Typhoon 101...What's in a name?

Are you ready for a science lesson? Today’s topic is typhoons –just the name ‘typhoon’ refers to something quite specific though the phenomenon has other names…

“Typhoon is the name for a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 74 miles per hour (65 knots) or greater in the western North Pacific Ocean. This same tropical cyclone is known as a hurricane in the eastern North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean, and as a cyclone in the Indian Ocean. (weather.com)”

Since there’s one howling outside as I type I can present you with some first hand information. It is astonishing how strong the wind is. The bursts are so strong sometimes the house actually shakes. We can see sheets of water blowing – I mean being blasted -past the middle school (it is doing a great job of blocking some of the direct hits of water and wind but there’s still plenty moving around it). It’s almost like the wind has picked up the ocean and throwing it at the land.
Fortunately, the Japanese, who’ve had lots of experience with these, have done some things to their homes. First, we have easy to close storm windows – metal sheets that simply slide on the tracks over your windows. The wind and anything that is picked up is held back from the windows. Does make the house quite dark but at night it makes no difference. We kept the windows open so we could watch until it got dark outside. Also, the doors throughout the house have little hooks on the bottom of them. On the floor, against the wall, is the doorstop – complete with a small wire that hooks over the aforementioned hook on the door. Eliminates all the banging doors when the wind hits (works for earthquakes too).
Back to the lesson. They measure the wind speed in knots. Now I saw 75KT and I was thinking 75 miles per hour. However, it’s actually closer to 90 mph when you finish all of the calculations. The storm could easily dump 20 inches of rain – the trains and busses are usually stopped and sometimes certain areas are evacuated.
The weather bureau/government keeps an eye on storms and issues “keiho” (warnings). You listen when they do. They called one this morning at 8:15 and all of the schools were expected to close and send everyone home. What a mess! The kids had just arrived and we turned around and sent them home at 10:00 (it took that long to call all the parents so that there’d be someone home for them). What a day!!! The storm actually started at about 2:00 so it was a good thing we sent them off.

Placing flowers on a sheet of rice paper. The pictures were taken with the cell phone masquerading as a camera. 

Large outdoor vat where they boiled the husks. 

Paper Making

It was so cool to watch them make paper. They begin with boiling the husks in a huge outdoor pot. The charcoal (made in the shop down the road) is shoveled in under the vat and the husks are put inside and simmered. Once they’re ready, the fibers are hand separated and then mixed into a pulp. I’m sure there’s a bit more to it but my Japanese leaves much to be desired so my knowledge comes from the available photos and watching the women working.
They eventually pour the pulp into a large holding tank and mix it with a lot of water. They have a very shallow prepared tray they use with bamboo mats. They swish the tray through the water a number of times before they pull it up to drain. They then open the tray and pull up the bamboo with the wet sheet of paper on it. It is put upside down on the rack and then the bamboo sheet is carefully pulled up. Next the woman adds dried flowers that she had and then repeats the process to create a sheet with the flowers embedded. Fascinating to watch. Once she has a complete stack created, she puts them in a press to squeeze out the water. They had a large curved, heated metal sheet that they took the pressed papers to and laid them against the metal to dry completely.
There you have it….paper making 101!

This was a working waterwheel that was attached to the building where they were making paper. They also had some huge koi in the pond. 

A shot of the very overgrown graveyard perched on the hill above the river. 

Asuke

Asuke is really a cool place to visit. The Japanese Maple trees there are fabulous and HUGE – nothing like the small ones we generally find in the states. There’s a large river that runs through the area – nice for wading into to cool off when it’s very hot. It does run quickly so you can’t swim very much. The bridges that span it are very picturesque.
There are a lot of hiking trails in the area. We took the large, main trail that meandered down the river to a shrine and a craft area. I’ll post a couple of pictures to show some of the things we saw.
The shrine is not particularly large but it does have more than one building in the area. The amazing thing is the extensive cemetery next to it. The headstones are found all over the hill, some with vines growing on them much like you would expect to find in a rainforest. They range from very simple, tiny stones to fairly large monuments. We walked through the area, wishing we could read more of them to know how old they were. Many had fresh flowers on them…one had an ornate tea cup on one side – and a can of Asahi beer on the other!!
The craft village was fabulous. They had craftsmen working inside each building. We first stopped at a woodworker – he was creating bowls from very large, dried bamboo pieces. The color that was in the bowl was the natural color of the bamboo and he cut and worked on it to keep some and take off some to create a beautiful bowl! He also had many beautiful (and expensive) bowls from wood I couldn’t identify. Next there was a charcoal kiln. Here the man burned the wood and then, at the proper time, he removed it, cooled it, and then cut it up for charcoal (we used some for the fire at our camp area).
They had a group who were working on creating the paper umbrellas the Japanese use. The work that goes into creating each and every spoke for it and the paper (hand painted, of course) and how they laid it out on the spokes. It was nothing short of remarkable. They are still purchased and used here – traditional weddings always use them. Other crafts included knife making, dyeing, boat making, weaving and, my favorite, paper making. (I’ll have to do a whole new entry on that).

The falls were gorgeous. This area had 2 falls cascading down from the alps. The water was cold but very clear. 

The mountains were shrouded in clouds but they towered around us on the walk. Many great views! 

Magome to Tsumago

Magome-juku is a small town in Kiso Valley, a couple of hours north of Nagoya. The valley is in the Japan Alps, and is one of the old post roads that connected Edo (Tokyo) with Kyoto in the Edo period. (If you want the details, ask Jeff. He knows them all!) The towns of Magome and Tsumago were built to be “post-towns” - places where travelers could stop to rest and eat and be safe. At the time, the warlords were supposed to spend a good portion of their time in Edo (allowing the emperor to keep an eye on them). It meant the roads were used quite frequently. It would have been a very long trip to have had to make the journey every year. The road now is partially paved with blocks from an earlier construction cemented into the path. Parts of the path actually go through people’s backyards!!! It was a good thing they had signs or we would have turned back, thinking we had missed the road!
Tsumago-juku is the end of this trail and is another of the post-towns, (juku means post-town). It’s a cool place because they’ve worked at keeping it old looking – it’s supposed to be just like the old cities in the Edo period. They don’t allow telephone poles, tv aerials, modern buildings or modern signs in the town. There are some wonderful old homes there and beautiful koi ponds/waterfalls all integrated into the landscape. I found the one I want to retire to! There are many waterways coming down from the alps in the area so they’ve simply used what is coming anyway as a part of their landscape. It’s really quite beautiful!