travel – Page 46

The Meiji Shrine …

The big city is not my cup of tea. The conurbation of Greater Tokyo is the biggest of them all, 37.8 million people in 13,500 km².

I have a day adrift here. The options …

Sit in room, suck thumb. Ultra safe.
Go for a walk unravelling a ball of twine behind me (or taking good notes). Adventurous.
Take rush hour public transport across Tokyo and hope to get back. Verging on insanity.

Really, where can a boy go bird watching in Tokyo. Mayumi, a friend, had suggested the Meiji Shrine.

Haneda Airport has an information desk. The staff speak good English and are keen to help. To get to the Meiji shrine take the train. There is a stop at the airport (Keikyu line). Why didn’t Melbourne think of that? Change to the JR Yamanote line at Shinagawa get off at Harajuku. You’re at the gate. Entry is free. Reverse the process to get home. They were kind enough to write it all down for me.

You can buy a single trip ticket at the station (why didn’t Melbourne think of that?) from a machine that can be switched to English. It didn’t, however, list stations individually, the missing part of the jigsaw was knowing which cost zone Harajuku would be in. Puzzled foreigner stares stupidly at machine. When dealing with foreign machines stare slowly and clearly.

A smartly dressed mid-career type man coming from the platform volunteers to help. He enquires at the information office and comes back with the missing piece, supervises the administration of the money and points me in the right direction. I thank him. He bows.

The Meiji Shrine commemorates the divine souls of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, central figures in the Meiji Restoration of the 1860’s. This period saw the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and an opening up of Japan to western influences.

The Emperor died in 1912 and the Empress two years later. Their tombs are in Kyoto. An area was set aside in Tokyo and trees planted in their honour. Established in 1920, it is now a mature forest that includes a couple of lakes providing excellent habitat for birds such as Oriental Turtle Dove, Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, Mandarin Duck, thrushes, redstarts, waxwings … and the shrine.

And surprisingly, it’s the shrine that gets all the attention. It happens to be the number one (of 228 attractions) on TripAdvisor.

Below is one of the splendid torii gates that mark the various approaches to the shrine …

Sake brewers donate barrels of sake wrapped in straw and paper to the shrine.

A small payment is required to enter the beautiful inner garden (¥500). This garden existed prior to the Meiji Shrine and the Emperor hand a hand in its design. Here you can find this tea house. It is probably the most photographed garden shed in all of Japan.

There is also a small pond in the inner garden, crafted to raise the spirits of Empress Shoken, there where I came across a very attractive Kingfisher and various small birds were coming for a handout.

It was a great place to spend the day. Now to get back to the Haneda Excel Tokyu Hotel.

Stupid foreigner stares slowly and clearly at ticket machine trying to remember how much money to contribute. Slender, young, attractive Japanese woman volunteers to help. She makes a quick trip to the enquiry desk, supervises the donation and points me in the right direction. Her English is impeccable. I thank her. She bows. Helplessness has its rewards.

You can download a map of the Tokyo Metro <HERE>.

Meeting Mr Toto …

The hotel room had a western style bed, a carpeted floor, a couple of chairs, a desk and a TV.

On the bed was a cotton night shirt that buttoned down the front, a minor difference in an environment that otherwise could have been in almost any city in the world.

The room was too warm. I turned off the heating. Finding a way to deal with the welcoming warmth would be necessary at every accommodation for the coming weeks.

And then I went to the toilet …

“Shit”, I thought, which was at least contextually appropriate. The user’s manual is under the lid, once enthroned it can’t be read, but then, you only need to read it once. The controls will be at your right hand. What could possibly go wrong?

The seat is heated, you may wash your bottom … with warm water. Air dry, why not? As you sit a flow of water beneath you will reassure you that the porcelain will not be soiled or is it just to make a noise to cover the sounds that you are so keen to keep to yourself?

Do play with the buttons. The only one you need to know about is marked with a circle with a central dot. That stops whatever you manage to start.

Every hotel I stayed at had this style of toilet, the better ones had the control panel on the wall. Public toilets came in two flavours, a few had squat toilets, most were like this one. None was merely ordinary, it seems the Japanese completely leapfrogged the Australian dunny.

Japan is different. It has a that quality that the French think they have. I hope I can convey that quality in my writing. It exercises a strange influence on visitors, some are never quite the same …

But in his home and office bathrooms, Mr. Friedman had installed a Toto washlet. To sit upon a standard commode, he said, would be like “going back to the Stone Age.

Ms. Poh said. “It’s about the heated seats. Your life is really good when you have a heated toilet seat.”

Three days later, Mr. Aboulache went online and bought a Toto washlet, which he installed in the shared upstairs bathroom of his home in Los Angeles as a surprise for his wife and son.

“We’ve been delighted,” he said. “It’s our favorite toilet.”

Mr. Friedman, too, is an enthusiastic proselytizer for washlets …

Whenever he talks about their virtues, he said, “I feel like one of the Apostles passing the word of God.”

