In the Pines

On Friday Chizuko and I used our last day of sunshine before the rains of a typhoon expected in the Tokyo area came to go back to the Akazawa National Forest, our favorite spot we've discovered so far. This time we stopped at a place on the river called gomaishura . Shura 修羅 in Japanese means, "timber chute". This particular location was used up until the early part of the 20th century for drawing out logs that had been floated down the river from forests further upstream. The unique rock formations here apparently look similar to stacks of aligned logs that were counted using the character mai 枚; there are five ( go 五 in Japanese) rock layers, hence gomai 五枚. So, altogether the name becomes gomaishura 五枚修羅--five stack timber chute (or something like that). At gomaishura the river flows--tumbles really--down a channel at the bottom of a large outcropping of granite that comprises the river bed. On some of the rock faces, one can still see old drill marks from wher...

I’m in Kyoto now. It’s still the “golden” week and so everyone’s out for BBQs, sightseeing, and what not. I also have to check in at the university and sign for some money. . .well stipend. . .David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap once explained that: “a stipend is like money; only it’s such a small amount that they call it a stipend”—I concur. Anyway, don’t wanna bore with details of that sort. Rather, I wanted to write a bit about a little fieldtrip Aki and I took a few days ago. We visited the 赤沢自然休養 (aka-zawa-shizen-kyuuyou-rin) in Agematsu; one town over from Otaki. 赤沢自然休養林 is translated as “Akasawa Natural Recreational Forest” on the official pamphlet—but you also see a lot of references to fo-resuto serapi- (forest therapy). Not totally sure why one forest is more capable of therapy than another, but. . . Driving from Otaki we turned to the south from Mitake and headed along the Otaki river until we reached Agematsu. From there we turned back west towards the...