The Color Season

The Golden Season

Mt.Iwate as seen from Hachimantai City

Now Mt. Iwate is famous for a number of reasons. It looks just like Mt.Fuji from some angles. It’s a great mountain for climbing, and its snow cap paints a picturesque view in the winter. Recently, I have discovered that Mt.Iwate, like other cone shaped volcanoes such as Fuji and Mt. Rainer act as amazing lenticular cloud making machines.

Lenticular Clouds near Mt.Iwate

Lenticular clouds are saucer shaped clouds that are often seen stacked like pancakes near large mountains. On certain days winds rolling off the mountains create a standing wave. If stable and moist the air is around the mountain and falling downwind when the dew point is reached, the disks condense into clouds will stack up on each other. Every year, many people call the police to report these odd clouds. They looks either like a flying saucer or a cover for one. they are perfectly normal clouds. But you tend to find them around mountains.

Mt.Iwate has been a perfect source of lenticular clouds this year, and I’ve had my camera going most of this summer trying to document them. The following is what I have recorded so far. Sometimes, the lenticular clouds bend and warp out of shape and form incredible bulges in the sky. Once or twice a year, they provide for a spectacular sunset. Please enjoy these photos and look out for them the next time you are hanging around some mountains.

It appear as if a large ribbon had formed over the sky.

This amazing lenticular cloud appeared out of nowhere.

More of the lenticular cloud with Mr.Iwate.

The lenticular cloud and the ribbon wave seen together.

Mt.Iwate seen with the ribbon wave and a bridge.

You see, last year, I went to this really expensive work party at a local ryokan called “Saito.” A ryokan is a traditional Japanese hotel. Saito was famous for it’s multi course meals and using Maesawa Beef , one of the most expensive and delicious meats in Japan. After I came back from the party, I told Akira about the food, and she instantly wanted to go and try it. I promised her that I would take her at some point, but I wasn’t committal about it. That is, until about three weeks ago.

I asked her if she had and free time during the weekend and I made the plans. She got really exciting about going.  What she didn’t know is that I was going to pop the question to her. On Saturday night, after we checked in, we went the baths to freshen up. When she came back to the room, that is what I asked her if she would marry me. I became the luckiest guy in the world when she answered, “Yes.”  I think that made the Maesawa steaks just a little more delicious.

So there you have it. Marriage plans are forthcoming. Stay tuned for details, and thanks for reading this blog, depsite the lack of update. I promise you that more is on the way.

Akira at Saito

Rainbow of Peace, originally uploaded by jasohill.

Hi everyone. I do apologize for the lack of blog updates. I’ve busy here in Japan and I realized that is has become so much like home for me that I don’t blog about it any longer. Well, I do intend to keep you updated on what is going on here a little more than I have been lately. To start off, I wanted to share with you a little milestone that occurred today.

You may remember my photo, “Rainbow of Peace.” I took it during my trip to Nagasaki in 2006. At the time I never thought it would be my most popular photo. I stood over the ground zero point at the memorial area and tried to get as many colors in the photo as I could. Once I got that photo on flickr, it took off and quickly became my most popular photo on flickr.

Well today, over two and a half years after I took it, “Rainbow of Peace” has surpassed the 15000 mark. I never though I would have a photo do that well. It’s certainly not my only successful photo on flickr, but it was the first to make me realize that I can take pictures that make people smile. It was the catalyst that lead to where I am today. On the road to a career as a pro.

I just wanted to thank everyone who helped make this photo the success it is today. I couldn’t get back to all of you, but I appreciate all the kind words you wrote for me and the photo.

   It all started when I headed out to the grocery store to pick up some, well,  groceries. I parked my car and headed toward the main doors. Then I looked up.  The entire wall was covered end to end with moths. I had never seen anything like this before. Big ones, little ones. Blue ones, green ones.  Some laying eggs, others swarming. I could not believe my eyes.  I ran into the store, and saw that many of them had found their way inside as well. Many of the clerks were swooshing them with brooms.  But the clerks were outnumbered.  I found the entire spectacle almost funny. I just assumed it was a cyle year for moths and that was the end of it, grabbed my groceries and went home.  Then things got personal.

