Japan Society Educator's Tour - Day 7 (Kochi)
With this entry, I'll have journaled one week's worth of my trip! Of course, there's another week and several days I have to go, but hey! Progress! 
Today was "spend the free day with your host family" day. Ueta-san had asked me if I wanted to see a Geopark, and I was like... absolutely! First, though, we went to the local open organic market. Normally, Eriko-san and Ueta-san would actually be at this market themselves, selling vegetables from their garden. And I'm sure Ueta-san would be selling his newspaper bags as well. In fact, on the information sheet they sent me regarding them, there was a picture on the bottom of the two of them at their stand on Saturday when they usually come to sell things.
They are seriously a cute couple, and I had so much fun with them. :) While I was at the market, I met many of their acquaintances, and for the life of me, can't remember the exact names of any of them. I fail!
However, we went to see this couple first, shown below - they were so awesome! They carved all the wood pieces you see on the table, and Ueta-san bought me a pair of hand carved chopsticks, made of sakura wood. I got to pick them out.
Later, we stopped at another stand and I got a cloth wrapper to store them inside. These were "My 箸" (My hashi, or chopsticks) and Ueta-san urged me to be eco and use them when I go out to eat Japanese food and not use the disposable ones. There were many interesting booths there - I picked up blueberry jam and onion jam (yeah, I know, but it REALLY tasted good!!) and while we were exploring, I suddenly felt like I had to throw up.
Eriko-san went to the bathroom with me, and even though it was a powerful urge when I was outside, once I was inside the bathroom, I actually felt a little better. Later, I thought that the reason I might have felt that way may have been due to the heat, because once I was sitting inside the air-conditioned car, I felt perfectly fine, and I didn't feel nauseated anymore that day. We drove along the coastline for about an hour or so, and the view was, of course, breathtaking. At one point, we stopped at a rest area so that Ueta-san could use the bathroom - I used the time to snap some pictures, because it was a perfect day to do so:
At one point, we stopped to eat at a restaurant - it was pretty much a western style place, offering stuff like pasta and hamburgers. I ate the later, with french fries, and then I insisted on paying for the meal because Ueta-san and Eriko-san have been SO incredibly good to me. I wanted to make sure that I could repay them in a small way. While we were in the restaurant, Eriko-can pointed this out to me:
So then, we headed to the Muroto Geopark. Their website is HERE if you are interested in more details. I'll embed a video they have which introduces the area - I am definitely going to use this when I go back to teaching Earth Science in the fall.
The rock features they have there are so incredibly cool! They reminded me of some of the ones I'd seen on my first trip to Japan while I was in Kagoshima/Mount Sakurajima. In the main office area, there was an interesting display of all the rocks found in this particular area.
If you look at the bottom right corner, though, you'll note that there is a blue-green rock there - it probably doesn't exist in this area. At least, this is what the guide told us. She spoke English! Joy!! Ueta-san made sure that there would be someone there who would be able to talk with me. I was so happy.
She took us on the shortened version of the walking tour because once again, it was incredibly hot outside and she didn't want any of us to fall over from heat stroke.
In the first picture, you can see that the rock layers are nearly vertical - this is due to tectonic plate shifting and uplift. Also, in the second photo, do you see that small rock island, a little left to the middle of the picture? That wasn't there several years ago - it was uplifted after a recent EQ which pushed it above the surface of the water. Seriously, this entire place was a huge Earth Science lesson for me!
Here, you can see the remnants of wave action on the surface of the rock, thus giving it it's rippled appearance.
The surface of this rock has tube-like protrusions. These are fossilized clam tracks as they trekked across what was once mud and now is hardened mudstone. In addition to that, most of these rocks in this area were dual-based. They were alternating layers of sandstone and mudstone, created by the constant shifting of sediments by the tides and uplift of materials from below the surface.
I forgot the name of this tree - it began with the letter "A" - but it's a sturdy plant because the roots here are growing into the softer mudstone layers, thus anchoring itself to the land and weathering the fierce winds that often batter the shoreline. Root pry! Physical weathering! Seriously, I was loving this!
In this area, we shifted from sedimentary rock layers to igneous ones, both intrusive and extrusive layers. In addition, my guide (Sachiko Asakawa, btw, located in pink on the picture) pointed out how an igneous intrusion had passed through one rock area and created a striped pattern of igneous and metamorphic rocks.
Afterwards, we went back up to the main road and entered these two caves, located inside the mountain.
The temperature change was drastic! Just a few feet into the cave, and the temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees, making a cool interior in comparison to the incredible heat outside. It was just like Howe Caverns back in NY, where the cave remains an ambient 53 degrees throughout the year, no matter what the temperature is outside. After the caves, we headed back to Kochi. On the way we stopped at a store where they sold home made ice crea - sooooo good!! - and at a few Japanese antique shops. I ended up purchasing 2 blue/white tea cups. But then, this older woman came into the store and nearly "dragged" us out to her store where she was selling antique obis. I almost got an expensive one, but ended up with one that cost me only 1000 yen.
She was fierce!!! We then went to this unagi (eel) restaurant, that is apparently the most famous in all of Kochi, called Kaida Ya.
How famous was it? Well, we arrived there around 5:50 PM. By 6:30, they were closing the restaurant because they'd run out of eel. (We were allowed to finish our dinners, though!) Yet another full day!
