Hiroshima, Japan: Spring 2002

(Travelogue--Japan Travelogues)

Another travelogue rescued from the archives.  This is yet another old home movie converted to DVD. This video is a continuation of the Kyoto video. Same trip, we just moved down to Hiroshima next. I had never been to Hiroshima before this trip, (although after this, I would since go back several times).

The atomic bomb museum (sometimes called peace museum) there is well worth checking out, although I remember being slightly disappointed because I didn't learn much new. I guess I was expecting to be more blown away than I actually was.

Kyoto, Japan: Spring 2002

(Travelogue--Japan Travelogues)

This is yet another travelogue I'm rescuing from the archives.  This video is the visit to Kyoto in Spring 2002.

 

Another old home movie converted to DVD. During spring break my first year in Japan my parents and youngest sister came over to visit me.

I was eager to show off my little town of Ajimu, the life I had made for myself, and all the little local places I had discovered. My parents wanted to see some of the big tourist spots as well though, so they flew into Osaka, and I took the train up and met them at Kyoto.

Even after close to a year in Japan, this was my first time visiting Kyoto. In fact, if memory serves, it was my first time getting out of Kyushu since I had arrived. Aside from going to the neighboring Fukuoka prefecture once or twice, I don't think I had even left Oita Prefecture. (Obviously my adventurous spirit leaves much to be desired.)

So, I finally got out of my town and went up to meet my parents in Kyoto.

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom, so Kyoto was at it's most beautiful.
It was also at its most crowded. Everyone wanted to see the spring cherry blossoms, and plus it was spring break for every single school in all of Japan. Some of the public parks were so full of people you literally couldn't even find a place to stand.

Also, after having spent so long in my little town in the boondocks of Japan, and being accustomed to being the only white person around, I remember being surprised at how many foreigners there were in Kyoto. At some of these tourist spots, there were more foreigners than Japanese.

Thoughts On the Anti-Trump Protests and Thoughts on a Way Forward

One of my co-workers here in Saigon was very excited about the anti-Trump million woman march happening in Washington DC.
She wanted to do a solidarity event here in Saigon, and asked everyone to come out to the balcony to take a photo.

I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it, but I figured, why not. After all, back in 2001, I had spent all night riding on a bus to get to Washington DC to protest Bush's inauguration.  So compared to that, walking a few steps to the balcony was (quite literally) the least I could do.

But after the photo-op was over, I shared my skepticism with another co-worker.  "I actually went all the way to DC back in 2001 to protest Bush's inauguration," I told him.  "And, you know, in retrospect, I'm not entirely sure it did any good.  After all that protesting, not only was Bush still president, but he still went on to suck really hard for the next 8 years."

My friend nodded in agreement.  "Yeah, that's the problem when protests don't have clear specific goals.  If you're just out in the streets marching to say you hate somebody, it doesn't get you anywhere."

******************************************************

Here's something I remember very clearly from protesting Bush' inauguration in 2001:
We were standing behind the police barricades yelling abuse at all the cars that drove down the inauguration route.
The man behind me was yelling, "Don't even bother unpacking.  Everyone's going home in four years.  Everyone's going home."
Several variations on this were being yelled throughout the day.

We were all so sure that Bush would be a one term president.
After all, he had already been an unpopular candidate to begin with.  He had lost the popular vote, and even the legitimacy of his electoral college win was heavily debated.  Many people saw his election as illegitimate, so we were sure the voters would have their revenge on him in 2004.

And yet, he won re-election again in 2004.

Whenever I hear one of my Millennial co-workers say, "Well, at least Trump will only be a one-term President," I remember the voice of that guy in 2001-- "Don't bother unpacking.  Everyone's going home in four years."

And yes, I know I was the guy who never thought Trump could win in the first place.  But that was different.  Before we were talking about Presidential candidate Trump.  Now, we're talking about incumbent President Trump.  And that changes everything.

