot be found.
Kitakyushu Strange, Part 2
I think I’ve mentioned before the ubiquity of vending machines in this country. After dark, many are the solitary machines casting their neon glow as they stand in mute servitude to shift workers, motor scooter gangs, and petty criminals who ply their trade in a fitfully slumbering city. I knew she was trouble from the moment her feet, clad only in black fishnets and red pumps—the kind you see in Kokura on a Saturday afternoon—appeared in my doorway and hijacked my post. A group of vending machines installed together and operated by the same company or individual are usually called a vending corner.
Horse Archery in Aso
Yabusame is a festival that involves house-mounted archers, special arrows and targets, and Shinto ritual. As luck would have it, last fall we happened to be in the right place at the right time to attend such a festival.