Azuma Fieldwork V2

Greetings,

long time no see. It has been quite a while since my last post. Since arriving here I have made the unfortunate discovery that there is something you always seem to lack, and that is the time to sit down unperturbed for an hour two to focus on what is important to you, like for example, writing another blog post. Today however I find myself enjoying Japan's "Labor Thanksgiving Day", one of its many holidays. Yesterday I was asked if I would be going to University today. Perplexed I simply asked why I would be, it's a holiday after all. I now understand that holidays in Japan are just a suggestion. Nothing weird about celebrating "Labor Thanksgiving Day" by laboring away I guess. Anyway, a lot has happened since my last post and I have a lot of material piled up for more. Let me just start off with what's on top. Ahhh yes, more fieldwork at Azuma volcano!

Now with nice weather!

Azuma has become an important research subject for my project. The data we collect on volcanic bomb distribution and size serve as an excellent way to test out the new model I am developing. Inferring the physical parameters of the 1893 eruption for comparison with other methods is a great way to see if the model is doing its job properly. From there we can use it to do a statistical analysis to assess the hazard of potential future eruptions. For that we want data on around a thousand samples. Currently we have around 300. A long way to go. And since the road up to the volcano is closed during winter we used the last two weeks at the end of October to go there twice. The weather was much better than last time. Blue sky with the occasional cloud for the most part. Let me reveal to you what was hidden the last time!

That's the wooden path that crosses the swamp that was previously mostly concealed by fog.

Here you can see the cliff with the huge fumarole constantly spewing sulfur dioxide into the air.

The huge bomb that you can find when going up the path to the top. I had to take a picture again, it is just to impressive.

Now you could also see Azuma-Kofuji in all its glory. The smaller crater is to the right is Okenuma. It's filled with water and surrounded by trees. It is actually older then Kofuji and therefore covered by the products of its eruption. I am amazed it still has its distinct crater shape despite that fact. Kofuji erupted between 4.8 and 5.9 thousand years ago. It produced 99 percent of the erupted material of the current phase activity of Azuma, which began when a huge part of the mountain collapsed and formed a horseshoe shaped caldera facing westward, towards Fukushima city. That was sometime between 100 and 280 thousand years ago.

Since all the snow had melted we were able to go higher up the mountain than we were able to in June. This here is a crossroads between the many peaks and the part with the brownish grass is another swampy area. North (right in the picture) you go further up towards other craters that formed in this latest stage. If you continue west (straight ahead in the picture) you'll get to a small lake. Unfortunately we weren't there for leisure, so this is as far as we went. Beyond this point we don't expect to find bombs from the 1893 eruption, but a closer look is warranted in the future.

We spent more time that day collecting data than we expected. You would expect that not to be a problem but the road up the mountain is actually closed during the night. When we came back to the parking lot our car was the only one left. The people were actually waiting for us and were quite relieved to find out that the car belonged to us. I guess they didn't fancy to go looking for some lost hikers. We passed the gate at the foot of the mountain, which closes at 5 pm, with three minutes to spare. The guy was already standing there to look it shut. We all learned a valuable lesson that day: Unless you want to spend the night in a single car with four people, you better keep an eye on your watch.

As a little bonus, since you had to wait so long for a new post, here are some pictures from my trip to a local museum about "benibana", or Japanese safflower. It is a yellow to orange flower that was and still is used to dye cloth. The museum was the mansion of a rich merchant family back in the day. The trip was organized by the university for all the international students to show us around the prefecture.

The main entrance. Quite a sight.

Imagine having your own bloody moat around your house. Money isn't everything in life but having a little extra sure doesn't hurt, be it now or in the past.

Fishies!

The interior of the estate was nothing to sniff at either.

Look at how much swag they had back then. Nothing today remotely comes close to this much swag.

I was also there by the way.

And that is it for today. The next time I have s few hours to myself I will work on the next post. Until then!

Nils

The Festival Special

Heyooooo,

It is me. Summer is over and you probably won't believe how happy I am that the time of sweating while literally doing nothing has finally passed. As a farewell gift, our beloved sun couldn't resist and bestowed upon me a mighty sunburn last weekend. What a fucking prick. Sorry (not sorry) for the language. Yeah, yeah, I probably should have had put on some sunscreen but that is besides the point. You might ask what I even did outside in the sun in the first place, well, one word: festivals!

Summer in Japan really is festival season, and I don't mean music festivals. They are more akin to town fairs. There is food, drink, and some combination of music, dancing, parades, floats, fireworks, or performances. Each festival has its unique flair and I am now going to report on all the ones I have visited throughout summer. Here we go!

At the beginning of August I went to the biggest festival of Yamagata City, namely Hanagasa Matsuri ("Matsuri" means festival, duh). The main part of this festival is a massive parade of costumed dancers along the main street of the city. They perform a dance using a conical straw hat adorned with flowers, which is called "Hanagasa", and a special song is played over loudspeakers along the entire length of the street. There were a lot of people crammed into the tiny spaces of the sidewalks. I couldn't take nice pictures so here is the one from their official website to give you an idea of what it looked like.