Historically, one-term Presidents are very rare.  (A couple of the most recent ones--Carter, Bush Sr--have been within our own lifetime, which perhaps skews our perception of just how rare this actually is historically).
Unless the economy is completely falling apart, most voters will always prefer the devil they know over the devil they don't.
If things are going smoothly enough, then why risk a change?

Of course this isn't the way we liberal partisans think.  We assumed that the country would hold a grudge against Bush over the stolen 2000 election, and over the Iraq War.
But we were in our own little bubble back in 2004, and we assumed that the rest of the country cared about our pet grievances as much as we did.  And we learned.  Or at least we should have.

(From a broader historical perspective, this is also why Nixon won re-election in 1972, in spite of how much liberals hated him.)

So, in light of that experience, let me make a prediction for 2020.
If the economy is relatively stable in 2020, and if Trump succeeds at giving his Republican base what they want, he will win re-election.  The fact that he says and does so many things that drives us liberals into a fury will only matter to liberals.

************************************************

And here's another thought:

When Bush won in 2000, and saw how much liberals hated him, he (and his stage managers) decided it was useless to try a strategy of reconciling with liberals.

Instead, their strategy became to appeal to their conservative base, and just concentrate on keeping the Republicans really happy.

If the Republican base could be counted on to come out in big numbers in 2004, and if the country was relatively stable, then the fact that we liberals were fuming mad about everything didn't matter at all.

Which was why, right from day one, Bush started appointing a very conservative, very ultra-right cabinet, and started pursuing a very ultra-right agenda.

And it worked for him.

There are ample signs already that Trump is going to be using the same playbook for the next 4 years.  He's already started making a lot of symbolic gestures that show his strategy is going to be giving red-meat to his conservative base, and screwing over the liberals.

If we liberals make it clear that we will oppose everything Trump does, and that there's no way Trump can work with us, but at the same time we aren't strong enough to actually stop Trump, then we've just made ourselves into a target.

At the moment Trump's best strategy would be to just focus on keeping the conservative supporters he already has by giving them everything they want and attacking liberals more.
And if Trump's first few days in office are any indication, Trump has already figured this out.

We're under the impression that we can get victory by just declaring how angry we are.  But conservatives don't care how angry we are.  In fact, if anything, they just think it's funny.  The more outraged we get, the funnier they think it is.  (One example of many from conservative Youtube: Butt-Hurt Crying Hillary Voters Compilation)



So, where do we go from here?

To be quite honest, I don't know.
All I can do is do is point out what hasn't worked historically, and then perhaps we can re-evaluate our options.

If we are under the impression that more protests, more polarization, and more extreme liberal rhetoric is going to win, then we are wrong.  That's what liberals tried from 1968-1972, and they lost, and it's what my generation tried from 2000-2004, and we lost.

Protesting feels great.  It makes you feel powerful.  But it's a false sense of power.  It's an attempt to show strength when in reality we have no strength.  And then we get crushed in the next election.

I know the electoral college is unfair, but it's also a reality, and it's not going to change over the next 4 years.  So we're stuck with it.

Unless we manage to convert more people over to our side, we will lose again and again and again.

But, look at liberal rhetoric?  How much of it is focused on converting the other side?  And how much of it is focused on pushing the other side away?

Examples are too numerous to adequately cover, but let me just give a couple representative samples.

Below is a 2014 interview with Suey Park:



Now, I'm sympathetic with Suey Park on the issues.  (I can understand why Asian Americans are sick of being the punchline of every racist joke).  But notice her rhetoric.
 Instead of saying:
"Join us.  A better world is possible and we can build it together."
She says:
"White men can't possible understand, and so shouldn't speak on this issue.  And I'm not going to go through the labor of trying to explain it to you."

Well, guess what? This is why Trump won in 2016.  White men vote, and under the current demographics of our country, their vote counts disproportionately in the electoral college system.

So if our only strategy is to tell these guys "You are the enemy, and you can't possibly have anything to say to us," then we will lose.