Today was "spend the free day with your host family" day. Ueta-san had asked me if I wanted to see a Geopark, and I was like... absolutely! First, though, we went to the local open organic market. Normally, Eriko-san and Ueta-san would actually be at this market themselves, selling vegetables from their garden. And I'm sure Ueta-san would be selling his newspaper bags as well. In fact, on the information sheet they sent me regarding them, there was a picture on the bottom of the two of them at their stand on Saturday when they usually come to sell things.
They are seriously a cute couple, and I had so much fun with them. :) While I was at the market, I met many of their acquaintances, and for the life of me, can't remember the exact names of any of them. I fail!
However, we went to see this couple first, shown below - they were so awesome! They carved all the wood pieces you see on the table, and Ueta-san bought me a pair of hand carved chopsticks, made of sakura wood. I got to pick them out.
Later, we stopped at another stand and I got a cloth wrapper to store them inside. These were "My 箸" (My hashi, or chopsticks) and Ueta-san urged me to be eco and use them when I go out to eat Japanese food and not use the disposable ones. There were many interesting booths there - I picked up blueberry jam and onion jam (yeah, I know, but it REALLY tasted good!!) and while we were exploring, I suddenly felt like I had to throw up.
Eriko-san went to the bathroom with me, and even though it was a powerful urge when I was outside, once I was inside the bathroom, I actually felt a little better. Later, I thought that the reason I might have felt that way may have been due to the heat, because once I was sitting inside the air-conditioned car, I felt perfectly fine, and I didn't feel nauseated anymore that day. We drove along the coastline for about an hour or so, and the view was, of course, breathtaking. At one point, we stopped at a rest area so that Ueta-san could use the bathroom - I used the time to snap some pictures, because it was a perfect day to do so:
At one point, we stopped to eat at a restaurant - it was pretty much a western style place, offering stuff like pasta and hamburgers. I ate the later, with french fries, and then I insisted on paying for the meal because Ueta-san and Eriko-san have been SO incredibly good to me. I wanted to make sure that I could repay them in a small way. While we were in the restaurant, Eriko-can pointed this out to me:
So then, we headed to the Muroto Geopark. Their website is HERE if you are interested in more details. I'll embed a video they have which introduces the area - I am definitely going to use this when I go back to teaching Earth Science in the fall.
Click to viewThe rock features they have there are so incredibly cool! They reminded me of some of the ones I'd seen on my first trip to Japan while I was in Kagoshima/Mount Sakurajima. In the main office area, there was an interesting display of all the rocks found in this particular area.
If you look at the bottom right corner, though, you'll note that there is a blue-green rock there - it probably doesn't exist in this area. At least, this is what the guide told us. She spoke English! Joy!! Ueta-san made sure that there would be someone there who would be able to talk with me. I was so happy.
She took us on the shortened version of the walking tour because once again, it was incredibly hot outside and she didn't want any of us to fall over from heat stroke.
In the first picture, you can see that the rock layers are nearly vertical - this is due to tectonic plate shifting and uplift. Also, in the second photo, do you see that small rock island, a little left to the middle of the picture? That wasn't there several years ago - it was uplifted after a recent EQ which pushed it above the surface of the water. Seriously, this entire place was a huge Earth Science lesson for me!
Here, you can see the remnants of wave action on the surface of the rock, thus giving it it's rippled appearance.
The surface of this rock has tube-like protrusions. These are fossilized clam tracks as they trekked across what was once mud and now is hardened mudstone. In addition to that, most of these rocks in this area were dual-based. They were alternating layers of sandstone and mudstone, created by the constant shifting of sediments by the tides and uplift of materials from below the surface.
I forgot the name of this tree - it began with the letter "A" - but it's a sturdy plant because the roots here are growing into the softer mudstone layers, thus anchoring itself to the land and weathering the fierce winds that often batter the shoreline. Root pry! Physical weathering! Seriously, I was loving this!
In this area, we shifted from sedimentary rock layers to igneous ones, both intrusive and extrusive layers. In addition, my guide (Sachiko Asakawa, btw, located in pink on the picture) pointed out how an igneous intrusion had passed through one rock area and created a striped pattern of igneous and metamorphic rocks.
Afterwards, we went back up to the main road and entered these two caves, located inside the mountain.
The temperature change was drastic! Just a few feet into the cave, and the temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees, making a cool interior in comparison to the incredible heat outside. It was just like Howe Caverns back in NY, where the cave remains an ambient 53 degrees throughout the year, no matter what the temperature is outside. After the caves, we headed back to Kochi. On the way we stopped at a store where they sold home made ice crea - sooooo good!! - and at a few Japanese antique shops. I ended up purchasing 2 blue/white tea cups. But then, this older woman came into the store and nearly "dragged" us out to her store where she was selling antique obis. I almost got an expensive one, but ended up with one that cost me only 1000 yen.
She was fierce!!! We then went to this unagi (eel) restaurant, that is apparently the most famous in all of Kochi, called Kaida Ya.
How famous was it? Well, we arrived there around 5:50 PM. By 6:30, they were closing the restaurant because they'd run out of eel. (We were allowed to finish our dinners, though!) Yet another full day!