Airport to Airport to …

Tokyo has two airports. Qantas flies into Narita, my first task was to get to Haneda.

Narita is 77 km east of central Tokyo. Haneda is 29 km south. From one to the other around the shores of Tokyo Bay is 80 km. I must confess to a little anxiety. Here I am dealing with an unfamiliar system in a language that I could not speak in my new role as an illiterate. Routine public transport is available but handling luggage for a three week trip on the train would be challenging. The easy way is the Limousine Bus.

When you are disgorged from the immigration and customs area the Limousine Bus counter is ahead, close and visible. The staff spoke good English and were very clear in their instruction to where you caught the bus. At the stop I was politely marshalled, put on the right bus, my luggage was loaded and off we went. Announcements are in Japanese and English, they are recorded and therefore intelligible. Anxiety dispelled.

The first two nights were at the Haneda Excel Tokyu Hotel in Terminal 2. As international drab as big hotels are, the national flavour will find a way to shine through. The Excel is the archetype airport hotel but …

The door was opened, two men bowed then indicated the direction to the reception desk, I was relieved of my luggage and checked in. It was a luxurious welcome. The bags were delivered to my room promptly and in Japan no tip is expected.

A Little Geography …

Our Google globe has been placed north up with Australia at the bottom, Japan at the top.

Globe 1

Japan is part of a great archipelago that hangs off the Kamchatka peninsula and curves away to the east of the main landmass of Asia, swings away around the north of Australia and then down to New Zealand.

If we superimpose the relevant part of the Great Ring of Fire on the map we can then deduce a great deal about the underlying geology.

The Japanese part of that great archilelago consists of almost 8,000 islands between latitudes 24°N and 46°N, and longitudes 122°E and 146°E. That’s 2600 km from Okinawa to the tip of Hokkaido. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku and together they make up about 97% of the land area.

Japan is mountainous, only 27% of the country is suitable for agriculture and urban settlement. It is prone to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. There are more than a hundred active volcanoes. More than 140,000 people died in the Tokyo earthquake of 1923. The 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku killed about 18,000 people and triggered several nuclear accidents.

From a natural disaster point of view Japan is the most dangerous place in the developed world.

Looking from China, Japan lies in the direction of the rising sun, hence the way Japan is rendered in Kanji is 日本. The Chinese character 日 means sun or day; 本 means base or origin, combined they convey the meaning sunrise.

The population is about 126 million people and slowly declining. The population density is high in the areas suitable for settlement.

Japan has the third largest economy in the world, but things aren’t quite as great as they used to be.

Life expectancy ranks second in the world. The infant mortality rate of 2 per thousand live births is as low as any where in the world. Educational standards are high.

Virtually no one shoots anyone else in Japan but they make up for that to some extent by killing themselves. Suicide is the leading cause of death in people under thirty.

The whole place is in one time zone (GMT +9hrs) and they don’t mess with the clocks for summertime.

The electricity supply is 100 volts (not 120 like the US or 240 like Australia and the UK) the plugs and sockets are 2 pin connections compatible with their American counterparts.

The climate is officially described as temperate. What this means is that it’s mild in the south. Tokyo is hot and humid in summer and cold in the winter, not a threat to your ears and nose but remember the hat and gloves. Hokkaido is mild in the summer and definitely a threat to the extremities in winter, don’t leave home without your parka.

Wildlife has done well in Japan, bears, deer, voles, shrews, deer, mustelids and monkeys can all be found and the bird life is exceptional. The mountains have helped preserve habitat and modern Japan seems conservation minded. There are well managed wildlife reserves. And surprisingly it is a good place to go whale watching!

The birding is heavily influenced by the strong seasonality and the proximity to land north and south and there is always the chance of vagrants coming from the Asian mainland.

The only English language field guide worth having (for the moment) is … A Field Guide to the Birds of East Asia (2009), by Mark Brazil.

Got all that? Cool. It’s time to go.

En route …

Not merely a way of building suspense …

… more a way of buying time to process one hell of a lot of photos.

A Day Around Brisbane …

I had some time spare in Brisbane, rented a car and headed out with the binoculars.

Birds Queensland and the Brisbane City Council have produced a very useful little brochure of good birding spots which can be down loaded <HERE>.

I headed north and spent most of my time in the vicinity of Nudgee Beach and Boondall Wetlands then headed west to the Gap and Enoggera Reservoir.

A productive day and I even found out which way to head for my next stop …

On the Wallaby …

If you are going to write about travel then from time to time you have to travel.

And since I’m not a great multitasker I shall travel first and write after.

See you when I get back from Japan.

Not a lot of wallabies in Japan, you say … it’s Aussie slang,the first use in this context (that I can find) dates to 1849. It means to journey from place to place. In 1891 Henry Lawson gave us this …

Australia’s a big country

An’ Freedom’s humping bluey,

An’ Freedom’s on the wallaby

Oh! don’t you hear ‘er cooey?

Mining the Archives …

For a long time I have been promising myself that I would get my photos into some sort of order.