    Yesterday I had some laundrry drying outside. I folded up all my shirts and put them in my shirt drawer. This morning I went to grab one of the shirt, and when I unfolded it I was greeted with the most shocking thing I’d seen in a while. I huge moth, half crushed, but still moving, was smearing yellow eggs all over the shirt and spewing some sort of webbing around the eggs. Now, I’m a big nature fan, but I’m don’t like it when nature takes it road show to my bedroom.  Basically, I freaked, threw the shirt away and my stomach has been upset all morning.  All this of course lead me to write this blog post. 

    As Steven Colbert might put it. I am placing the moths on notice. They’ve crossed a line.

Windy Iwate Mountain, originally uploaded by jasohill.

You’ll probably notice some changes around here. I’ve upgraded the website to WordPress 2.32 and have decided to go with a new theme based around the K2 interface. I’ve also chosen a new theme for the blog. I will still be focusing on Japan of course, but I will be working more of my photography into the stories as well. I’m going to move this blog more towards a photoblog of Japan.

To start this off I present you the first picture of Iwate Mountain I took this year. As you can see, it’s fairly windy up near the top, where the snow is being blasted off the side of the mountain. I went on a twenty minute drive to find the best shot for this. The entire time, I was worried the winds were going to die down. Lucky for me, they actually got stronger. This is why they don’t recommend you climb this sucker in the winter.

I was promptly loaded into a teacher’s car and driven forty minutes south to the nearest clinic. During the trip, the health teacher kept asking me if my foot was in pain. I told her that I was fine. It didn’t hurt at all. She didn’t seem to believe me, as she kept asking that same question over and over again. Another teacher followed us in his care to assist me in walking. At this point I wasn’t even sure I was able to walk, because no one had even given me a chance to try. Given that my foot wasn’t in any pain, I was fairly sure I’d be able to walk on it.

We pulled into the clinic just as the snow was starting to fall . This was the first snow of the winter. It was perhaps the worst timing I could have asked for. Getting out of the car was my first chance to prove to them I could walk. I got out of the car and they pulled up a wheelchair. I think this is where I might have lost my cool. I refused it outright and placed full pressure on both my feet as I stood. There was no pain. However, my actions caused both teachers to scramble and grab me to make sure I was able to adequately hobble to the waiting room. That was more agony than any pain.

So we get inside and I have a seat. I guess since we were teachers, we got fast-tracked to the front of the line. I didn’t like having to bump so many infirm and sickly looking people but they insisted the doctor take a look at me. He took a quick look at my leg and declared it was swollen. No shit, Poindextor. He then shuffled me off to have it x-rayed. I was opposed to this at first, but I thought it might be a good idea to have it looked at just in case. After a round of x-rays, I was asked to wait amongst the other patients. It was quite a rag tag group. There were a number of older people and some students. Both groups just kept gaping at me as if I were Santa Clause, come to bring them their Christmas desires. I didn’t even want to imagine what injuries they had. I tried my best to doge their eyes, and just as I was starting to have some success, the nurse came out and asked me in again.

I sat down and the doctor showed me the x-rays. The good news was that nothing was broken. The bad news was that he could not pin down what could be causing my ankle to swell so badly. He thought it was either a sprain or an elongated ligament. He said to me there was a specialist in from Iwate University that day and he would also look at the damage. So the teachers shuffled me over to yet another office. This time the doctor took a good look at my leg. He moved it around in a circular pattern and asked me if it hurt. Each time I responded that it did not hurt. I was waiting for him to find the angle that would cause me to scream out. It never came. Then it press in on the swelling. That is when I felt the pain. He said that the swelling was being cause by internal bleeding and that for it to heal as quickly as possible, it should be put in a cast for one week. My jaw hit the floor I asked him why a cast was necessary when there were no broken bones. As hard as I tried to convince him otherwise, there was no going back. My leg was going in a cast. Outside, I could see the snowfall was quickly turning into a blizzard. To be continued….

Takizawa Morning, originally uploaded by jasohill.

If you were to live in my area of Japan, you might just see this on a particularly clear morning. In this picture, Mt. Iwate stands guard over the small town of Takizawa, south of where I live, and north of Morioka. You usually can’t see the mountain as it’s covered in clouds.