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Azure waters, extremely old people and the Death Bus.
If you live or have ever lived in one of the urbanized areas of Japan, you’ve probably been pushing through a throng of shoppers who are walking at speeds somewhere between ‘approaching the sound-barrier’ and ‘narcoleptic snail amputee’ when a thought strikes your frazzled brain: “I hate everyone.” It’s not a direct, focused anger, but rather a general antipathy towards all things noisy and pushy. When you get to that point, and you start to contemplate random acts of violence in retaliation for someone taking more than six seconds to buy a subway ticket, it might be time to take a break.
May I make a recommendation?
Iya Valley is known as the ‘Tibet of Japan’, because it’s under the control of the Chinese. No, actually it’s called this because it is very remote, quiet and full of wrinkly people. The valley lies somewhere near the centre of Shikoku and can be reached from Kobe via a 3-hour bus-trip. The bus takes you over the impressive Awajishima bridge, the unexciting whirlpool, and the relatively deserted Awaji Island, which tops my list of islands most likely to contain a secret military base. When you arrive in the foothills of Iya Valley, you’ll change to a charming single-car train that will shuttle you up into the mountains where the air is so still and silent that you can hear a single-car train approaching from miles away.
The train ride is an important part of the experience of Iya Valley. You’ll be whisked along the edges of precipitous gorges and through dark tunnels. You’ll enjoy the relaxed manner in which the locals remove their shoes and put their feet up on the train seats. You’ll remember that while it’s quaint and charming for them to do this, no one wants to see your huge foreign showboat-sized feet in public, so keep them in your shoes. Most importantly, you’ll see the water. You will remember the water for the rest of your life.
I recommend getting a mask to prevent bugs from climbing into your mouth while you are gasping
According to the shredded remnants of high school geography and science, the mountains and riverbeds of Iya are mostly composed of dark shale that is unusually rich in copper. This copper oxidizes on the surface of the riverbeds and transforms the water of Iya’s rivers into beautiful azure ribbons, greener than the sky, bluer than the cheap, tawdry waters of the Caribbean. This gorgeous view is only occasionally interrupted by thrill-seeking Japanese tourists, holding on for dear life as their inflatable rafts barrel downstream at near-walking speed. Of course, we went when in autumn when the water was very low, but I’m sure it gets absolutely terrifying…if you get attacked by a lost polar bear (Ha ha. Lost in-joke)
Anyway, at the end of the train ride you’ll mostly likely be deposited at Obokke station. If that’s not where you get off, don’t blame me. The area around the station is one of the urban centers of Iya that are going absolutely nowhere. You can shop ‘til you get bored at ‘MART’ and the imaginatively named ‘MART 2’. You can also catch a taxi if you’re staying in the area. If you’re not staying in the vicinity of the station, you’ll want to catch one of the buses that amble down the hill and then back up it again every couple of hours. These buses venture almost anywhere you want to go in Iya Valley because there is approximately one road, and most of the time it isn’t even wide enough for a horse (a thin horse), never mind a bus. Once aboard the bus you’ll be treated to the local delicacy of the region. The bitter taste of fear. Your bus will lurch along the winding roads that cling to the gorges of the valley like a drunk on crutches. At every corner along the road, you’ll see a convex mirror that your driver will hopefully keep an eye on, since it’s the only warning you’ll have that another car or, god forbid, another bus is coming in the opposite direction. Both vehicles will then come to an immediate halt, so I recommend that you stay seated throughout the ride. Whichever vehicle is closer to one of the many ‘wider than a fridge’ parts of the road that dot the route will reverse to it, allowing the other to pass, although I did get a sense that might makes right.
Look at that road! It’s 6 feet wide!
The buses travel a roughly circular route from the station to Tsurugi-san (Ken-Zan to the locals) and back again. Along the way you can stop off at a number of tourist attractions.
