Nagoya <3
I survived my first interview session with the Hime-firefly groups! Actually, it was super fun, the group members were awesome, eager to talk to me, and showed me the firefly habitats around Nagoya Castle. The castle is in the middle of the city, and its extremely rare for there to be fireflies in a place like that. Hime-fireflies are especially susceptible to habitat destruction and degradation because the females cannot fly. In other words, unlike other species, once things get bad in their environment, they can't just fly off somewhere else. If their home gets destroyed, then they go right along with it. Since the area around Nagoya Castle (the dried up moat and tree filled area between the castle walls) hasn't been bothered in at least 400 hundred years, the Hime-fireflies are still present there.
After getting to Nagoya, the group showed me some of the firefly habitats and then I interviewed them...it took about an hour and a half. After everything was said and done, it was off to the izakaiya (Japanese style bar)! Talk about work hard and play hard...I was served up 2 draft beers, 2 ume-shus (plum wine), and some sake/shouchu... needless to say, I wasn't completely sober by the end of the night and we didn't get back to Kobe until around midnight!
Next week is filled with interviews, it'll probably be pretty tiresome, but I don't think they're all going to involve all day and night activities. The worst part, though, is transcribing the audio recording of the interview! Seriously, 10 minutes = about one hour of typing out everything. My last interview was 1.5 hours... Dx
Anyway, as usual, some pictures (by the way, if you click on the pictures, you can see bigger versions):
View of Nagoya City from above... you can see the castle in middle there,
and if you look closely the mountains way in the background.
Scoping out some newly discovered Hime-firefly habitat around the castle...
Entrance to Nagoya Castle
Its apparently the 400th year anniversary this year!
There it is! I didn't go inside the castle grounds,
but it still looks good from outside the walls.
After getting to Nagoya, the group showed me some of the firefly habitats and then I interviewed them...it took about an hour and a half. After everything was said and done, it was off to the izakaiya (Japanese style bar)! Talk about work hard and play hard...I was served up 2 draft beers, 2 ume-shus (plum wine), and some sake/shouchu... needless to say, I wasn't completely sober by the end of the night and we didn't get back to Kobe until around midnight!
Next week is filled with interviews, it'll probably be pretty tiresome, but I don't think they're all going to involve all day and night activities. The worst part, though, is transcribing the audio recording of the interview! Seriously, 10 minutes = about one hour of typing out everything. My last interview was 1.5 hours... Dx
Anyway, as usual, some pictures (by the way, if you click on the pictures, you can see bigger versions):
View of Nagoya City from above... you can see the castle in middle there,
and if you look closely the mountains way in the background.
Scoping out some newly discovered Hime-firefly habitat around the castle...
Entrance to Nagoya Castle
Its apparently the 400th year anniversary this year!
There it is! I didn't go inside the castle grounds,
but it still looks good from outside the walls.