Evening Ride in Kamo: Scaredycats, Jizo and the Frogs

inflatable tiger scarecrows; tree frogs on a roadside shrine to jizo, protector of travelers

Misc. Photos from Kamo

stuffed cloth 鈴緒 suzuno bell pull

shrine (not inari)

narrow residential street

irises in bloom

Japan by Bike: Niigata Files: Tagami, Late Afternon

Old Structures and Satoyama Scapes

At top: 古民家 (kominka) private residence built in 1935, vacant for the last 20 years, now the home of a new NPO promoting community affairs

Middle: classic satoyama landscape, hillside abutting rice fields, bamboo grove, and a fallow field, evidence of Japan's shrinking population

Bottom: disused commercial structure most likely built in early 20th C  

The Japanese Macrobiotic Diet

The author of this book on macrobiotic lunch box recipes recommends a ratio of 6:4. That is, 60% brown rice and 40% side dishes of fresh vegetables and pulses. For lunch today: genmai (brown rice) with hijiki (a type of dried seaweed, also recommended by the author), and steamed potato, broccoli, carrot, and zucchini as the okazu side. The lower photo shows a recent dinner, with potato, bean, and hijiki croquettes (from a recipe in the book) in the frying pan. Canned mackerel in olive oil and asari short-necked clam soup are also pictured. 

Japan by Bike: Niigata Files: Tagami Town and Niitsu

Photos from a recent trip through the hills of Tagami and Niitsu. The rice was planted about a month ago and is coming along nicely. The rock wall was formed some 1400 years ago as magma from a volcanic eruption cooled.

Inari Shrine in Kamo

Inari is the god or rice and of success in commercial ventures, and his temples are readily identified by their numerous torii gates, which are presented to the shrine as offerings to the god. The fox is the god's familiar and relation, hence the carvings, statues, and fox figurines at these shrines. Why the mouse figures at these shrines? Well, foxes are known to consider the rodent a delicacy, and an offering of mouse, fried so as to slow putrefaction, was believed particularly pleasing to the fox. Fried tofu (aburage) was eventually adopted as a substitute for the harder-to-obtain mice. The small shrine at the bottom of the steps contains an iron lantern presented to some worthy individual (and later placed at the shrine) by the Imperial Regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi (latter half of the 16th C, if memory serves).

The Common Kingfisher: Recent Sightings

I've been treated to sightings of this uncommonly beautiful bird twice in Kamo City this week.

(photo: Wikipedia)

The common kingfisher is known as the "kawasemi" in Japanese, a compound of "kawa" (川- river) and "semi" (蝉- cicada). So, "river cicada" (川蝉). If someone sounds like a cricket, the person has a "cicada voice", or "semigoe" (蝉声). And leaving this world, sloughing off the mortal coil, is "sendatsu" (蝉脱), cicada shell.     

Japan by Bike: Niigata Files: Kamo City

From top: Former Tsurumaki Sake Brewery, Tsurumaki Open Garden (same surname, not sure if there's a connection), Old Post Office (now a gallery and cafe)