Or, as Fredrik deBoer has already pointed out, the lunacy of Lena Dunham tweeting out "How are you feeling about the extinction of  White Men?" on the eve of the election.

perhaps an official campaign surrogate deeply involved in your campaign tweeting this as you try to win Wisconsin union guys wasn't the best pic.twitter.com/ghmOHnu6xI

— Cliff Spab (@freddiedeboer) November 10, 2016

I mean, I get it.  White Men have been in power for too long, and it's time to give someone else a time in the sun.

But until the left has the strength to take the power of White Men from them by force, then they have to accept that White Men have the power now, and it can not be taken from them. It may make you feel good to taunt them, but it also drives them straight into Trump's arms.

Our rhetoric needs to be, "A better world is possible, and you can build it with us."

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky - Right-wing Protesters

Ogata / 緒方

(Better Know a City)

Monday, August 24, 2009
During my first year in Japan, I was finishing a class when I noticed the cover of one of my student's notebooks.

It was a picture of a beautiful waterfall that looked, to my ignorant Mid-western eye, like a scene from some sort of secluded paradise on an exotic island. When I looked closer, I was surprised to see the caption identified it as being right here in Oita prefecture.

This, it turns out, was the famous Harajiri Waterfall in Ogata town.

Of course I decided immediately I had to get down there and see it in person.

I drove down with my girlfriend at the time, and spent an afternoon walking around and taking pictures.
Later, when Brett came to visit me in Japan, I made a second trip down.

I have already posted pictures from these two different trips in an old retrospection--which you can view here.
But, actually, while I'm thinking about these photos, I might as well repost them here as well.

(Pictures never really do the place justice. Especially not my pictures. I was never really able to duplicate on film the amazing picture that I had seen on my student's notebook. That picture had been perfectly framed by a professional. It must have been taken after the rains when the water level was at it's peak. And it was in the spring time, when all the surrounding flowers were in bloom. But for what they're worth, here are my pics. )












Okay, that was then. Now, 6 years later, I'm making my way back to Ogata town as part of my "Better Know a City" project.

To get to Ogata, I had to drive through several towns I have yet to explore. Usually I work my way down through these towns in a rough sort of geographic order, but because we're in the middle of the summer heat, I wanted to stay near water-based attractions. I would have gone to the ocean, but with Kamae (see previous post) I've officially finished off all the coastal towns in Oita prefecture now.

Although I wasn't enjoying the ocean view I had gotten used to the last couple months, driving through the rolling hills of central Oita also presented quite breathtaking scenery. Everything was bright green, and much of the mountainsides and hillsides had been carved into rice fields built as a series of ascending steps. These are the famous terraced rice fields, or "tanada" in Japanese, that the Japanese countryside is so well-known for.

At one point I crossed a bridge, and I was now in Ogata town.

Right near the boarder was a parking lot near the river. I immediately pulled over, expecting some sort of tourist attraction.
There was nothing there but a view of the river, but as long as I was stopped I took some pictures and videos anyway.






The drive through Ogata continued to be just as beautiful as the drive to Ogata. In fact I was tempted to stop the car every ten feet just to take pictures, but this would have been impossible.
I waited until there was a slight shoulder on the road, and then pulled over to try and take a few pictures, which will have to be representative of the whole drive. This was an average point along the road. There were several views along the drive that were more spectacular than this, but these are the ones I got photos of.








Since Harajiri waterfall was the main attraction in Ogata, I figured there was no point in delaying it, and I drove straight for the waterfall parking lot.

There's a bit of a tourist development built up around the waterfall. This is still small town Japan, so it's not overdone, but there are a couple restaurants and souvenir shops located in the waterfall parking lot.

I decided to leave my car parked, and start by walking back to the road to get some shots of the drive in.
Because the river is located at a low point relative to the surrounding area, one of the neat things about this waterfall is you never see it until you're right on top of it. The drive there is just a bunch of mundane rice fields, and I backed up down the road a bit so I could get a sense of this on film.



