New Year at Baba's house

As usual we celebrated New Year with Rika's family at Baba's house in Izu

Hannah was able to unwrap her main christmas present which Rika had ordered in Japan:  a Nintendo Wii U game console.  She liked this very much, although it turned-out late to be so addictive we've had too sharply restrict her use of it.

Daddy was able to sneak-off and train tai-chi in front of the Hachiman temple in the village.

One thing I noticed on this trip was that many rice-fields in Japan are being covered-over with solar-panels.   I guess this will become more common as the rural population as and declines leaving fewer and fewer farmers.

Back at the house, the family was busy preparing food for the Hew Year holiday.

This is making mochi cakes filled with red-bean paste.  The rice is steamed and stirred until its very gooey.

Then small balls of rice are rolled in rice-flour, flattened into circles, and wrapped around balls of red-bean paste.

Hannah was pretty good at this.

On Dec-31st, Daddy's morning Taichi practice was interrupted by a group of village men who had come to clean-up the temple for New Years ceremonies.

They lit lanterns in the temple which made it very pretty at dusk.

And quite spooky as it got darker.

We had the traditional new-years family meal of soba (wheat noodles).

And rice-cakes roasted over a charcoal fire.  Expertly prepared by Makoji-san

On New Years day we went to Hachiman Temple to pray and pay our respects.

I love the stone-work of the temple.

And the massive old trees surrounding the temple.

We noticed that some of the branches above looked like a dragon in flight.  Which I took so be a good omen for the coming year in Hong Kong.

All too soon, the holiday was over and we back on the train heading towards Tokyo and another year of hard-work.

Mt Fuji from the Izu-Hakone line

Tokyo

In Tokyo we stayed in the by area at a place called Tennozu Isle which turned out to be something of a find for us.  Rika had booked a nice and reasonably-priced hotel called the  'Dai-ichi Hotel Tokyo Seafort Absurdly Long Name'

I hardly went to the bay area when I lived in Tokyo, as it seemed out of the way.   But in fact it is quite interesting and rather convenient for traveling.   Tennozu Isle is a stop on the monorail between Central Tokyo and Haneda Airport, and it is also 5 min by taxi to Shinagawa (Yamanote Line and  Shinkansen).

There is a jogging route along the water-front and some nice linear parks.   Before dinner I went for a run along the canal-side which was so pleasant I just kept going until I the Ryutsu Center (about 5km) and was surprised to find myself almost back at Haneda airport (within 2.5km in fact).

The canal-side also made a fine tai-chi court, and I enjoyed watching seabirds feeding as I practiced my form in the dawn sunlight.

We met-up with Kyo-chan at Shinagawa for the usual yaki-niku dinner at Jojoen

And of course Hannah got to eat everyones ice-cream.

I took these nice photos of Hannah as we were checking in.  

Issa Poetry Walk

Behind the Yudanaka onsen is a poetry trail celebrating the work of the haiku poet Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828, wikilink) who was a native of Nagano prefecture and apparently often stayed at this onsen.   'Issa' (一茶) was his pen-name and means 'one [cup of] tea'.

Issa is regarded as one of the four great haiku masters in Japan, along with Bashō, Buson and Shiki.   He was very prolific, leaving over 20,000 haiku in his journals.   See this website for a selection in English and this website for a searchable archive of 10,000 Issa haiku with translations.

Issa was a lay Buddhist priest of the Jodo Shinshu sect, and buddhist ideas are often clear in his poetry.   He also frequently wrote affectionately about lowly animals and insects (90 haiku on the cicada:...).  And his poems often have an appealing earthiness and simplicity. 

Sometimes all at once.  For example

鶯や尿しながらもほつけ経
uguisu ya shito shi nagara mo hokkekyô
nightingale, even while pooping, sings Lotus Sutra

The Issa promenade winds along the wooded hillside behind the onsen village. We walked it backwards, starting at the Heiwa Kannon Statue at the DaihiDen Temple.    Every 50m or so is a post with a haiku.

夕月や大肌ぬいでかたつぶり
yûzuki ya ôhada nuide katatsuburi
in evening moonlight, going bare-chested, snail

Issa suffered much unhappiness in his life : he lost his mother at aged 3, then had a bad relationship with his step-mother, fought with his family over his fathers estate, lost 3 beloved children and his first wife wife to illness, house burnt down, remarried twice etc.   So many poems are about sadness and loneliness:

生き残り生き残りたる寒さかな
Ikinokori ikinokoritaru samusa kana
Outliving them, outliving them all, ah, the cold!

露の世は露の世ながらさりながら
Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara
This dewdrop world, is a dewdrop world, and yet, and yet . . .

Uguisu yasabuku ame o abite naku
Nightingale song this morning, soaked with rain

Issa died on November 19, 1827, in his native village. His death poem was:  "A bath when you're born, a bath when you die, how stupid".

大仏の鼻から出たる乙鳥哉
daibutsu no hana kara detaru tsubame kana
from the great bronze Buddha's nose...  a swallow!

I texted this seasonal Issa poem to my friend May the calligrapher:

ともかくもあなたまかせの年の暮
tomokaku mo anata makase no toshi no kure
Trusting the Buddha (Amida), good and bad, I bid farewell, to the departing year.

蝉鳴や天にひつつく築摩川
semi naku ya ten ni hittsuku chikuma-gawa
cicadas chirr, sticking to the heavens, Chikuma River
(note:  the Chikuma River is nearby in Nagano prefecture)

The trail ended (or began) at a small temple with a statue of Issa.

Yuagari ya, hadashi de modoru, yuki no ue
After the bath, barefoot on the snow.


After the trail we caught the train back to Nagano and Tokyo.  Lovely views of bare apple trees in the winter sun.

Later Minimi choose these as his favorite Issa poems:

寝て起て大欠して猫の恋
nete okite ôakubi shite neko no koi
having slept the cat gets up, yawns, goes out to make love

恋猫の源氏めかする垣根哉
koi neko no genji mekasuru kakine kana
the lover cat, dandied up like Genji, at the fence

恋猫のぬからぬ顔でもどりけり
koi neko no nukaranu kao de modori keri
the lover cat, his face so innocent, comes home

.猫塚に正月させるごまめ哉
neko tsuka [ni] shôgatsu saseru gomame kana
on the cat's grave, in First Month... dried sardines

(which Minimi says nicely expresses the human slave's devotion to its master)

Ryuoo Ski-field

Our main reason for going back to Nagano again this year was to give Hannah a 'white christmas' and the opportunity to play in the snow.   (And perhaps sing "let it go!")

So we took a bus from Yudanaka onsen to the nearby Ryuo Skifield (link) where we hired ski-clothes and a sled.

Rika's had chosen Ryuoo because they offer activities for kids like tubing and banana-boats.   But unfortunately these activities had been suspended due to insufficient snow.

Nevertheless we walked up the hill and found a suitable place where Hannah wcould play on her sled.

She had a fun time going up and down the hill until she got cold.

And we found a cafe to warm-up.  

Then daddy had the crazy idea that it would be fun to take the ropeway to the top of the mountain.  This is the view on a clear day.

The queue didn't look too bad but actually was about 1 hour and Hannah was crying with cold by the time we boarded the car. 

And the weather was overcast, so of course when we got to the top there was nothing to see abut cloud and it was very cold and windy.

We retreated into the cafe for lunch, but the queue was enormous and we had no choice but to take the rope-way back-down the mountain.

Despite this mishap, Hannah eventually forgave Daddy, and she enjoyed sleding back down the ski-field together.  .  All in all, she enjoyed the ski-field and wants to go back next year.