I was gratefully reading a post about the Northern California Hiking Trails blog (thanks Rick!) over on the besthike.com blog, a great new blog I recently found and just put in my blog roll. Just below the entry about me (thanks again Rick!) was a post about a fascinating blog from rural Japan – bastich.net.
Have a look at the recent photos of fall colors in the mountains, and be sure to scroll down to see a complete photo set of a cow giving birth. And look through their extended archives stretching all the way back to 2000. Enjoy the high-quality pictures taken by excellent photographers from many areas of Japan, not just the mountains.
I have an interest in Japan and Japanese culture. I studied Danzan Ryu jujitsu in Chico, California and Crescent City, California for a couple of years, and I occasionally write some haiku (and even had a few published). And I loved Eiji Yoshikawa’s book Musashi
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It’s funny, we tend to think of Japan as vast cities of concrete and high rise buildings. It’s a very beautiful place!
Yes, a lot of Japan is still rural. Much of the population concentrates in the cities.
John, The photos brought back memories of my outings in Japan when I lived there from 1980 to 1997. If you ever get to Japan and want to take a hike the best place (my opinion ) is the 200 square mile island of Yakushima. It is a several hour ferry ride south from the city of Kagoshima in south Kyushu. About 20% of the island is now set aside as a World Heritage Preserve. It contains giant cedar (yakusugi), whose bases are the size of coastal redwoods and can live to be 7000 years old. Oh yes they can, don’t trust Americans to know and have all the superlatives. The lower areas have tree ferns and banyon trees, fine Yosemite-like waterfalls, mountains that come up over 6000 feet and are above timberline at the same latitude as Ensenada, Baha California. Also, the largest wild monkey population in Japan, and above all else, Rain. The mountains there are the wettest in Japan, getting about 400″ of rain and snow a year. The saying for Yakushima goes, “It rains 35 days out of every month.” So if you do go hiking there, be prepared.
Ron, Yakushima sounds like an absolutely beautiful place; it’s definitely on my short list for foreign hiking adventures.
Right now I’m considering a trip to Hua Shan in central China. Hua Shan harbors several Taoist monasteries.