As I took a few pictures, I heard sirens. At first they were far away, but soon a fire engine was zooming past me.
In the countryside these emergency vehicles stick out a bit more than in the big city, and you do notice take notice of them when they go by lights flashing. But disasters happen even in small towns.

A little bit further down the road there were a couple of waterwheels.
Ogata is famous for its waterwheels. At one time I suspect there might have been a historical connection. Now they seem solely for the tourists. Just in the small area near the waterfall there are several waterwheels.
These ones scooped water out of the river then the water was used to make a small stream. I took a couple pictures and moved on.






Around this time an ambulance went by me sirens blazing. Makes sense, I thought, where there's a fire truck, there's always an ambulance close behind.

Having sufficiently documented the area leading up to the waterfall, I was ready to tackle the real thing.
I started walking towards the waterfall, but I had barely turned on my video camera when I noticed the fire truck and the ambulance were both parked up near the top of the waterfall. Was there some sort of emergency at the waterfall itself?






As I got closer, I saw that a small crowd had gathered around the edge of the waterfall to watch.
Emergency workers were running all around the top of the waterfall, making notes, shouting to each other, and talking on walkie-talkies.

I wanted to know what was going on, but I was worried that if I asked someone directly it would make me look like a rubber necked gawker feeding off of other people's disasters. Which I guess I kind of was, but it is just a natural human curiosity.

Two old men were talking next to me. "It's too late now," one of them said. "Even if they find the body, it's too late to do any good now."
I caught a few other words, such as "fell" and "watefall" and I guessed someone had gone over the falls.

In my past visits, I had always wondered if it was safe to jump off the top of this waterfall. Perhaps this question was now answered. Maybe someone had tried to jump off or slide down and had gotten hurt.
But why was everyone walking around the top of the waterfall and taking notes? Shouldn't someone be swimming around the bottom of the waterfall looking for the body?

A couple of new people showed up. One of them was looking side to side, and I could tell he was just as confused as me, and he was looking for someone to ask for information. I stepped next to him so I would be able to hear as well.
Sure enough, he soon saw the old men, and asked them, "what happened here?"

"A car went over the waterfall," an old man replied.

This was about the last thing I expected to hear.
True, there was a road going over the river at the top of the waterfall. So it was theoretically possible. But it was hard to imagine.
First of all, there was a bit of distance between the road and the waterfall. The car would have had to not only leave the road completely, but then continue driving several meters over the stone cliffs. Maybe it might have gotten carried along by the water, but the water didn't look deep enough to pick up a whole car.

Secondly, it was just plain difficult to imagine. A car crashing over the side of the waterfall in this sleepy little town didn't seem like the kind of thing that happened in the real world. It seemed like something that would only happen in a Hollywood movie.

The newcomer voiced the same incredulity I was feeling. "A-a-a car? Did you just say a car went over the waterfall?"
But the old man wasn't feeling very talkative. He turned away without elaborating.

As I continued watching, I overheard more conversations and picked up more bits and pieces from the other people standing around. They all confirmed what the old man had said. A car had indeed gone off the waterfall.

The police and assorted emergency workers were now getting into scuba gear at the bottom of the waterfall, and getting a boat ready for launching. Everything was slow and mechanical and nobody seemed in a rush at all, which surprised me because I thought time would be a factor in these situations. I can only imagine that professional rescue workers must know something I don't about how it's better to take your time and do things right than rush off half cocked.

Also, although I took a lot of pictures and videos of the event, I did have mixed feelings about what I was doing. This was, in all probability, a situation where one or more people had lost their lives, and it seemed a bit frivolous for me to be video taping it as if it were a sight seeing attraction.

I did however notice that many of the Japanese people were also taking photos and videos so this made me feel, if not less guilty, at least less conspicuous.