The bridges:
Iya Valley was originally settled by a samurai clan on the run from some other samurai clan in a game of Tag that I think everyone now agrees got way out of hand. The fleeing clan, who went by the name of ‘Not-its’ came up with a sneaky way of ensuring their survival in case the ‘It’ clan ever followed them. They built numerous rope bridges across the gorges of the valley as a convenient means of transport and scaring people with vertigo, and decided that if the ‘It’ clan ever found them (unlikely, as the ‘It’ clan soon decided that it was bored of this game and went back to its Lego set), they would detonate the C4 at the base of the bridge supports, destroying the bridges and making pursuit impossible.
The bridges are made of vines, but have been subtly reinforced with steel wires, so there’s no danger of them falling into the gorge below. The same cannot be said of you. There is a good hand width of empty space between each of the slats that make up the floor of the bridge, so watch where you put your feet. It’s not really all that terrifying, but you wouldn’t know it from the way some tourists inch their way across crabwise. This either ruins a great many beautiful photographs or makes a great many amusing ones, depending on your point of view. The two smaller bridges, which are closer together, also feature a kind of boxcar transport system where you can sit in a small palanquin and pull yourself across the gorge with a rope.
It’s no Space Mountain, but it’s fun
Hint: Your name, your quest, blue.
The mountain with the sword story:
One of the main attractions of Iya valley is Tsurugi-san, or Ken-Zan. Legend has it that a famous guy, currently dead, buried a fabulous sword somewhere on the slopes of Ken-Zan, and it remains there to this day, howling at the moon and feasting on living flesh. Not really. If it does exist, it’s probably in a box, and no matter how invaluable the sword might be if you find it, you’re not going to get to keep it and I’d much rather have all the tourist money that has been generated by the story. Feel free to feed the beast when you get to the parking area of the mountain by buying Ken-Zan mocha, hats, sticks, pins, picture books, maps, mail-order brides, snow globes, weasel-coffee and other omiyage that will increase the weight of your bags threefold.
Actually, I recommend getting all that stuff after you go up the mountain. If you are an outdoorsy, energetic, and dynamic person, you can walk up the side of the mountain in about an hour and a half. It is, by all accounts, an easy and relaxing stroll rather than a hike. If you’re like me, you can take the cable-car half-way up and then saunter the remaining 30minutes in about an hour. This may sound strange, but I assure you that hiking books are not to be trusted, because they are written by the kind of man that has a 5 O’clock shadow twenty minutes after they he shaves, and the kind of woman who tells that man what to do.
Once you summit the mountain, you can relax and tuck into whatever food you brought with you. If you didn’t bring any food with you, you can take out a bond on something at the store just below the summit or you can beat someone up and take theirs. I recommend going for people with glasses. They never expect to get hit.
The summit of Ken-Zan. The only place you’ll find any large number of tourists in Iya Valley
You can walk along to the summit of that mountain too, if you want. I have a picture.
After you’ve had your fill of the spectacular views available from the summit of Ken-Zan, it’s time to pack up and go back down to the parking lot. On the way, I recommend that you indulge in a little fantasy in which you notice a tiny glint of metal glinting in the slope of the mountain, and upon closer investigation find the fabled lost sword of that dead guy. Just watch out for C4 traps. Those samurai were crafty buggers and they built things to last.
Other recommendations:
Those of you still reading have probably given up on finding any factual, useful information. I congratulate you on your acceptance of reality, but would like to give you’re a fuzzy idea of some of the other delights to be had in Iya Valley, if only enough for you to be prompted to pull out a real travel guide and do some actual research. That’s right. I’m not going to do it all for you. Why are you so lazy?
Sheesh.
Chiiori house.