The song really got annoying after half an hour on loop but the parade would continue for another three hours. I ended up paying the food stalls multiple visits. No regrets.

The next festival was at the end of August in a small city north of here named Shinjō, and the festival bears the rather intuitive name "Shinjō Matsuri". I know, right? But don't be fooled by an apparent lack of creativity for naming festivals. They more than make up for that with their floats. Yep, floats. For this particular occasion each city district makes their own float which usually depicts some scene of Japanese history or mythology (if you go back in time far enough it is basically the same thing). During the festival they then parade their floats around town playing each a different variation of the same song with flutes, cymbals, taiko (Japanese drums), and shamisen (Japanese instrument with three strings). This gets quite funny when two districts pass each other since they then run the risk of matching the other's tune. They try to fight this urge by just playing louder. As I said, quite entertaining. Oh, and did I mention that there is a lot of alcohol involved? Yeah, that just adds to the entertainment value. The locals actually get days off to got to the festival. No school, no work, just awesome. The festival is registered as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage after all. Unfortunately the battery of my camera died after taking like eight pictures, but I am going to share what I can. Here you go.

This guy clearly had a drink or five.

Everyone can vote to decide the best float. The following picture shows the one that won this year. I concur.

The whole shebang started around 1 pm. Unfortunately I had to get the last train going back to Yamagata, which was around 9 pm. The festival goes on for three days but the last two days were not blessed by the weather god.

The last festival I went to however was certainly blessed by the sun goddess, since it was the reason for my sunburn. This one was located a few hundred meters from my apartment on both sides of the Mamigasaki river. "Heimspiel", as we say in Germany. The name of this one is "Imonikai", which describes the occasion perfectly. I mean, it literally translates to "potato stew party", and that is pretty much what is was. And it was massive. You see, they cook potato stew for 30,000 people in a SINGLE pot with a diameter of 6.5 meters. They even use two small excavators in the process. It lasts from 9 am to 4 pm. There are lots of food stalls if you don't fancy the stew though and quite a few other attractions. They built two bridges across the river so people can easily reach the opposite side of the river. Here are some pictures.

I had to wait in line for about an hour to get my serving of potato stew so I was rather eager to eat the damn thing. Soooo, I kind of forgot to take a picture of it. Sorry.

That's it for my report on local festivals. I don't know what the coming months have in store for me but I am sure I'll find something exciting to tell you about. Until then!

Cheers,

Nils

Kanazawa

To whom it may concern,

I have since made it back to Yamagata safe and sound. Even though it was raining a lot it wasn't bad enough to disrupt my schedule. But let's talk about what happened since my last post. As you might recall I was just on my way to Kanazawa for an experiment at the university. Taking a west bound bullet train from Tokyo will get you to Kanazawa in about 2.5 hours. When I arrived I was actually surprised at the size of the train station, but considering that the city has almost half a million inhabitants I should have expected something like this. On top of being huge though, it was also quite a sight:

Since the experiment at Kanazawa university was planned for the following day, I had the remaining day to go sightseeing. Luckily enough it wasn't raining in the afternoon so I made my way to Kanazawa Castle, because I of course I did. No castle is safe from me.

Kanazawa Castle was the seat of the powerful Maeda clan from 1583 to the end of the Edo period, so the time when the power was transferred from the Shogunate to the Emperor. In terms of size and wealth, the Maeda clan was only second to the ruling Tokugawa clan, which ruled as the Shogunate during the Edo period, which is sometimes also called Tokugawa period, from 1603 to 1867. So you could expect the castle to be not only large and very defensible, but also an object of immense prestige. Unfortunately, the castle burned down numerous times through its history and the most recent fire destroyed all buildings except for one gatehouse and two storehouses. It is however in the process of being slowly rebuild. The central structures have so far been restored so I can show you what the castle might have looked like a in the past.

Very impressive stuff. The castle has multiple levels, defensive layers and moats. Taking this thing in a siege would have been a nightmare. Thankfully, ever since the Maeda clan took over, their biggest problem wasn't an enemy siege, it was fire. Anyway, I have also mentioned that prestige was a big part in designing the castle. If you cross this bridge, traversing what used to be a massive moat

You will end up at the entrance to what is known as Kenroku-en, one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan. If you have ever been to a Japanese garden and thought "damn, this is absolutely stunning!", well, you ain't seen nothing yet. Kenroku-en is the mother of all Japanese gardens. Among the Three Great Gardens this one is considered to be the garden that combines the six aspects considered important in the notion of an ideal garden: spaciousness, serenity, venerability, scenic views, subtle design, and coolness. How about you taking a look for yourselves?

This is the Kasumi pond and Kotoji-tourou Lantern. 

You'll see many trees with their branches supported.

This stone bridge is laid out to resemble geese flying in formation.

I took this video because the water running through this shallow stream just looked so pleasing. That bird on the right is real by the way. It seems to have enjoyed this spot as much as me. If you watch the video with sound you'll also hear the typical sound of a Japanese summer: Cicadas!

