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