Rice and Ramen

Nokogiriyama, also known as "Sawtooth Mountain," is a peak just off the western coast of Chiba Prefecture's Boso Peninsula. As its name might suggest, it has a jagged profile like that of a Japanese saw, and its history as a stone quarry during the Edo Period (1603-1868) has also left somewhat "jagged" physical results into the mountainside. On one sunny day during Golden Week, Troy and I, as well as two friends (Fiodar and Katya) made the trip from Tokyo down into Chiba. It's actually easier to get to Nokogiriyama if you live south of the city, because then you can just take a ferry across the bay, but as it was we trundled our way along the coast on train lines I'd never heard of before. From Hama-Kanaya Station we strolled through a small, sleepy port town until we got to the foot of the mountain. We had some trouble initially finding the start of the hike, but so did some Japanese people, so it wasn't like we had missed any blindingly obvious...

One of the amazing things about living in Tokyo is that I still regularly discover something new about my adopted city, if not my immediate neighborhood. Tokyo is a city that reveals itself slowly; to the unsuspecting, yes, but it is a place that favors those who take the initiative to explore. By wandering around back alleys, following interesting sounds and smells and bursts of color. By listening to the people around you: "Did you know...?, Have you heard...?. You should..." A while ago I heard about a Buddhist temple, Kogenin, that was near-ish to my apartment. It was pretty, as temples went, so I put a pin in it and decided that if I ever had a free afternoon I would make the 40-minute walk there and check it out. Cue the passing of some months and, finally, the advent of Golden Week. Some of you might remember my Golden Week adventures last year, when I took advantage of the series of consecutive national holidays that fall annually around this time to visit  Nikk...