Tag Archives: tree
Ryoko climbing Ginkgo tree
My wife at work – trimming Ginkgo biloba tree at a shrine – Edo-period age, cutting away from power lines (didn’t have to worry about those pesky wires back then), plus fresh up branches and shape.
Yup, she’s roped and laddered. I’m just here doing dishes and laundry. Just showing how she is so cool! #Okayama #Arborist
Ichiro and Ryoko (and moss and trees)
{You might have seen a sneak preview of this glorious snap but…} Behold! 
My two lovelies, out in the *wild*, in the olden compound of a salt making family: aged bent trees, carefully tended; moss everywhere; rows of kura barns (previously storing rice, miso, pickles, salt); wood-fired bathtub; dry-fit stone masonry; art (traditional and modern) and artifacts (globes, cameras, phones, scales, accordion etc.) – I purchased a bag of salt, and six postcards which I decorated with their special commemorative inky stamp. 
At some other point I’ll share evidence of the above but for now, I’ll share evidence of my two wonderful humans. In the wild (Kojima, Okayama, Japan). <3
Memo: tree, roots, wall, rock, house…
Sometimes the tree and the roots and the wall and rocks and the house are all the same thing.
Diary: Choosing a Tree from City (for baby)
Our local city government of Okayama has a splendid program which offers us a choice of tree sapling upon significant life events, including wedding and birth of child. As we’ve accomplished both now, we get a second tree. Hooray.
(As you likely know, selected a Peach / Momo for wedding, picked it up from a park and blossomed this spring around when John Prine passed).
The choices include Japanese maple, dogwood (provincial tree of BC), and a few others. We ticked the box for “peach” (which are the “famous item of the area” and mailed in the postcard and will await instructions to pick up to add to our burgeoning orchard of fruits here at Tsuchida Cottage.
Momo tree, intrepid tree blooms for the first time in our yard
Momo is Peach, a fruit for which Okayama is well-noted (including folktale Momtaro, the peach boy with his sidekicks – a pheasant and a monkey), anyhow, received the tree as a wedding perk from the city government. With chaos in the world, the intrepid tree blooms for the first time in our yard. Splendid.
Diary: Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing in Okayama, 2019
Christmas isn’t really an “event” in Japan, more of a marketing campaign and a prelude to New Year’s Eve which is laden with tradition, nostalgia and routine. It’s kinda my speed as i am def turned off by rampant commercialism quasi-religious sabre-rattling which comes around.
Regardless, with new family (and more family arriving in 2020) i wanted to wrangle a bit of festiveness – also acknowledging been a long while since i had vaguely “regular” christmas and while this was atypical, established some new routines, scratched an itch… after all, with the turmoil in my life the last years, there is admittedly some misgivings and rather tough emotions which come around during all this hoolpa. Most importantly, got to show love and respect for wife and in-laws.
PS You can see a bit of building up for Christmas and read a riff between a friend and i about this holiday in Japan in: Diary: Christmas Forthcoming / out n about and at home in Okayama, 2019
What follows are a few poorly-photographed artifact of activities from Dec. 24 – 26 JST. Carry On!
First off, Dec. 24 (christmas eve) we made dinner of grilled mackeral, squash, pickled cucumbers and tsukemono carrots, greens, miso soup, tea, rice, lotus root, and whatnot. Yup, not off to a very traditional start – ha!
Christmas morn, we opened our stockings (pictured above) purchased from a 100yen store ($1), nothing but the best! and enjoyed toast with cream cheese and my kaki (persimmon) jam which i am always talking about, and nashi (pear). My sock had snacks, Ryoko’s had expired 35mm film and a necklace and snacks.
Then we went to post office (one of my fave activities of course) and i wore a Santa cap (borrowed from Ryoko who wore at Mae Maes Christmas concert) to the amusement of the post office staff and the kids at the grocery store which was our next stop. Folks are stocking up for New Years time during which many stores are closed or scaled back hours and folks generally wanna hunker down.
Then we picked up a pre-made feast from a great lil cafe called Sakura-mi we had ordered a while back when we went on a little lunch date. Here’s the café’s post box.
And i got to make a fire in the wood stove. So yeah, post office and fire making in the same day! Pleased.
Took the grub home and set up at parent’s house (next door).
Continue reading Diary: Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing in Okayama, 2019
Diary: Christmas Forthcoming / out n about and at home in Okayama, 2019
We headed out on some errands to return the felt sheets used in the tea ceremony at assassinated Prime minster Inukai Tsuyoshi’s home to a strange little office in a corridor with the cigarette smell cemented into the cracked linoleum floors which all evoked the lost Showa times.
Along the way, a saw some shops, ate ramen, developed film, checked out cameras and whatnot.
First though, along one of these covered shopping arcades which i totally dig (how does Vancouver not have these everywhere?), continued my rather absurd documentation of phone boxes.
I would call you but haven’t figured out where to buy a phone card. Also noting these “midori denwa” (green phones) are abundant and in beautiful condition but i (not shockingly) never see one in use.
PS Did someone call a doctor? #joke My friend in Adelaide Australia made the snap into a fun cartoon-y image. I might do this with all photos in future.
Continue reading Diary: Christmas Forthcoming / out n about and at home in Okayama, 2019
Diary: Autumn Miscellany, scenes of “regular life” in Okayama
A few years ago (or less), each day was quite tough. Now, each day i deal with pain and confusion but enough joy and interestingness to compensate. My brain fires but i have to throttle as i get headaches and eye strain very easily, i remain very sensitive to light and sounds so use dark glasses and ear plugs when out and about.
Anyhow, there are several recent “standalone” dispatches of activities and outings (Mae Maes concerts, tea ceremony, museums, tours…) but this post simply gathers up miscellaneous whatnots which don’t really chronicle anything but normal day-to-day tasks and action with brief annotations.
Continue reading Diary: Autumn Miscellany, scenes of “regular life” in Okayama
Diary: Autumn Miscellany / coffee, ramen, sandwiches, Godzilla, peach tree, ikebana…
While dispatches and re-caps of various outings and events exist elsewhere in this archive, life is so wonderful right now i don’t want to miss a thing or fail to appreciate the glorious mundane details of just existing.
As such, what follows are bits and pieces which don’t fit elsewhere, a round-up of miscellany and odds and ends and mild annotations.
Starting with the pleasantness of stopping for a coffee and receiving a free lil sandwich plate (and seeing Ryoko’s adorableness :)).
The internets instructs food photos be posted with frequency.
Thanks Shiro-Kuma (white bear) cafe.