Wild monkeys are not uncommon, and Brian and I have seen troops of wild monkeys often when cycling in Susono. This, however, is the first time we’ve heard of mass attacks, and definitely the first time that I think Susono has made it to the national news!

Article with video clip from News On Japan

http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/83487.php

Of course, I definitely do not feel that way now. I, rather accidentally, discovered how wonderful audiobooks really were. The first one I ever downloaded was an Agatha Christie novel, and I got it on my iPod to fill the time while I was jetlagged in Montreal last year. Since then, I’ve become an addict, downloading everything from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, to Super Freakonomics, to Born to Run.

I listen while I run, walk or do housework. I listen in bed before falling asleep, and in the morning on the train ride into town. Audiio books are good.

And of course, one can’t love audio books without at least knowing about Audible.com. I’ve got a gold membership there (one credit per month), and occasionally buy frivolous fiction novels (think Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants) and less frivolous but still fun books like, well, Full-Catastrophe Living.

Audible has an auto-download program that you can install on your computer which makes it very, very easily compatible for the iPod. Books can also be transferred to the Amazon Kindle!

Today I want to mention Calibre - an excellent, powerful, free, open-source* software for organizing ebooks.

Why is this useful? Whether you just read your ebooks on your pc or whether you have an ebook reader (like the Kindle, or even an iPod Touch), Calibre lets you organize your ebooks, putting them in one central place, allowing you to change the meta-data (author’s name, book title, description, whether it’s part of a series, etc), and Calibre has a handy search function, so you can find anything you want.

If you have an　Amazon Kindle and only purchase your books from Amazon, you may not see the value of Calibre. But if you download books from other sources, or if you want to upload PDFs or convert books from one format to another for transfer to the Kindle, Calibre is a superior tool.

Calibre Screenshot

You can dowload Calibre here http://calibre-ebook.com/download. Available for Windows, OSX and Linux!

The governments started looking into the whereabouts of centenarians, and of course, has discovered more people who have simply disappeared and were never reported to have died or moved by their family.

Check out this news article from Yahoo News…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100803/od_nm/us_japan_missing_odd

After returning from Walayama in the early afternoon, and after resting a little, I made my way by subway to Tenjin Bashi and the Tenma Jingu shrine, where the festival was underway.

I was a bit early, as everything became more festive as darkness approached, but I enjoyed this festival immensely. I was a bit lost at first, not being sure where it began or finished, and finally discovered that the festival covers several blocks, and maybe nobody was sure when/where the O-Mikoshi would be, and when the boats would do their floating. Definitely, nobody could tell me exactly what time the fireworks would start, or from where!

However, I walked around the streets, made my way to the river, watched some boats, talked to some local yatai (food stall) operators, and enjoyed a beer and yakitori while waiting for the fireworks.

However – as I was sitting under some lovely trees, at 8 p.m., when the fireworks began, my view was largely obscured! I wasn’t too bothered by this, actually, as I was really enjoying myself eating grilled ayu fish, and suitably impressing the chef for my Japanese way of eating the whole thing…!

Festival Boat, before sunset

Ayu on the grill

The train ride was about two hours long, but was very very comfortable, with the biggest leg of the ride being on a nice, reserved train. It was also very affordable, costing less than 3,000 yen round trip.

Once I got to Isonoura beach, I chilled out in the sun with my book, had some chit chat with the old man renting beach umbrellas, and napped a little.

As there are no minshuku or other accommodation anywhere near this beach, I decided to take the train one more stop to the next beach, Kada, where I was lucky enough to get last minute, very affordable accommodation at the Otsuya minshuku.

It’s a long story, but the woman running the beer-store/rental shop on this beach is also the local ‘travel agent’, and she helped get me the place to stay. She was so worried, though, because the Otsuya, she informed me, was old and not pretty/clean. Also, she gasped, the toilets were wa-shiki (Japanese squat type), and would this be okay? I smiled and assured her that, yes, no problem! Luckily, two young guys working there recognized that I was probably Japan travel-saavy, and chimed in laughingly that they were sure I’d be fine.

And I was more than fine – the place was awesome. Quiet, lovely tatami room, with an ocean view. I was especially fortunate, actually, as some Japanese minshuku do not offer rooms for one person; I suppose since they charge by the person, it makes more sense to have only two or more. So I really got lucky here.

My room at Otsuya

Kada beach from my room at Otsuya

Locals' boats just before sunset

Sunset Walk

Instead, Brian and I spent our days and nights exploring Osaka and even a little of Kyoto these three days.

Saturday
We got started on Saturday morning,　when we woke up lazily in Osaka, and watched the Gion Matsuri on the news. As Kyoto – which is where Gion is – is not all that far from Osaka, we made our way by local train to the ancient capital to see some of the festival.

Brian had been to the festival before, but it was my first time. I love Kyoto, so I enjoyed being there, but the festival itself was, well, a little bit of a let down. The streets were too crowded to allow much of a view for someone as vertically challenged as me, and we’d already walked so much that Brian’s foot began to burn in pain.

However, we did get a few photos and then had a cold beer and hot lunch at a nearby Indian restaurant!

Gion Matsuri

Before making our way back to Osaka, Brian introduced me to the Kyoto market, which I have never been to and didn’t even know existed. They had lots of things on offer, including these octopuses.

Octopus on a stick in the Kyoto market

Back in Osaka, we did a little shopping in Shinsaibashi, in the Nanba area of the city, before stopping for margaritas and tacos at a Mexican restaurant!

