A Day in Iinan

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Saturday 1st September 2012

Today may theoretically have been the first day of Autumn in northern hemisphere, but in Mie Prefecture, Summer showed no signs of backing down today.

Despite us being in Matsusaka for a month now, I still had not visited the town in which my wife works, so this morning we decided to go visit a festival to be held in the morning in this small town of Iinan, in Matsusaka... except that it isn't really in Matsusaka; it's a good 40 minute drive away... but the journey proved to be absolutely spectacularly worth it!

Matsusaka is itself, a relatively flat, broadly painted city. What I mean is that the population density is relatively low, although the city sprawls for a wider radius than it's relatively small population would suggest. Iinan, is technically a part of the Matsusaka municipality, but is quite far away, nestled in valley between mountains that cut it off from the larger cities nearby. The town if Iinan is, what is known in the business as "inaka", meaning "Japanese countryside".

So at about 10 o'clock in the morning we set off for Iinan, which required us to drive away from Matsusaka towards the mountains. Soon, we had passed through two tunnels that had been bored through the mountainside.

On the other side of these prepubescent mountains, the landscape was quite different. I felt transported from Matsusaka's mosaic of residential properties, small business premises, and surprisingly frequent rice paddies, to a beautiful countryside of undulating rivers, far fewer Japanese homes and far more bamboo forest!

The first stop on our voyage was Iinan High School. Below are some pictures taken at Taryn's school.

The entrance to Iinan High School

Iinan's long drive way is bastioned by pine trees.

As you can see below, the view from the entrance of Iinan High School is absolutely beautiful!

Beautifully planticured (yeah, I just made that up) bushes line the entrance to the school.

The baseball pitch of Iinan High School is located just outside the entrance of the school. The line of trees on the left edge of this photograph is the same copse of pine trees shown above.

Iinan High School is composed of three parallel buildings. Here you can see the beautifully tended lawns that separate two of the buildings.

For some reason there are moments when Japan's flora makes me feel like character in a Dr Seuss story.

No real field trip in Japan would be complete without a harrowing tale about an eight legged monster. Seriously... they're everywhere, and scary as hell. It probably doesn't help that I'm constantly reminded of their presence, either when walking though their webs or even when relaxing and having a good ceiling stare, only to be yanked back to a conscious state by an adrenalin burst that would make Mick Jagger stagger.











Nestled in a corner behind the current Iinan High School is the Old Iinan High School building.

Close to the Old Iinan High School building are some beautiful tall bushes. (No they're not trees.)

Taryn and I had some fun taking some Where's Wally pictures :D.

Can you find her ;)














This photograph is honestly not a composite photograph, although I totally look Photoshopped into the photo.

So while we were at the school we found out that they would be performing at a community festival in Iinan during the evening. We found this out just after noon, and decided that we would support the brass band, so we stuck around in Iinan all day, and got to explore the area a bit more, and took the opportunity to take some beautiful photographs!

Once again, the photograph above is an unedited original. This portrait-orientated panoramic photo was taken a few minutes walk from an Onsen (Japanese Hot Spring), and was also coincidentally the location of the evening's festivities.

While Taryn was taking the photograph above, I got a close up of the breathtaking bamboo forest.

This landmark marks the location of an Onsen. I wish I could tell you a romantic story about it's history; but while such a story may exist, I still don't understand enough Japanese to be able to hear it... Maybe next year folks :P.

The people of Iinan was very hospitable and they made us feel very welcome at their community carnival. 

Taryn's school band performed to the delight of the crowd. The seeds of goodwill we sowed that day may really  have found fertile soil, as Taryn's students and co-workers seem really to have appreciated our support.

As part of the festival, gifts are distributed to the children in the crowd that gathered like pigeons at the foot of this pedestal. I was really surprised at the volume of gifts given out, and this redistribution (by four or five men working in parallel) took about five minutes before they ran dry.

Behold: Food from the festival. On the left we have balls made of rice flour with a barbecue-like sauce and some herbs for seasoning. On the right is some seasoned deep fried chicken served without and any other adornment.

As it got darker, the light of the lanterns grew brighter by comparison, which reminded me of Christmas lights and our community festivals back home in South Africa.

Between six and seven that evening Taryn and I, exhausted from a long day of exploration, drove back through the winding mountain road, along the undulating river and through the tunnels that carve through the hillsides, back to our new home in Matsusaka.

It was a beautiful and rewarding experience. I really like Iinan. I can understand how many people may not feel comfortable living there, but perhaps is because of this very reason that it maintains its aura of community and timelessness.