Originally bought in the 70’s by that dude who wrote Dogs and Demons, Chiiori house is one of the remaining two traditional thatched roof houses in Iya Valley. It’s a sort of guest-lodge/commune that doesn’t really fit into any of the preconceived boxes of accommodation, one of the reasons that it’s so worth visiting. At about 4000yen per person per night, you’ll get to experience life in a traditional old-fashioned Japanese house, plus kitchen, western toilet and electricity. Everyone sleeps in a large central room on futons, with folding blinds dividing up the space so that you won’t be treated to a view of some stranger’s mouth-breathing. If you get hungry, you can feel free to grab something from the snack-drawer and everyone pitches in to cook dinner night. There’s a good chance dinner will include some fresh vegetables from the gardens surrounding the house. The house is co-run by an American named Mark and a Japanese guy named…something Japanese, and they’re both very accommodating and friendly. Chiiori house is about as far from city life as you’re going to get while still being comfortable, so I highly recommend that you go there before you have a nervous breakdown. In the early mornings, the house drifts just above the clouds that slowly dissipate as the sun comes up. The gurgling river is a ten minute walk downhill, and a good opportunity to get up close and personal with the pristine blue water. At night you can huddle around the indoor fire-pit and enjoy a beer or chu-hai with the other guests, and when you get tired you can retire to a warm futon, safe from the vampires that lurk outside in the bushes.
The rock museum:
About 10minutes walk from _______ station is a rock museum. If you are interested in rocks, you will be impressed by their lovely collection and ‘Iya Valley rock-hunting-adventure-video’, narrated by a Japanese Indiana-Jones-alike who is entirely hilarious. They have pretty rocks, ancient rocks and rocks that glow under UV light. They also have an omiyage store in which you can pauper yourself.
If you don’t like rocks, don’t go.
Onsens:
There are a number of excellent onsens in Iya Valley, many of them operated by hotels that they are adjoined to. We visited one that I can’t remember the name of, and Hikyo no Yu. Hikyo no Yu is operated by a very snazzy hotel that charges 15000yen per night and well worth it if you fancy some dinner that is half-delicious and half-completely unrecognizable. Besides the three different types of bath available in this onsen, there is also a salt sauna in which you cover yourself in rough salt, sweat for a bit and then go outside and wash the salt off, along with a couple of layers of skin. One technological triumph of the Hikyo no Yu is a circular shower with perforated metal rings that surround you from your feet to your chest and spray you with enough forces to remove any tattoos your may have. I recommend you use your towel and hands to cover any sensitive parts of your anatomy that you might want to continue to work after your shower.
For sheer novelty value though, you can’t beat the Kurabashi onsen, operated by the Kurabashi hotel. Upon entering, you can take an arthritically slow cable car up the side of the mountain to the baths. The baths are fairly small, and interestingly includes a unisex section for anyone feeling racy. The view from the baths is fantastic, but I’ll let the picture do the talking because this article is already 2000 words long.
The water of Kurabashi onsen has a soapy feel to it. I suspect it is slightly alkali and melts the skin off your body, layer by layer
A note on old people:
You will see a lot of them in Iya Valley. The large number of old people you will see will be accentuated by the extremely small number of young people you will see. I bet you sometimes wonder where all those young, attractive people who live in Kobe and Osaka come from? The answer is Iya Valley and countless other inaka areas just like it that send their young people off to the big city to get an ejumacation and then never see them again. The only young people you will see in Iya Valley are working in the tourist industry. Everyone else is worryingly decrepit, and despite the ubiquitous construction projects underway all around the area, signs of decay are everywhere. Empty houses, abandoned cars and silent streets testify that that this area’s busy days are long behind it and what will happen when the current generation of old people finally go up to that big onsen in the sky is a question for someone smarter than me. My guess is something like that scene in cocoon when the aliens arrive and everyone gets younger again.
Don’t forget the omiyage!
I hope this article has given you a small, inaccurate, populated-by-vampires-view of Iya Valley that will drive you to the Let’s Go, Japan (better name: Let’s Going, Japan) or whatever other travel guide I know is on your bookshelf, to really find out what there is to see. We went in early autumn, but I’m sure the valley will be stunning in winter and cool in summer. I hardly covered the river rafting, which is apparently fantastic in the spring I also skimped on the fascinating old-fashioned bus day-trip that will take you to most tourist attractions, feed you the local soba and dangle you entertainingly over a ledge. I didn’t want to talk about them too much because I didn’t do them while I was there, and I’ve always been a firm believer in ‘write what you know’.
