Reading

I'm working out of town this week with four nights alone in a hotel - this translates into plenty of time to catch up on my reading. I intend to finish "Tariki: Embracing Despair, Discovering Peace" by Hiroyuki Itsuki which provides insight into Shin Buddhism. So far it's very interesting and informative, but I think I'll stick with Zen for myself...

I'll also be able to keep up with my net-surfing, since the hotel here has, of course, high speed access in the rooms, which is something that a few years ago would have been unheard of. I'm not going to criticize progress...

Liver Sashi with a little Raw Horse on the side...

I and two friends indulged last night in another bit of a "girls night", this time just at a local izakaya to unwind and have a relaxing chat. Our favourite izakaya - Ryoba- was closed, so we sauntered over to a true local place. Yuzu (the izakaya) is also in Susono and only about a five minute walk from home, but it is not part of a chain (like Ryoba), so it really did have more character. They're also less accustomed to gaijin guests, and when we three women walked under the noren and into the bar, the only customers at that hour, three older men, gaped openly and began chatting in Japanese about how interesting it was that some gaijin women were there. They continued to talk when we started drinking shochu and nihonshu, and then, noting our gentle laughter, they figured out that we understood what they were saying! They were very pleasant, chatted with us a bit and really, that's something I really love about going out to the local places - meeting the locals!

The highlight of the evening came when we finally decided that we ought to order some food, so we opted for a variety of sashi (raw) food - tuna sashimi, basashi (raw horse meat) and reba sashi (raw liver); this of course was not exactly keeping a low profile and lead to more conversation and really, in the end, a good time was had by all.

As for those who are wondering what raw liver tastes like, I can say that I genuinely enjoyed it -dipped in a lovely sesame sauce, it was cool, refreshing and perfectly complemented by the imojochu I was drinking. It's also worth noting that I detest cooked liver - the smell alone is enough to drive to the the porcelain throne, but raw liver, now that I can eat every day!

Autumn Rice and the Gotemba Sen

Our staff meeting on Friday went very well; we all gathered at the exquisite Kanaya Ryokan in Izu, which is rightly famous for its huge (mixed gender) bath and delicate Japanese meals. The meeting was stimulating, and the after-meeting socializing equally so. Although, I have to admit, we had a bit of lubrication! Brian and I there fore spent yesterday (Saturday) driving home and recovering from the previous day.

Today dawned sunny and glorious, and knowing that tomorrow was going to bring rain, we took advantage of the morning and took out our single-speeds for some excellent riding. As we were winding up our ride, we stopped to get some photos of the harvested rice, mount Fuji and, luckily enough, our infrequent train on the Gotemba line.

Not much

Sad to say it, I hate to say it...we haven't had much to say recently.

We've been busy at work for tomorrow's overnight staff meeting - at least that should give me something to blog about.

Why RAW?

Taking advantage of possibly the last really hot sunny day for the forecastable future, I went out yesterday to shoot the elusive 'fields of gold'. The ripening and ripened rice crops make the once entirely green valleys shimmer with golden contrast; while beautiful it is brief, as the harvest quickly follows.

In fact, much of the rice around our apartment has been mowed and bagged, so I headed up to Gotemba, with the climb in altitude simultaneously winding back the season's progress. The challenge was great, with my goal being a fantastic photograph of an expanse of ripened crop, with composite features including blue sky, white clouds, lush green surroundings, and a complete lack of powerlines. Mt. Fuji in the background was to be a bonus.

Unfortunately I underestimated a further crucial factor: The Formula One racing being held at the Fuji Speedway (in Gotemba). While I was able to catch promising vistas from the car, the usually desolate roads were filled with buses, and the usually welcoming fallow fields had been pressed into service as endless parking lots for the fans. I couldn't slow to assess views, and pulling over out of the question.

I continued further and higher to escape the madness, but the F1 effect was spread beyond the rice cultivation zone and into the wild tall grasses. Another harbinger of autumn, the susuki is beautiful too, just not as golden, and without the associated promise of full bellies for another year.

Finally, I turned around and gave up... the sun was to high by now to really be good, and I would have to try another area on another day. Where I turned, I snapped a few pictures of my Pajero (which is now 15 years old, by the way).

The lens was a wide angle Tokina, 12-24mm. This is actually Tracy's lens, and it doesn't autofocus on my camera (the D40x, to be so small of figure, doesn't have a focus motor in the body. To autofocus, newer lenses with built-in focusing motors are required). It is an awesome lens, though, and I brought only that one on this outing.

My camera can capture the pictures in jpeg, or in RAW format, or both. I usually use RAW when I consider making the scene HDR (High Dynamic Range), but that wasn't my intention this time... I really wanted to capture the image with both, and then see what the difference would / could be. Here are the results:

If I set the camera to jpeg, the yield is this:
















The same picture saved in RAW and opened with Adobe Camera RAW 4.1 is this:
















Finally, just for fun, I converted the RAW into a single-exposure HDR image:
















There are a few more steps in opening a RAW file and saving it as a jpeg as I did above, but I can really see how it is worth the effort. I might not shoot just jpeg again!

The HDR I'll continue, but just for fun. To do it right, several exposures of the same scene are needed, requiring a tripod and a total lack of wind, waves, or walking/swaying/flying subjects. Also, my camera doesn't have an autobracketing function, which would greatly assist the process.

