I watched Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai many years ago, and although I enjoyed it, I found it very long and a little hard to follow. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, but I didn’t fully appreciate it.

After discussing Kurosawa films in class a few weeks ago, I decided to try watching a few. The movie I chose last week was Sanjuro, the director’s 22nd film. One of many  Kurosawa films starring Toshiro Mifune, it’s technically a sequel to another picture called Yojimbo.

The talents of both men are on full display here. Kurosawa was deep into his career at this point (Seven Samurai had been made almost a decade before), and he was already famous for his carefully composed scenes and beautiful use of light and motion. Every frame is a painting, as they say. Meanwhile, Mifune plays the brilliant but aloof Sanjuro with the poise and rugged charm worthy of a samurai - or at least a ronin.

There’s a lot to discuss about these old movies. If anyone has seen them before, post a comment here or let me know in class sometime!

P.S. I was secretly hoping I’d find a connection to this Sanjuro:

Source: www.okayama-kanko.jp

…but sadly, Kurosawa’s film has nothing to do with the beloved lord of Bitchu Matsuyama Castle.

At the end of last month, I went to Fukuoka for a concert by a singer called Rekishi. He is a Japanese singer who, as his name suggests, sings songs related to Japanese history. His songs are based on historical figures as well events, places, and even sometimes traditional Japanese objects. They are generally upbeat pop songs but also include comedic elements. I had the chance to see him live last year at a summer music festival. He was my favorite performer at the event, so I wanted to go to one of his concerts.

The concert I went to was not a regular concert, however. Rekishi has collaborated with a lot of musicians throughout his career, including some quite famous ones such as Shiina Ringo. This tour was a collaboration tour with the famous jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara. This was their second tour together, though the first time was over 10 years ago. The theme of the concert was that Hiromi was interrupting his concert and making his songs into jazz pieces. Listening to his songs as jazz pieces was a unique experience, and it gave the songs a new fresh sound.

One of the most fun things about seeing Rekishi’s concert is getting to learn about famous people and places throughout Japanese history. He covers a huge range of periods of Japan’s history as well. While his music is very comedic, it is always fun to listen to it. When I talked about him to students, most had never heard of him. Yet he has been around for about 30 years and has many fans around the country. I think for most Japanese people, his lyrics would give them a good laugh.

When I was a high school student, I read a lot of books. But as I got a little older, I found my second literary love was long-form journalism. A well-written magazine has the fact-finding power of a newspaper, but with richer, more elegant writing, and a narrative aspect that makes it more “fun” to read. National Geographic, Esquire, and Vanity Fair have published some of of my favorite pieces. I could easily sit with any of those magazines for an hour or more.

Lately, I’ve been trying to read more again. Thanks to my dad, I now have access to a New Yorker subscription, and I’ve been falling in love all over again. After all, The New Yorker is a gold standard in both magazine journalism and literary fiction. Every article is well-written and enlightening, and they have a reputation for careful fact-checking. Although it is notably left-leaning in terms of politics,The New Yorker is still remarkably trustworthy.

It’s also a pleasure to read, featuring some of the most talented writers in the world. Quite a few iconic authors, including J.D. Salinger and John Updike, first found fame on the fiction pages.

Additionally, The New Yorker is known for its stylish and eccentric cover art as well as humorous, single-panel comics. It started publication in 1925, so there are over a century of illustrations to peruse on the website.

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Side note for NEO students: as much as I love The New Yorker, I wouldn’t recommend it for ESL classes. With detailed articles of 10,000 words or more, it can be dense and overwhelming even for native English speakers. However, if anyone is interested, I have a couple of physical magazines (again, from my dad) that I’m happy to bring to class. It’s difficult, but it’s top-tier writing. You can borrow one and put your reading skills to the test!

The Shimanami Kaido is a cycling route between Onomichi (Hiroshima) and Imabari (Ehime) that crosses many islands and bridges. For a long time, I had wanted to cycle down it. I once went across the islands by car, but I had heard that cycling is the best way to experience it. I had plans to cycle it last year, but I had to cancel them. This year, I finally got the chance to cycle across the islands during the golden week break.

The night before, we stayed in Onomichi so we could get up early the next day. We took a boat to the first island called Mukaishima where the rental cycles were. To make the uphill climbs easier we got electric bikes. We set off just after 8am, the first goal was to cross the first bridge and get to Innoshima. All we had to do was follow a blue line on the side of the streets and roads that leads all the way from Onomichi to Imabari. The roads off the route are not as easy to cycle on, so it is recommended that you follow it. On the first two islands we mostly just enjoyed the scenery around us, and thankfully the weather was perfect on that day. Clear blue skies, slightly warm but with a nice breeze. It was ideal.