In the future, you can look forward to articles from me about space travel on a shoestring, a step-by-step walkthrough of the Minotaur’s lair and the ins and outs of the hokey pokey, which my culture regards as an express-train to eternal damnation…or perhaps that’s Ouija boards.
It was a dark and stormy night.
Under the eaves of a small house in Indiana, something was
coming up out of the drain. It flowed through the grating, an uncounted number
of tiny motes of blackness that moved like oil. Slowly the thing grew until it
was a mound about five feet tall. Slowly it began to mold and reform into a
humanoid shape with short, powerful legs, elongated arms and long fingers. A
neck formed, the head atop it completely blank and black, like a ball of soot.
The thing stood under the eaves of the house for a few
minutes, the rain pounding down to the ground just a few inches from its
newly-formed feet. It stood utterly still, but not unnoticed. A low growl
rumbled out of the doghouse under the tree that dominated the centre of the
garden. The thing simply waited, seeming not to hear the Alsatian that could
barely be seen inside the doghouse, hunkered against the back wall. Eventually
the thing turned and tilted its head upwards. Some six feet above it was a
window. The thing took a hesitant step forward and put its hands and chest
against the plaster wall of the house. Tiny black tendrils reached out hungrily
and bonded to the wall like a million tiny arms. The things hands were
spread-eagled against the wall as if it was going to climb up the wall, but
they did not move as, slowly at first, the thing’s feet lifted off the ground
and it was drawn up towards the window. It slid up the wall and stopped next to
the window. One hand moved to the sill and tugged gently. The window, closed
and locked against storm, didn’t budge. The thing’s hand slid down to where the
window and sill met and the finger elongated, flattening out like a ribbon. It
slipped into the gap and lazily wove upwards towards the latch. There was a
soft click and the window slowly slid open.
Inside, Alex Immelman rolled over in his sleep and murmured
something indistinguishable as the sound from the storm outside grew louder.
Outside, the thing waited. After a minute, it slid to the edge of the window
frame and slipped inside, its body curling around the corner in a u-shape. Once
inside, it carefully closed the window behind it. Alex was sleeping on his
back, one hand underneath his head, the other curled around a large alligator
soft toy, hugging it to his small chest. A small night-light that looked like
Jupiter was plugged into the wall socket.
The thing slid up along the blue-and-white-striped
wallpaper, contorting into a right angle as it met the ceiling. Slowly it moved
towards the centre of the room, suspended from the ceiling by the millions of
tiny tentacles. Its body rippled slightly as it moved over plastic stars and
planets that glowed faintly in the darkness. The thing moved across the dim constellation
like a silent eclipse and slipped along the ceiling until it was directly above
Alex. There it stayed as the minutes ticked by, counted out by the hands of
spaceship clock on the side-table next to the bed.
Alex’s breathing deepened and his eyelids fluttered as he
dreamed. The creature shifted imperceptibly as most of the little black hooks
holding it to the ceiling were withdrawn, leaving only the ones on its back
still connected. The thing’s arms and legs hung free, lolling down towards the
ground like those of a sleeping cat picked up around its belly. Alex dreamt,
and still the creature waited.