The very famous 'Glico Man' billboard at Shinsaibashi

Sunday
We didn’t have much of a plan for Sunday, but the day went by quickly as we explored the Kuromon Ichiba (market), explored the knife shops of Doguyasuji street, and then went shopping in Den Den Town (electronics and other toys). Of course, we also stopped for lunch, and for that we found a Japanese BBQ restaurant near Nanba station.

Check out the price of this watermelon in Kuromon Market - 30,000 yen!

We finished off the day with a 20 minute boat tour along the Dotonbori river!

Sailing the Dotonbori

Monday
In an effort to try to reduce walking and the pressure on Brian’s ever-more damaged foot, we thought a trip to the Osaka Aquarium – Kaiyukan – would be restful and pleasant. Pleasant – yes, extremely. But not so restful and it became another day with lots of walking! However, we both agree that it was worth it. The aquarium, though crowded on this national holiday, was soothing and beautiful.

Swimming Tortoise

The Jellyfish exhibit was especially breathtaking.

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After the aquarium, we took the Santa Maria cruise around Osaka bay, and then it was time for our weekend to come to a close and resume business as usual on Tuesday morning…

Kaiyukan aquarium and Tempozan Harbor Village as seen from the Santa Maria in Osaka bay

Here’s a little map. The blue dots show the general areas around Osaka that we visited (excluding the aquarium…). We did all of this on foot – which helps explain the flare-up of pain in B’s foot!

View Around Nanba, Osaka in a larger map

I’m sad about that, but will soon work to reconstruct the missing posts, which were really mostly about selling my car, selling my bike, and enjoying a few final weeks in Susono.

Anyway, today I went to log into Japan Rider, and the Admin page was reporting an error which went something like this:

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at ….librestore.php) in japanrider/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 890

So, any normal person would figure the problem was in the pluggable.php file. Not being able to log into control panel, I went in through the backend fia FTP, and snagged the offending file. I opened it in a text editor, and scouted for errors. Didn’t see any, but just in case, I uploaded a fresh copy. No success.

Then I thought about the wp-config.php file, which is often the culprit in wordpress errors. Still no luck. So – and this is where I made a mistake – I restored a backup, thinking it would fix the problem, but not realizing that my last backup was more than a month ago, and so I lost the more recent posts. And – it didn’t even fix the error!

More research, and I realized the problem was the file in which the error started – namely, in this case, the librestore.php file, about which I actually can find no information. I opened the file, and it was totally empty. Not knowing what it was supposed to contain, I simply took a chance and removed it from the server altogether. Et voila – that worked, and we are back up and running!

I will try to recapture and repost some of the earlier, now missing, posts!

Here is my post where I let folks know that my time in my current city and current job are about to come to a close. From early July, I will no longer be blogging from Susono.

And yes, I’m happy about this. I am ready to embark on new adventures.

So what will I do, you ask? Well, I will give the particulars to those who ask me directly, but essentially, a little time deepening my understanding of Japan, followed by a little time in Montreal (with visits to NYC to visits friends!), and then, the world is my oyster.

What, you ask, panic in your voice, will happen to Japan Rider the Blog!! The Blog will continue – though under a new name and domain for me, while Brian maintains this space. I will likely be updating this blog occasionally, but for frequent posts and updates, my new URL is recommended. As I said, please just ask me for the address. In any case, this log – Japan Rider- of so many of our wonderful adventures and photos and awesome living will remain in tact, likely forever.

If you want the new URL I will be using, please request either by email or in the comments.

Anyway, Oshima ?????- Big Island – is the closest, and is actually only 45 minutes by “jetfoil” fast boat from Atami, which is remarkably close to us.

Brian couldn’t get away for the few days, but I could, and I took the time to make my way for a solo excursion around Oshima.

One thing to note – Oshima is an island, and it is QUIET. At least, in the off-season. There are also NO convenience stores like 7-Eleven, which seem omnipresent just about everywhere else. This is a good thing, as it adds to the character of the island. But be forewarned – if you forget a toothbrush, or whatever, you can’t just pop out and pick one up at the shop, ’cause there ain’t no shops!

Going to Oshima was a spontaneous decision, but being off-season, I didn’t have to worry to much about accomodation being full. I did, however, have trouble finding a resource that listed minshuku or other places to stay. I finally found this page http://www.izu-oshima.or.jp/work/yado/link.html .

Price, of course, was a prime consideration, as was general character or local flavor. I found the Moriono Ie Guest House (http://morionoie.kakurezato.com/), and they also had a motorbike rental option. They were cheap (3,000 yen for a room, 1,500 yen for ‘dormitory’), located just a 20 minute walk from Moto-Machi port, and nesled happily in the woods. I called and got a little room to myself (I’m kinda too old to really enjoy dorm room bunk beds..). Anyway, the place was confortable and quiet, and I had the run of the house nobody else was staying there.

Getting to Oshima was easier than I expected. I called the phone number for the Tokaikisen ferry for a reservation (see the website http://www.tokaikisen.co.jp/), and very easily got a reservation number. For those whose Japanese is limited, you will be happy to note that the woman who answered switched to English with me when she heard my accent!

Anyway, I then took the local train from here early in the morning, caught the jetfoil ferry from Atami at 9:20 a.m., and was in Moto-machi, Oshima by 10:05 a.m.

If you are just going to Oshima to hang out and to get away from the hubbub of the big city – yes, you will love it. Black sand beaches, rugged costline, quiet towns, little commercialism – it’s a slice of paradise. However, I would reccommend having a way to get around. I rented a small motorcycle (a 125cc Suzuki Van Van), and had a great time explorring the island, and getting myself to various points of interest, like the Onsen Hotel for a nice bath, or the trail-head to hike around the crater at Miyahara Yama. With no way to get around, some folks may get bored.

Anyway, here are a few pics from my excursion. Click the image for a larger view…