As a destination, Hokkaido has a lot to recommend it. Seafood and walks in the hilly town of Hakodate; mountains in the central part of the island for skiing, for people who like that, as well as biking and hiking trails; fall foliage on par with New England or East Tennessee; dairy products on par with Wisconsin; scenic Lake Akan; a wine-making region, including a wine “castle”; and Sapporo, the only place on the island as crowded as a Honshu city, but with its charms, such as the Sapporo Beer Garden.

The foliage up in the central mountains offered vivid yellows and reds when we visited in late September and early October 1993, but green still predominated in the agricultural areas near Furano, a small city also in central Hokkaido. The terrain isn’t mountainous, but not flat either.

The region is known for its carrots and onions and corn and lavender, as well as milk and ice cream, none of which the outside world associates with Japan. The Meiji government saw its chance to remake Hokkaido into an agricultural province in the late 19th century – they might have been a little worried that the Tsar wanted it, along with Sakhalin – and naturally hired foreign experts to get things rolling. In this case, the agriculturist William Clark of Massachusetts, who established Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaido University) in the 1870s. We saw his statue at the school.

We walked on one of the roads outside of town. As I said, still mostly green.

This sign was simple enough for me to read. Watch out! Children. Essentially, a Children At Play sign.

I liked this.

Hokkaido farmers also seem to grow pumpkins, used here to advertise a museum. Taku’s Photography Museum, Yuriko tells me. But we didn’t take Taku up on visiting his museum.

Wiki’s helpful when it comes to putting Shikoku in a little geographic context. Hope it’s accurate: “The 50th largest island by area in the world, Shikoku is smaller than Sardinia and Bananal (a river island in the Araguaia River in Brazil), but larger than Halmahera (near New Guinea) and Seram (likewise). By population, it ranks 23rd, having fewer inhabitants than Sicily or Singapore, but more than Puerto Rico or Negros.”

July 2, 1993

Yuriko and I took a train south from Kochi to Nakamura, and then a bus to Cape Ashizuri, the extreme southern tip of Shikoku. The coast reminded me of the coast of Washington state near Kolaloch: rough, rocky, rainy.

Despite intermittent rain, we took a walk on a path hugging the shore. It was a concrete path, which often evolved into staircases. We went down to the rocky beach and looked at the larger rock formations under gray skies and wind and some rain.

Back up the hill, we visited one of Kōbō Daishi’s 88 pilgrimage temples, number 39 I think [sic. It’s 38, which is Kongōfukuji (a little more about it here)].

The proprietor of our minshuku came in his minibus and took us up, up, up a high hill, where the establishment is perched. The minshuku is our accommodation for the night, and completely fogged in. The evening meal made up for it by being excellent, especially the bonito sashimi, which I’m told is a specialty of the region.

July 3

Clear morning. Up early and took a walk. The minshuku’s got a fine vista of the sea. Too bad the stars were hiding last night – that would have been an unusually clear place in Japan for looking at stars. But the ocean view’s worth the trouble of getting up the hill.

One more image taken in Japan recently by either Yuriko or Ann: some maneki neko at a gift shop not far from the base of Mt. Fuji. They’re the good luck cats that are nearly ubiquitous in Japanese retail establishments and are found in a lot of other places as well. We have one in our house on the same shelf as a few iterations of Spongebob, a pair of salt ‘n’ pepper penguins, a few painted eggshells, and the Ilanaaq figure I got in Canada, among other figurines.

The origins of maneki neko are obscure. As this article by California antique dealer Alan Pate puts it, “Considering how accepted the cat has become, and how dear the image is to the Japanese, few people seem to know much about it. How has a seated cat become a symbol of good fortune and prosperity? What are its roots? Why do some have the left paw raised and others the right? Why are some white, some black, gold, or even red?

“Given the nature of folk traditions, evolving over time, absorbing elements of local beliefs and customs, we may never know the exact evolution of the maneki neko… A casual survey of antique dealers in Tokyo and Kyoto reveals many curious interpretations and theories: They originated in Osaka. No, they originated in Edo (old Tokyo). They originated in the 17th century. No, they most definitely originated in the early 16th century. The left paw is for wealth and the right for luck. No, the left is for a drinking establishment and the right for merchants. No, the left is for business and the right for home…”

I can’t shed any light on the subject. I just know I saw them a lot in Japan, and I asked some Japanese about it, and the best answer I got was that the cat grabs good luck for you and brings it in, as it might a fish or a bird.

In late October 1992, my friend Rich came to visit me in Japan, and one of the places we went was down to the southern shores of the Kii Peninsula, more-or-less south of Osaka, where we visited the cliffs of Osenkorogashi and Nachi falls. Unusually for Japan, the cliff was simply a cliff – no observation deck, no rail, just a drop off with a sign posted nearby. I could read, in red, the large hiragana for “DANGER” (ABUNAI) on the sign. The falls, on the other hand, were visible from a platform not far away. Impressive at 436 feet, and near an interesting Buddhist temple, Seiganto-ji.

I was looking all that up and got a lesson in how the Internet enables wandering minds like my own. How tall, I wondered, is that fall compared to some others I’ve seen? Though broad and impressive, Niagara Falls is only 167 feet high. Not sure anymore which of the Hawaiian falls I saw, and while all of them were very pretty, none seemed that high. The falls on the Athabasca River in Canada were powerful, but also not that high. What about Fall Creek Falls?

Fall Creek Falls is part of a Tennessee state park of the same name I visited about 30 years ago. It was a gorgeous place, with a picturesque fall – and at 256 feet, supposedly the highest “free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi,” for what that’s worth. While reading the Wiki article, I noticed that part of Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam (1986) was filmed at that park, while the rest was done in Nashville. If that movie doesn’t ring any bells, you’re having a normal reaction. It’s an early Jim Varney movie, and I must be one of the few people who paid money to see it. I went because the brother of an old friend of mine was a cameraman on the movie.

So I looked my friend’s brother up on the imdb. I knew he went to California in late ’80s to ply his trade, and sure enough he’s done a lot since then, including as an electrician and best boy on various movies and TV shows, few I’d ever heard of except The King of Queens. Glad to know that he’s been able to make a living at it.

Back to Japan. I don’t remember the name of this place, but it was a rocky shore on the Kii Peninsula, somewhere near those other sights. Flat slabs of rock jutted out into the Pacific, which crashed noisily against the rocks.

It was clear and warmer than it should have been for October. The wind was strong. Rich and I decided that all of the four elements were in play: Earth in the form of the rock, Water in the form of the ocean, Air in the form of the quick wind, and Fire in the form of the warm sunshine.