The predicted rains have set in, so this weekend's plans are currently under review. I hope to post again soon, no matter what we get up to!

Shouchu

A bit earlier, I mentioned that I had finally tried some shouchu. Shouchu (焼酎) is a "hard" liquor, spirits if you will, which can be made from a variety of grains - rice, wheat, and actually even potatoes. When I first came to Japan, shouchu was the "rough" drink of those who simply wanted to be drunk without spending much money. Apparently, when I wasn't looking, shouchou became de riguer. About two years ago, while out drinking with some Japanese friends, I noticed that a woman friend who (unusually for a Japanese) could really hold her liquor was constantly ordering a variety of imo-jouchu shots. Imo-jouchu is shouchu made with sweet potatoes. She and a few of the others regaled me with the benefits of shouchu in general, and they seemed to be really aware of the different "brews" of the imo-jouchu they were ordering, comparing the subtleties of taste much as we would do for wine or fine sake. I remembered this, but, not being much of a "spirit" drinker, I never bothered to further look into it.

However, since my recent womens' night out when I drank a few glasses of shouchu mizu-wari, I've become more interested in this drink. I bought myself a bottle of imojouchu which seems good. I put some of this into a glass with water - about 40/60 shouchu/water - and it's turned out to be a really nice, low calorie drink. Yes - one of the many purported benefits of shouchu (even imojouchu) is that it is fairly low-calorie at only about 50 calories per shot. Mix that with a glass of water et voila...a new fave is born!

Tokina 100 mm Macro in Yamashi

We're fairly lucky here with the number of national holidays and all the time off we get. This weekend was yet another long weekend (September 23rd was Shunbun no Hi - Autumnal Equinox day; since it fell on a Sunday, we're blessed with Monday off). Taking advantage of the long weekend, on Sunday morning Brian and I headed off the beaten track and into the mountains in Brian's Mitsubishi Pajero - a fully capably SUV. We bought beer and chu-hi, found an especially isolated location, took some photos and camped for the night.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't co-operate with us, but we still enjoyed our time in the rainy wilderness.

Most of these photos were taken with my Tokina 100mm Macro lens:

Grass with rain drops:




What's camping without a brewskie?


Japanese susuki:


Dirt in a tractor tire, saturation significantly reduced in Photoshop:


Flowers and spiderwebs in the rain:



Frog (or toad?) up close and personal:




We got back home today at about 2:00 p.m. or so. I'll eventually post a map of our travels!

Bike rides

For once we had an excellent sunny Saturday yesterday, so we got out on our Single Speeds for a bike ride followed by a few beers at our favourite beer hall/garden.

First, we checked out the progress made on the typhoon damage:


Then we stopped at the Gotemba Kogen for a beer, and took pics of our bikes. This is my Gary Fisher Rig:


Finally, still hot and sweaty from some hard riding, we re-visited this usually dry river bed only to find it swollen with clear fresh water. Of course, we couldn't resist a swim:

Spoiled by High-Speed Access

When I first came to Japan years ago, not many normal people had internet access. Dial up connections were expensive, and not to mention that even local phone calls were charged by the minute. At that time, Canada was definitely ahead of the game and people I knew (including me) even had dedicated phone lines for their net connection.

Well, times have changed. With 3G cell phones and hotspots even in my small city, internet connectivity is pretty rampant generally lightening-fast. According to this article from the Washington Post titled “Japan's Warp-Speed to the Internet Future”, the “broadband service here is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States”. Huh. Who knew?

We really love our internet access and were curious about the speeds. So, after reading this article, Brian cruised over to Speedtest.net and tested his internet speed which was, in fact, rather fast. Here are the results

Not bad, really, especially as it was wireless.

Wild Women's Night Out

The weekend is well over, but we had a great time. Well, I did, anyway, since I got together with a few of "chicks" in my company and we had a day and a night out in the exotic city of Hamamatsu. Though situated in conservative Shizuoka Prefecture, Hamamatsu is actually a pretty robust city full of life - and the spice of life, too, as it has a high foreign (non-Japanese) population.

There was a Brazilian/ Samba festival going on that day, and we wanted to see some of the dancers. The general meeting time was 5 p.m, but three of us decided to go early for a little window shopping -which, actually, turned into a few hours of drinking shouchu-mizu-wari at a local bar. Shochu is a Japanese alcohol; shochu-mizu-wari （焼酎水割り)　is shochu with water. Kind of like vodka and water...I'll post later about the benefits of shochu! Anyway, a 2 p.m. start to the shochu drinking made for an interesting night!

After becoming mildly inebriated, we then met the rest of the gang for Samba, dinner and karaoke in the biggish city. Here are a few photos from our night out:

Hamamatsu folks are more appreciative of the fine art of tatoos. This guy liked my dragon, and we ended up comparing tats. He won!



The Samba girls were fabulous - really engaging, and even the older Japanese folks around were delighted:


We made it to the karaoke box (2 hour nomihodai (all you can drink)) and the karaoke fiends among us stole the show:


Not to be outdone, though, I did screech out my version of Def Leppard's Animal (much to everyone's chagrin...):



Following such tiring activity, we retired to Baden Baden, (named after the famous German town, of course) a 24 hour onsen / minshuku in Hamamatsu.

A good time was had by all....