More minutes passed, until eventually Alex shifted in his
sleep, dropping the arm he held his soft toy with to his side. Immediately,
more tendrils retreated back into the creature’s body. The creature’s body
suddenly jerked as a glowing plastic Saturn, pulled from the wall by the
receding tendrils, tumbled past the black body and down towards the bed. A
long-fingered hand lashed out, but missed their target. The little planet
bounced off Alex’s shoulder and came to a rest next to his head. Alex moaned
and woke up. His eyes squinted blearily up into the darkness and then opened
wide a moment before the creature dropped down from the ceiling. His scream was
muffled as the thing enclosed him, tiny tentacles whipping out and snatching at
his skin. The creature’s blank face pushed up against Alex’s and more tentacles
lashed out, attaching themselves to his cheeks, his nose, his eyeballs and
tongue. There was a short grunt and blood bloomed from a million small holes
all over Alex’s body. His eyeballs did not pop, but tore open, the jelly inside
them bursting out onto the creature’s face. Swathes of taste buds were ripped
from his tongue and clumps of hair yanked from his scalp as the creature fed,
enveloping the boy as it tore him apart.
In the morning, Karen Immelman packed Alex’s lunchbox and
sent him on his way to school. Later, she was dismayed to find that his bed
sheets had disappeared. She decided to ask him about it when he returned later
that day.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the hungriest of times.
The great Corn Wars of 2235 had wiped out the last of that crop, and along with the extinction of the sugar-cane, the inexplicable disappearance of the world’s bee population almost a century before, and the overharvesting of all other sugar-substitute bearing plants, the world was in dire straits.
High-fructose corn syrup stores were quickly depleted as the genetic plant disease known as Fischer’s Curse ran rampant throughout the world. Well-preserved sugary goods would last another five years or so, but after that, there would be nothing sweet left to dip in the milk produced by the cow-sac farms.
Scientists tried to synthesize sweeteners from the remaining plant species of the world, but every time they succeeded, that species would immediately disappear in a flurry of triad wars. By the Autumn of 2241, mankind had been reduced to a diet of salted oatmeal and recycled meat. Waistlines would have decreased, but trans-fats stepped bravely into the breach and kept the world’s population from the brink of health. Spirits, however, were low. All across the world, the blandness of food seemed to directly create a kind of blandness in life. Carnivals and circuses shut down. Cinema goers could only choose lightly salted pebbles, and not caramel pebbles, pebble being the chosen replacement for popcorn. A dangerous black market trade in sugary substances sprang up as hucksters peddled rough-crystal salt as sugar, cocaine as low-carb sweetener and motor-oil as honey. These activities soon ceased as the world realised that the days of sugar were over. There was nothing sweet to be had. Not a crunchy mouthful. Not a silken drop. Economies collapsed as industry giants like Coca-Cola and Haagen Dasz went bankrupt, taking various banana-republics with them (although bananas, along with all other fruits, had long since died out). Hope was lost and the nations of the world grew inured to rumours of a new sweet-source, hunkering down over their bowls of nutrient-rich meat-and-fibre-O’s
Then, on March the 3rd, 2242, a discovery was made in the library of an ancient university called MIT. Unfortunately for the world, the discovery was made by an amateur team of researchers, their findings live-updated to the Interweb in real-time. The researchers found transcripts documenting an experiment undertaken in 2087 by a small team of food-geneticists who mapped the DNA of not only the common corn plant, but also the sugar cane and the maple tree (extinct since the USA-Canadian war of 2114). The researchers had modified the genetic makeup of these plants to make them superflora, plants capable of withstanding all temperatures, diseases and insect attacks. The researchers had given the plants a shortened evolutionary cycle, allowing them to evolve defences through the spread of pollen and pheromones. They theorised that if someone set fire to one side of a plantation of super-corn, by the time half of it had burned, the other half would have evolved flame-retardant sap.
The super-plants would grow at incredible speeds, yield crops far above average volume and grow anywhere. The experiment had been discontinued when Alfred Bush Jr. had been elected to the American presidency and had declared science to be heretical, but according to the transcripts, the genetic information for this technological saviour for mankind could be found in a research facility on one of the smaller islands of Hawaii, Nihao. In a bizarre homage to the king of all things sweet, the MIT scientists had encoded the genetic information of the superplants into the ‘chips’ of a chocolate chip cookie, a cookie made with the super-sweet sugars of the superplants themselves.