So far I have found photos on four different computers, three generations of Mac and a PC. None of the external hard drives lying around would actually do business with all of them. I ended up clearing the oldest Mac with a USB stick, not the nice new one with heaps of storage but an old one that would cope with just 200 files at a time. I still have to find some more photos. One other Mac was stolen some years ago, that’s a collection of photos that I won’t be seeing again and but there is hope that some others are filed away on cd somewhere. Must sort them out while I still have a means of reading cd’s. Anyway most of the digital era is now assembled in one place … must back it up!

Because of some problems with my Olympus camera I’ve also had reason to sort through and put back into use some old camera gear. Reviewing my old photos and being forced to think about my photography has been a most instructive revision course. I got the brand new camera yesterday but before I start showing off what it can do lets see what went before.

Wildlife and landscapes it’s what I do …

Rain …

It has been a dry old time in Victoria’s Goldfields. The wettest day last year was on January 18^thwhen we were deluged with 49mm (2 inches). We had had 21mm nine days earlier. Since then it seemed to have forgotten how to rain. My neighbours are hand feeding sheep and, unless they have a good bore, are carting water every day to keep their stock alive. It’s hard work at the hottest time of the year. Australia is, and always has been, a tough place when el Niño comes to visit.

But there are wetter parts. The hills east of Melbourne are clothed in tall forest and in the gullies there are pockets of genuine rainforest. Some cooler weather was forecast so what better time to visit. A few showers? Well, that would reduce the risk of bush fire. Fifty millimetres, could be uncomfortable in the tent.

I arrived in Australia in August many Augusts ago. I bought a sporty Mazda car with a rotary engine and I was keen to try it out. The ski season was in full swing, snow in Australia, not what I was expecting, must take a look. I took a long spin up the highway to just beyond Mansfield where the snow capped summit of Mount Buller could be seen. Wow. Where to now? I might add at this point, that in England, I had never had the opportunity to drive on a gravel road.

I consulted my brand new map of Victoria and found a road down the east side of Lake Eildon, through Jamieson, the A1 Mine Settlement, Woods Point and on to Marysville. From there it’s a shortish trip to the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. More interesting to make it a round trip, I thought, and set off.

The bitumen ran out. It was raining. It was getting late in the afternoon. It can’t be all that far, I thought.

Soon it was dark, the wind was howling, the rain was lashing down. I was traveling very slowly on a loose stony road that divided its time between climbing and descending steep hills and sharing the valley bottom with a rapidly swelling river. The car was second hand, I hadn’t even checked whether I had a jack or a spare tyre. My way forward might be blocked by a fallen tree or the river in flood. So might my way back if I turned around. My heart was in my mouth. Jamieson to Marysville is 136 km (85 miles). Along the way a Wombat the size of a sheep wandered out into the road and stood looking at me. It could have been asking itself, “What the hell is he doing here?” Which is exactly what I was asking myself.

So there I was, a few days ago, camped at Woods Point, next to the Goulburn River, in the pouring rain. On the way there I had stopped to photograph the Noojee Trestle Bridge. A number of these fine old rail bridges survive, I find them very interesting …

You can see that the area is much lusher than my neck of the woods, there’s even grass.

And tall trees …

it has crossed my mind that given my girth, if I was a tree I would be about a hundred metres tall.

Meanwhile, outside my tent, a very damp Flame Robin was playing in the puddles.

The next morning there was nothing more than light showers. A short walk turned up some wreckage …

for a moment I thought it was my Mazda.

I added 20 more bird species to my year list, enjoyed recounting my first trip down this road and enjoyed the ride in my FJ Cruiser, too easy.

When I got home there was a very welcome 21mm in the rain gauge. May have to service the mower soon.

Another Day in the Desert …

The south west of Victoria has a reasonable rainfall and fertile volcanic soils. Imaginatively named the Western District it is a rich agricultural area. Moving north rainfall diminishes and temperature increases. To the north of the Western District Victoria has its deserts. The sand was donated by South Australia during past ice ages brought by the prevailing westerly winds. These deposits are known as the Lowan sands. The Big Desert is in the middle, to the north is the Sunset Country, to the south the Little Desert. They are dry, they are hot in summer but they are all quite well vegetated. Too well vegetated to be real deserts.

I thought the Big Desert would be a good place to try out the new FJ Cruiser on the sand. Here it is with my trusty Pod Camper on the edge of the desert.

The next day was a hot one. Birds were fairly scarce except for a patch where the Mallee Eucalypts were just bursting with blossom. I took a seat close by and photographed the incoming flock. The White-fronted Honeyeaters came in good numbers …

and the ubiquitous Galah posed nicely …

I had to work a little harder for this one …

This is the Shy Heathwren, Hylacola cauta. There is another species in the same genus, the Chestnut Rumped Heathwren, that is even harder to find. It has been said that the Chestnut-rumped Heathwren makes the Shy Heathwren look like a social butterfly.

A rewarding day, day’s end brought yet another treasure …