At the same time I noticed that there was a big disconnect between the emotions I thought I should be feeling now, and what I actually felt.
I thought that I should be horrified and saddened by this loss of human life.

In reality, I viewed the whole thing with a detached amusement. The victims, whoever they were, had no connection to me and this whole incident was nothing more than something that made my morning a little bit more interesting.

Nor was I the only one who felt this way. All around me people were talking gaily or laughing. They were using their cell-phones to call up their friends. Two mothers were chatting away to each other while their kids ran around under the tree. To the extent that they even cared about the rescue effort they only regarded it as entertainment.

I realized that someday when it would be my turn to die, it would be the same. The world wouldn't grind to a halt when I breathed my last--children would go on playing, people would go on laughing. Friends and family would be sad of course, but the larger world wouldn't even notice.

Of course I was not so naive to only now be realizing this for the first time, but it was certainly a vivid illustration. It reminded of a poem "Musee des Beaux Arts" that I had studied in one of my literature classes (--link here).

It also occurred to me that if I had gotten to this waterfall maybe 30 minutes earlier I would have seen the whole thing. If I hadn't had such a big breakfast, or if I hadn't stopped to take all those extra pictures, then the whole thing would have happened right in front of me.

I wished I had been there. From a shallow and sensationalist standpoint, I wished I had been there because it's not everyday from you see a car go over a waterfall, and I'm sure that would have been a sight to behold.
From another standpoint, I wished I had been there because I would have jumped into the water and tried to pull them out of the car before it was too late.

--Okay, so that's easy to say. Who knows, maybe I would have frozen up. But I like to think I would have been quick acting enough to swim out to the car before it sank. Whether I would have been able to get anyone out of the car or not, who knows? But I didn't understand why everyone had just been standing around waiting for the rescue workers to get started.
(Of course I don't know what happened at the time. Maybe some people took some action.)

The police and rescue workers continued at a leisurely pace. They rowed the boat out to the middle of the waterfall, while two workers in scuba gear dived down. (The pool at the bottom of the waterfall must be a lot deeper than it looks).

There was some messing about with a rope. The rescue workers on the top of the waterfall were throwing a rope down to the boat. After a few tries, they caught the rope, and then rowed back across the pool to the shore. Some of the slack was then pulled out so that the rope made a diagonal line between the top of the waterfall and the bottom of the pool.

Although it has taken me only a couple sentences to write this, they were fooling around with that rope for a long time before they got it like that. I never did understand what the purpose of it was.

Since the rescue effort was moving along at a slow pace, I decided to go around and see how much picture and video tape I could get of the waterfall area without getting in everyone's way.

There was a rope bridge across the river overlooking the waterfall, and I walked across this for a couple pictures.








I had not intended to get in the way of the police, but one of them walked onto the same bridge to take some official police photos shortly after I came on.
I had forgotten how much this bridge shook when someone was walking on it. With every step I took, I worried I was shaking up his camera and messing up his photos.

I came around to the other edge of the river, where there were more people standing around watching the rescue workers.
This was the side of the river opposite the tourist center, so almost all of the people here were old farmers: old woman with hunched backs, men with huge straw hats and everyone speaking in unintelligible dialect.

As I came along to look at the view from this side, I saw the rescue workers pull a body out of the water and bring it to the shore. I decided to leave the video turned off for this part.
I don't know how long he had been underwater, but his body looked bloated already. And sickly pale.

I'm not sure what happened to him in the end. For all I know he could have made a miraculous recovery at the hospital. But I thought that in all probability I was looking at a dead body.
To the best of my recollection, this was the first dead body I had ever seen (excluding images in books and television). I suppose this means that since I'm 31, and I'm only now seeing my first dead body, it means I've lead a very blessed life.

As soon as the body got on shore the police men wrapped it in a blanket. Then they carried it a few feet, and a bunch of them took the body under a blue tarp. They were there out of sight for a few minutes, and then they carried him up the steps and up to their cars.