The researchers, excited by their scientific discovery, did nothing to halt the stream of information flowing out of their recording gear and onto the Interweb and within seconds every government and private agency keeping an eye out for possible sweet-source discoveries was aware of the island and its choc-chip treasure trove.
The response was swift. Communications experts went on TV to explain to the public that there was nothing to worry about while at the same time threatening rival powers with thermonuclear destruction. Sleeper cells all over the world were activated and directed to cause havoc in an attempt to distract attention and military resources. With dizzying speed, sub-orbitals, dropships, submarines and jet-packed jump troops converged on Nihao. Mayhem broke out as black ops teams parachuted, rocketed and glided into the grounds of the ancient research facility, opening fire on everyone in sight. Unmanned gunships buzzed around the area like locusts, cutting down men and machine alike with gun and laser. For seven hours and twenty-three minutes, the island of Nihao was World War Five.
When the smoke cleared and a missile-net had been set up around the island, it was the Americans who had won the day. Five-star general Grant Colquinez marched across the overgrown garden of the research compound, ignoring the bodies and machinery the littered the area. His men were getting the last of the fires under control, and with a number of friendly attack satellites in geosynchronous orbit, there was little to fear. A science advisor followed on his heels with a dogged expression on his face, trying not to look at the grotesquely maimed bodied they passed by.
‘We have the cookie secured?’ the general snapped with rather more venom than usual. The mission has been so quickly organized that there had been no time to come up with a codename for the cookie, lending the entire operation an unprofessional air.
‘Yes, sir’, said the advisor, who’s name was Wilt, ‘The cookie is in a cryostatic chamber that has kept it fresh,’ he paused, ‘…viable since 2087’.
Colquinez flipped a salute at two soldiers guarding the entrance and strode into the compound building, Wilt following behind. Inside, mag-lamps had been attached to the walls in orderly rows illuminating the dank corridors of the research station. They passed more soldiers, who pointed them in the right direction and the quickly made their way into the underground levels. Wilt noted that the complex was remarkably well preserved, and the air-conditioning still seemed to be working. The research station was powered by a magma-generator and would have lasted another five hundred or so years if it hadn’t been reopened. Now it would become the centre of the great rediscovery of sweet foods.
Wilt idly wondered what one of the triad leaders would pay for a slab of sweet milk chocolate. Korea, probably, he thought.
Wilt almost walked into General Colquinez’s back as they suddenly emerged from the tunnels into a well-lit room. The walls were as white as the snow Wilt had seen pictures of in books. The room was strewn with ancient scientific equipment. Microscopes, Centrifuges, Beakers and test-tubes. There was even an ancient Bunsen burner in the corner. And there, in the very centre of the room, was a smooth metal capsule, with a small window from which a weak blue light was shining.
‘Report’ barked general Colquinez to no one in particular. A captain stepped forward and snapped off a crisp salute.
‘According to the computers, the…target is still viable, sir. We’re defrosting it now.’
‘Good. Show it to me.’ said the general. The captain stepped back and led the General and Wilt to the capsule in the centre of the room. The general looked in through the window and gave a little grunt of satisfaction. Wilt peered over his shoulder and saw the cookie. It was perfect. Just enough dough to be called a cookie, but with enough chocolate chips to make it a thing of beauty. It was roughly made, and yet it seemed the perfect expression of what a circle was meant to be. Thick, but not too thick. It looked soft, but crunchy. Wilt immediately started salivating, but he was careful to keep his expression neutral. It would not do to start drooling in front of the general.
Everyone waited impatiently as the defrosting process took place. Wilt took the time to make sure the audio/video feed to the Pentagon was live. Eventually there was a ping and the light inside the capsule turned off. Wilt thought he detected a slight tremble in the hand of General Colquinez as he pulled on a pair of medi-gloves and pressed the release button on the capsule. There was a hiss of decompression and then the smell wafted across the room. The capsule had heated the cookie, as if it had been in an oven. The delicious scent of dough, butter, chocolate and perhaps just a hint of maple syrup wafted across the room and Wilt heard a few of the soldiers groan. General Colquinez slowly withdrew his hand from the capsule and gazed at the cookie in the palm of his hand.