This stone monument is built to resemble a pagoda.

This strapping fellow is Yamato Takeru, a semi-legendary Japanese prince, son of the 12th Japanese Emperor. He lived from circa 72 to 114 AD. Yeah, the Japanese royal dynasty isn't believed to be the oldest still in existence for nothing.

The large tree in the center of the garden.

Lots of waterways all throughout the garden.

Kasumi pond from above.

These moss covered stone lanterns really hit my artistic nerve. I want one for myself.

Adjacent to the castle you'll find a lot of temples and shrines. This one is Oyama-jinja, a Shinto shrine.

The gate to the shrine was built in 1875 and is a peculiar mix of Japanese, Chinese, and European religious architectural elements.

So much for my afternoon sightseeing tour. On my way back to the hotel it started raining. Lucky. On the next day I went to Kanazawa University. Up to the early 1990's it was actually located on the castle grounds. How awesome is that? However, it was moved to a new location in the hills a little outside the city. The bus from the train station actually took about 40 minutes to get there. The whole place seemed pretty isolated surrounded by greenery. I don't envy all the students that have to get up the mountain day in and out. Apart from the university there is nothing else. I don't know, seems a little boring to me. The university complex however was really impressive. It was huge.

Very serene. I was told because of the proximity to the forest and all the greenery you can sometimes see bears. I don't know how to feel about that. Oh yeah, it was also raining a lot, who could have guessed.

My stay at Kanazawa University was very fruitful. I have learned a lot about setting up and conducting experiments. Right now I am back in Yamagata analyzing the data. Still learning new stuff. All this will come in handy when I will be doing my own experiment. Tomorrow is the first day of the summer break which lasts until October. Not that that will be of any use to me, I have a lot of stuff to do. However, I might go on a trip or two. Don't know yet what I'll do but I would like to not go by myself. Will have to find someone to go with me. Wish me luck.

Until then!

Nils

Azuma Fieldwork

Greetings everyone,

Much has happened since my last post. I am afraid I rarely find the opportunity to sit down and compile one of these. This time I am writing to you while in the move. Currently I am riding the bullet train bound for Tokyo. From there I will take the bus to Tsukuba to visit Isoji and his family, as I have promised last time we had met. I can't wait to see all of them again. Taking the bullet train in Japan is rather expensive so I am combining this trip with a visit to Kanazawa University, where I will learn about setting up and running experiments. For my project I am planning to make my own experiment from scratch but I do not have any experience doing that. This trip will allow me to gather ideas and discuss them with professionals. It will be quite a valuable endeavor, me thinks. Since this trip is connected to my PhD my train fare and hotel stays are mostly taken care of by the university. That is also nice, me thinks.

But enough about that, let's talk about my trip to Azuma (again). This time I was helping out a bachelor student with his research. He is interested in the ballistic trajectories of a recent (over 100 years ago, so basically yesterday in a geological sense) eruption, so we were mapping the locations of volcanic rocks as well as their size. We also took a sample to determine their density. With this information he wants to do a hazard analysis for this particular volcano since it is frequented by many tourists. We were rather lucky with the weather in the sense that 1) it wasn't raining, and 2) we were not melting (The parking lot is about 1500 m above sea level, duh). Both are not necessarily a given since we are currently in the rainy season. So I was quite content with the weather situation. I am a simple man after all.

After arriving at Azuma we donned our special field research equipment: Helmet, working gloves, and reflective vests, and made our way up the mountain along a hiking trail. By the way, meet Tomo. He is a bachelor student in his final year and sits next to me in the lab. I have recently found out that he wants to continue and do his Master as well. If everything goes according to plan we will be graduating at the same time.

The initial part took us over a wooden catwalk through a swamp. This area does get a lot of snow after all, which melts over the summer months and collects in this little basin. Quite interesting actually.

You have got to hand it to the Japanese, they know how a hiking trail needs to look like.

It didn't take long before we came across our first specimen. It was quite a sight. I honestly wasn't expecting it to be this large, but we were quite close to the site of the eruption itself so it really shouldn't be surprising. This thing is about 4 meters in diameter.

Not all specimen were this large, most of them were actually more about this size (Folding ruler: 20 cm):

On the way up we had a nice view of Azuma-Kofuji, albeit partially covered by clouds.

After a few hours we actually reached a field of snow, at which point we decided to turn around. It was meant to be a daytrip anyway and we were able to gather data on about 30 rocks. Not bad, I'd say.

And as always, here is a friendly reminder that this volcano is still quite active:

You could hear this vent roaring the entire time. Depending on the wind direction you could also smell it.

I am now almost in Tokyo. The Japanese Shinkansen is fast as hell. I have seen a lot of rivers with a significantly high water level. It has been raining a lot this past week and it will continue for at least one more. This is quite surprising since the Japanese Meteorological Agency has declared the rainy season to be over a few weeks ago. Predicting the weather in our current environment seems to become more and more difficult. I wonder if Japan will experience some major flooding soon. If that is the case I also wonder whether I will be able to come back to Yamagata next week. We will see.

Until then,

Nils