The rescue workers continued diving in the water.
There was some debate among the other standbyers about whether or not more people had been in the car. Some people said there were, some people said there weren't.

I felt no reason to watch this thing play out till the bitter end, so I decided to go and get some coffee and come back out later to see if everything had cleared up.



I went in the tourist rest stop (michi no eki) and looked around. I asked for some maps of Ogata town.
There were, apparently, no maps of the whole town, but they gave me a couple maps of the waterfall and the attractions near the waterfall.

I had originally intended to just get a coffee, but I noticed I was feeling hungry. And the restaurant had set menus that were very reasonable priced. I got a gyudon set (beef on rice) together with a salad, soup and a coffee.

Once I had ate and drank everything, and read a bit of my book, I went back outside to see if the commotion had cleared up yet.
The rescue workers were still going back and forth in their boat. And the crowds were still watching.

So, I decided to head out and explore some other areas of Ogata town.

Near the waterfall there were a few different paths. There was a walking trail called Akeaji Trim Course (presumably because walking it made you loose weight) and a waterwheel cycling course.

I got a little confused initially by the maps, and it took me a little while before I figured out which course was which. Since both of these paths were running roughly parallel to each other, I was constantly switching back and forth between them on the walk down.
By the way, although one of these paths is identified as a walking course, and the other as a cycling road, neither is closed off to cars. A couple times I was in the middle of taking a picture when I had to get out of the way because an old man in a white pick-up truck was going through.









I followed the road down past a waterwheel.

I went up to get a better view of the landscape from a platform near the San no Miya Hachiman Shrine.

The shrine was indicated on my maps as a point of interest, so I climbed up the steps to get a look at it.
Nothing exciting. Just an average ordinary shrine.






Having climbed all these steps, however, I was kind of hoping for a good view of the town. I couldn't seen much from the shrine, but the road did continue up the hill, so I followed that.

I got absolutely swarmed by bugs.
They didn't bite (for the most part) but they were constantly buzzing about my face. I had to keep waving my hand back and forth in front of me, or they would land on face and crawl all around my eyes, ears, and nose. It was very annoying.

I suppose insects are a natural hazard of doing any hiking in the summer time. Although on all my various excursions this summer up until now, I had never had a problem with them.

It was so bad that I couldn't even take a picture of the scenery I saw. The minute I stopped waving my hand in front of my face to try and focus my camera, they descended.

I never did find a really good look out point anyway, so I just walked back. As soon as I got down off the mountain, the bugs left me alone.

I continued walking and got to the central area of Ogata. At the end of the "Trim Course" there was a museum on old folk traditions. I decided to check this out, but it turns out they're closed on Mondays. (This happens all the time. Most tourist attractions are closed on Mondays here in Japan. The dangers of going sight-seeing on Mondays.)



So, I just wandered around for a while.

I went down and checked out the Ogata stone bridge, over the Ogata river.




I wandered through the central town, and bought myself a few drinks to rehydrate myself.

I walked up on a hill and got a good view of the town, and took some pictures.







On the way back, I walked up the hill to the sports center.
There was no one there, so I didn't stay long. I just took a couple pictures, and wandered over the grounds. The town graveyard was also located up on this hill.





I returned to the cycling road, and on the way back I saw a couple more waterwheels.

Most of these waterwheels don't serve any purpose as far as I could tell. A couple of them were used to irrigate the ground next to them, and the rest were just there for no reason at all.
However a waterwheel does evoke images of an idyllic countryside setting, and I'm just as much a sucker for this as anyone else. Listening to the sound of the wooden panels repeatedly hitting the water, and seeing the green fields are around, I felt so happy to be outside and enjoying this beautiful day.






I had now worked my way back to the Harajiri waterfall.
By this time, all the rescue work had finished, and I could wander around and take pictures a lot more freely.
There still a few police men walking about taking notes. And there was a woman with a microphone being filmed by a cameraman--I assumed this was the local news, although I never confirmed this.