‘It’s warm’ he whispered reverently. Every soldier in the room was dead silent as they stood witness to the rebirth of everything delicious in the world. Every soldier stared as the general looked closely at the choc-chips. What secrets did they hold? Would this discovery bring the world back from the depths of depression? Would the superplants spread throughout the world, ending starvation and midnight cravings? Every soldier sighed as the general took a deep whiff of the heavenly choc-chip aroma.
Every soldier froze as General Colquinez popped the cookie into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Three thousand miles away in the Pentagon, the secretary of defence had a stroke and was ignored as he shuddered and thrashed in his chair.
The general finally swallowed and nodded. ‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘My ma used to make ‘em better when I was a kid, but not bad.’
Of course that’s not what happened! No one is that much of an idiot! how depressing would that be? I would never do something like that to you. Here’s what really happened:
The general took a deep breath, drawing in the heavenly choc-chip aroma and turned to Wilt. ‘Scan it’,’ he said. Wilt unhooked the scanner at his belt and ran it over the cookie. After a few seconds, a number of lights turned green.
‘It’s still viable!’ Wilt breathed. ‘Good,’ said the general, putting the cookie back in the capsule and snapping the lid closed, ‘Let’s get it back to base.’
Three months later, most of the Midwest was covered with verdant fields of swaying golden corn. Most of the South-East had become a sugarcane plantation, and the entire of Camerica was a forest of tall Maple trees. America had been generous, promising to release the genetic information, seedlings and off-cuts of the superplants a few months after their first harvest, securing both massive export profits from the first crop and hefty rights fees for itself. Happy enough at the prospect of eating something sweet again, the rest of the world played ball, waiting impatiently for the first harvest. There were pre-orders for pixie-stix, chocolate bars, fudge, brownies, fudge-brownies and every other kind of sugary food. The excitement climaxed as the first combine harvesters crept across the corn fields, great blades flashing in the Autumn light.
Then, almost as one, the tractors, chainsaws and harvesting machines stopped, and the screaming began. All over America, previously harmless corn stalk developed the ability to fire their suddenly-hardened leaves at nearby humans with chilling accuracy and armour-piercing power. In Camerica, tree-sappers were overwhelmed by a strange gas that emanated from the bark of the super-Maples, asphyxiating on the acidic vapours the trees had developed to protect themselves. Sugar cane harvesters, faced with a crop that had suddenly developed the ability to move independently, were impaled and sliced to ribbons. Within minutes it was over, and within hours the sugar cane plantations, further evolving a desire to pre-emptively protect themselves, had launched millions of tiny spores into the air that began to travel the trade winds, spreading across the world.
Humanity wept as they were brought low and replaced by the murderous superplants. They cried bitter, salty, sour tears. but not sweet tears. Oh no.
Yesterday I went shopping with Courtney to an outlet mall in an area called Tarumi. The outlet mall is strange because it actually looks like a mall. Japanese shopping districts are usually set up along roadsides, leading to long shopping areas that often stretch for a few districts.
So there I was, being dragged from store to store, when I noticed something about Japanese…society? Culture? I’m not sure what to call it, but I noticed that Japan’s modus operandi with respect to other cultures is to assimilate that culture and then, for wont of a better and less offensive word, pussify it. They take other people’s ideas and make them safer, more mainstream and less extreme. Here are some examples:
8. It’s been a long winter an I’m obviously a very bitter person.
9. There is no number 9.
10. Coffee here is WEAK. Hot chocolate here is THIN.
As a disclaimer, let me say that I know for a fact there are strong counter-culture movements in Japan. There is a thriving heavy-metal industry, countless niches clothes stores selling what amounts to bondage gear that you can wear in public. There’s a lot of underground stuff that I’m sure is very extreme, but for the most part, Japan conforms to the safe middle ground. In a recent poll of my 2nd year students, a vast majority said that they would rather lead a stable life than an adventurous life, and many of them stated the need to be safe. I’m all for safety as well, but not to the point that life becomes completely boring.