But more than anything, I am so happy that the place my wife will be spending most of her waking hours, will be a place filled of extraordinary beauty.

A Collection of Photographs from My Ride Home

This afternoon my wife informed me that she would be coming home a little late. So, since I was in no particular rush, and since it was a relatively cool afternoon with a nice dramatic skyline, I thought it was a good opportunity to create a photographic comic strip of my bike ride home from Matsusaka Commercial High School in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture.

This photo was taken on Route 756, the road that my school is on, and I'm looking in the direction of home, with my school behind me. 

Not far from the school you will find this very picturesque little cemetery. I think it's Shinto, but I'm not really sure.

Just opposite the cemetery is this little vegetable garden. Here I'm looking back in the direction of my school. You can see my silhouette on the pavement. :D

I live in a residential part of Matsusaka. Between my school and my home is a big rural area, and the main roads run around the rural area more-or-less a giant U-shape. There are some smaller roads inbetween that I attempt to navigate on my way home.

So from the previous photograph, I continue down the road for a while, turn left off Route 756. On this side of the road is a few rows of houses.

This panoramic shot didn't come out quite as clearly as I would have liked, but it's one straight road. Between the houses in this area are fields that are used for vegetables and occasionally rice. So even though the area is residential, there is some farming going on as well.

This photo came out a little better. Surprisingly again, this is again one straight road distorted by the panoramic function of my camera. (Go Samsung S3!) This road runs between a few rice fields. The field on the left has already been harvested, and only the stalks remain. The field on the right has yet to be harvested. In Japan, they are able to get about 3-4 yields of rice per field, per year.

The unharvested field above in all it's undistorted glory! :D

Similarly, this is the straight road I was talking about, with a beautiful view of the clouds that threatened rain... and delivered on it's threat! (But in truth it's bark was worse than it's bite.) 

Samurai Scarecrow. Hmm... sounds like the name of a band :D.

A groupie of Samurai Scarecrow ;).

My journey home takes me literally under this tetanus threatening train track.

You can see where I emerge from under the train tracks in the diiiiistant right. Although it's not very clear, in the middle column here, in the distance is a romantic looking wire frame structure.

 

 An undistorted view of the rice field and now I'm facing in the direction I am travelling. The illusion of being in a completely rural setting is about to be temporarily shattered.

But not before granting me one last beautiful view from an elevated perch at the top of the hill.

This K-store, a little convenience store ("combini" in Japan) is one of four or five K-stores I pass on my way home.

On the left is the combini I mentioned above. I'm facing in the direction of home. This road never looks busy, but a surprising number of cars pass through here daily.

(Yes I've recently discovered the panoramic shot option on my phone. :D.)

On this road I still get to enjoy lots of nature. There are farms on the left and the right, and here you can see some bamboo forest in the background.

This man was kind enough to allow me to photograph him while he worked. I'm so surprised that the people harvesting the rice etc are really quite old by South African standards. Ok, some of them use a lot more machinery to get the job done, but I've literally seen woman that look like they're about 80 years old riding tractors through rice fields and as you can see here, elderly people are not afraid of doing physical work. Perhaps it's this physical work that keeps them strong and healthy for so long?

If I could widen the field of view here you would seen the elderly gentlemen above in the bottom right of this photograph.

Further down this road is a tantalizing entrance to this bamboo forest.

I'm nearing the end of the road now, but not far from the end of the road is this beautiful Japanese building. I'm not sure whether it's a temple or a restaurant, but irrespective, it makes a pretty cool photo :D.

The little dot you see suspended in the air is actually a spider suspended between tall trees on either side of the bicycle path.

At last you can we reach the end of the road.

On the left hand side you can see Matsusaka's private school. Mie High School, or in Japanese "Mie Koko".

This is a full frontal photograph of Mie High School. At Mie High School I turn left into Miekodori, which is basically Mie (the name of the prefecture) Ko (school) Dori (street).

Miekodori is an urban street, and a fairly big road in the area. It doesn't stop them from farming rice wherever there's space however.

This photograph was taken further down Miekodori and represents a fairly typical view of the roads in my area.

I finally turn off Miekodori and an quite close to home now. Manicured Japanese gardens punctuate the sides of the roads on the way home. As you can see, the Japanese have a very different style of gardening :D.

Here is a panorama of the "pond" near our house. People fish here... often. It's not huge, but it's big enough to be difficult to circumvent.

Behind the pond is another beautiful view of the residential area that I live in.

And finally I turn left into my road; and I'm home :D.

Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you enjoyed this fairly detailed look at a segment of my experience that I re-live every day. :D