I walked up by the top of the waterfall. Because there were still some police around I stayed on the main path and didn't wander over to the edge of the waterfall as I had done on both of my previous visits.

I also walked down to the base of the waterfall, and tried to get a good picture. However from the bottom, the entire waterfall proved to big to fit into just one frame.












Feeling like I had documented the waterfall experience as much as my equipment would allow me, I decided to drive down the road.
Shortly after the Harajiri waterfall was the Harajiri stone bridge, which I stopped the car to take some pictures of.






I then continued on down the road (route 7, I think) to see what else there was to see.)

I didn't find much, but the scenery was so beautiful it was again difficult to resist the urge to stop the car every 10 feet and take pictures.
There was some sort of fishing park by Shinnagase bridge. I stopped here briefly to take a couple pictures.



And then at another point there was such a nice view of the valley and the river going through it that I had to stop for more pictures and video tape.






I went through a tunnel and continued to drive through breathtaking scenery.
Eventually the road I was on appeared to come to an end. Or at least the main road looked like it branched into 3 smaller side streets. And I decided this would be a good place to turn around and come back.




In retrospect, I think if I had continued down this path it would have lead me to Kawakami valley, which is supposed to be quite beautiful and I'm sorry I missed out on it. But the street signs and the map wasn't very clear about this, so I missed it at the time. (Obviously when you go into a town cold, you don't always hit the high points as thoroughly as when you know what you're doing.)

I drove back and took the road in the other direction.

Eventually I ended up following signs up to see a some sort of Buddhist statue.

The statue was called (I think) Imayamamagaibutsu, and was located up on a mountain path. After I stopped the car, I picked up one of the free walking sticks, and followed the path indicated by the sign.

The statue itself wasn't very impressive, but at least it wasn't a very long hike to get there.

Once I went down the path, I got swarmed by the bugs again. I guess they're really out this time of year.
Again, they didn't bite me (for the most part) but they were a constant nuisance buzzing around my face.









Back in the car, and once again looking for things to see.
I followed the signs to see more Buddhist statues.
The Miyasako stone buddhist statues had been indicated on both the pamphlets and the road signs as tourist attractions. However the paths leading up to them were not kept up at all.

I was able to get to the eastern statue (Miyasako Higashi Seki Butsu) but the path leading to the western statue was completely overgrown with plants so that I couldn't get through.



The sign pointed to another path leading around, so I circled back and tried to take this one. I climbed up some stairs, but then the path was overgrown again and it was impossible to get through.

Around this time a Japanese farmer and his wife had come out to tend the neighboring rice fields. "Ah, trying to see the Buddhist statues, huh?" he asked. "The path is pretty bad, isn't it?"

"I couldn't get through," I answered. And he nodded knowingly.





To be honest, I wasn't that upset about not seeing the statues. I had seen more than enough Buddhist images and stautes over my time in Japan. The only reason I went out of my way to see them in the first place was out of a sense of obligation, as I thought this was one of the town's major attractions. But if it's not important to them to keep the path walkable, it's not important for me to see the statue.

And that was more or less my day in Ogata. I spent some more time driving back and forth in my car after this, but didn't find anything else of much interest. And soon afterwards the sun started to set, and it was time to head home.

Ogata Links:
Eco-Walk and Spring paths of Bungo. (Both of these posts are about the larger sicty of Bungo-Ono, but include lots on Ogata).
Harajiri Waterfall,
Tulip Festival Ogata City
Lots more articles and pictures of Harajiri waterfall on the web if anyone feels like doing a bit of digging, but these were just the first ones that popped up on a simple google search.

Update: According to the newspaper, the car had two people in it: a 90 year old father and his 65 year old sun. Both died in the accident.

Link of the Day
Chomsky: Understanding the Crisis-Markets, the State, and Hypocrisy
and Once upon a time, the citizens of a large nation turned into monsters ...
and American bankers: Fighting the good fight