The next island was the biggest and most eventful of the journey. It is called Ikuchijima. Some people take a boat and set this island as their stating point. Ikuchijima has a lot of shops and places to eat. Soon after reaching the island, we first went to a local gelato shop called Doruche. I had some Setouchi lemon gelato there as it is still on the Hiroshima side, so there are lots of lemon-flavored things to enjoy.  As we continued across the island we reached the main central area. One of the big tourist attractions there is the temple Kousanji. One of the reasons it is popular is because the temple grounds are used like an art museum. There are a lot of unique designs, architecture, statues and things to see there. One area that is popular is a garden made of marble. Many people like to take pictures there. There is also a cave under the temple with thousands of statues. After Kousanji we decided to get lunch. We went to a restaurant next to the port that specializes in lemon dishes. I had a lemon-chicken rice bowl, it was great. Before continuing our cycling, we also got some lemonade nearby.

At this point it was already 2pm and we still had over 35km to cycle. We had to pick up the pace. But this was also when some of the riding pain started. I knew before that the bike seat would start to hurt, but I had no choice but to endure. From this point we focused mainly on riding. We still made several small rest stops on the Ehime side, as there were some nice shops and places to grab something to eat or drink. The last island, Oshima is known for having a big hill climb. Some people say it is better to start from Imabari so you can get the big hill done early. Thankfully we had electric bikes, and it made the climb not as difficult as I expected. After the large hill, there was still the final bridge to cross which took over 30 minutes! All we had left to do was to ride to Imabari station while the sun was setting. We arrived around 6pm, 10 hours after we began our journey.

Later that night, we got on train and went to Matsuyama. I had never been there before, so I wanted to go. We were exhausted from the bike ride but thankfully, we were able to go to Dogo Hot Spring and relax. It was a great way to end a fantastic day. I talked to a lot of NEO students last week about the Shimanami Kaido. A lot said they had been there, but none said they had cycled it. I think if you have the chance, it is an amazing experience that you should not miss!

For most people in Japan, Golden Week (GW) was from Wednesday, April 29th to Wednesday, May 6th. For us, it was from May 3rd to May 11th, so we just got back to work today.

I originally had plans to go hiking in Fukui Prefecture, but my friend got hit by a car a few weeks ago when he was on his bicycle and sprained his foot pretty badly, so the plan got derailed. Everything in Japan is booked up months ahead of GW, so just about our only option was camping.

Even almost all campgrounds are booked full, so the only option available to us was also the closest, Kokochi Camping Ground

(虎口池キャンプ場) about 25 minutes south of my house. Why was it not booked up, Dave? Well, the 3 main reasons are no electricity, no water, and some people say it is haunted. However, it is also free, unstaffed and sparsely booked, so it was perfect for us.

My friend Chris (also a hiking trip refugee) came over from Hiroshima and we camped out for 2 nights.

Day 1 was rainy, but luckily the rain held off long enough that we could set everything up before it started. The day started out well, with a dead battery in my car, but worse things happened to car last week (pay attention, this is called foreshadowing). My friends John and Eri-sensei stopped by with their dogs to hang out a little bit before the rain. It was too wet for a campfire, so we contented ourselves to playing some board games in our dome screen tent. As we went to bed, the rain seemed to be dying down, which was good because last year our big tarp collapsed in the middle of the night due to water pooling in it. We called it "the tarpocolypse".

This year we got "the domeocolypse". All day, there was rain but absolutely zero wind. Around 1:30 or so, I heard some cars pulling out of the camping area and I noticed it was very windy. I had a gut feeling something was strange, so I got out of the tent with my headlight and saw that our screened in dome tent was gone! Then I found it about 50 feet away slung over my car. The straps along the bottom had caught on my roof rack, or that sucker may have blown out over the Seto Inland Sea. I quickly pulled it back to our site and hammered the stakes down. I knew the metal poles had messed up my car, but I didn't see how badly until the morning. There are not giant scratch marks all over my hood.

Yesterday, I tried to polish them out with a fairly aggressive polishing compound and it make no change at all, so if you have any suggestions, let me know.

The rest of the camping was good weather and sunny. Ayumi came out for a few hours on the second day, but she didn't want to stay overnight due to the pit toilet situation.

I mostly relaxed the rest of the vacation. On Thursday, I went to BJJ practice and replaced the battery in my car. The boys had school on Thursday and Friday. Tatsuki had his first high school kendo tournament on Saturday. His team won their first round match, but went down in the second round. Tatsuki won one and had a draw, so that was a pretty good result for his first two matches at that level. I hosted some friends for a game of Dungeons & Dragons on Saturday. It was my first time to be the full time Dungeon Master, and I think it went pretty smoothly and people had fun. As with 99% of D&D games, it all took longer than anticipated at the outset.

Sunday the boys and I went to Kajukenbo practice. And of course, it was Mother's Day, and the boys made some sweet cards for their mommy. Ayumi was suitably moved.