Rant over. The end.
There’s a Tyrannosaurus Rex standing outside my window. At least, I think there is. It’s too big for me to see it’s whole body through the window at one time, and I don’t have my dinosaur field-guide in my desk drawer. It could be something else, and it would probably be mightily pissed off to know that I just assumed it’s a Rex without actually checking. There could have been any number of dinosaurs that looked just like Tyrannosaurus Rex but because some stupid paleontologist decided to latch the Latin word for ‘king’ to the end of its name, the Rex has become famous beyond it’s worth or abilities.
It’s like the Paris Hilton of dinosaurs. There were probably other carnivorous dinos that could outfight, outrun and out-eat the Rex, but unfortunately they will, for the most part, be consigned to dusty books and memory. The Rex meanwhile, will continue to dominate stage and screen, appearing in all sorts of media and occupying a prime position in social communication as the very definition of power, danger, rapaciousness and tiny-forleggedness.
Oh. The one outside my window just ate the next-door neighbour’s 6-year old.
Good.
If you’re not interested in weight training, nutrition, workout programs or getting hyooge, then you can probably skip this post.
Recently my weight training regime has been…sub-optimal. Once again I went crazy at Christmas and gained a whole lotta weight. I’m not at about 80kg, 9kg below the heaviest I’ve ever been. My lowest bodyweight in pre-growing-phase history was 67kg, but that was after the velocity diet and I looked kinda skeletal then.
Anyway, so recently I’ve been trying to find a non-psycho nutrition and workout plan that will work with my schedule. Karate has wrecked me for standard weight training recently because I tend to be injured a lot. Also, this winter is really getting to me. However, thanks to a little counseling help from Courtney, I’m keen to get organised again.
Right now I’m only doing karate one day a week, and I might have to drop that too once I start working at my new school, but I think I’ve found a way to fit 3 days a week of weight training in. 4 if I count working out with the judo club once a week. So this is my proposed schedule, which includes my carbohydrate cycling for the day:
Monday: high carb
Chest
Shoulders
Triceps
Back width
Back thickness
Tuesday: low carb,
Shadow-boxing, mobility work, Japanese class in the evening.
Wed: low carb, karate (cardio)
Thurs: High carb ,
biceps
forearms
calves
hams
quads
Fri: low carb, shadow boxing, full body light training with Judo club
Sat: High carb
Chest
Shoulders
Triceps
Back width
Back thickness
Sun: low carb, rest
After that I do Thursday’s workout on Monday and so on. It constantly cycles.
I’ll be using a DC training program, info for which can be found here: http://dc-training.blogspot.com/
I’ll talk about my goals in the next post.
Little late, but here’s a pic from our New Years.
I’m the incredibly hot one with the incredibly hot Bond Woman draping herself all over me. From left to right we have Linda, David, Jon, THAT BASTARD IN THE BACK WHO ATE THE LAST GODDAMN COCONUT COOKIE AT THE CHINESE PLACE, Courtney, Fran, Patrick and Kaori.
Mark my words, bastard in the back. I will have my revenge. Not in the next life. In this life. You are going to regret the day your parents got too drunk to make responsible choices. It is OVER for you.
That is about 50% as stupid and surprised as you are going to look the day I have my revenge. It will be the stuff of legends. If Vikings were still around they would cringe at your fate.
Prepare yourself, and by ‘self’ I mean last will and testament.
This is a link to my friend Adam’s blog. He’s much better at this stuff than I am. He’s the balding one in the picture. That won’t cause any confusion because the other two balding guys either have a hat on (I’ll let you guess which one), or are taking the photograph (me).
http://mummyboon.blogspot.com/
Don’t get all carried away and just read his blog now. Y’all come back now, Y’hear?
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The Quest For Jon 