The Bridge over the River Go

I've already posted on our very own candy colored bridge that crosses the Gonokawa. Between it and the sea 20k downstream there are 4 more bridges over the river. This first one is about halfway down the river and crosses over to Kawahira.

The next 3 all cross the river at Gotsu. The first is the most recent, a doubledecker built 17 years ago. The upper level carries the Gotsu bypass, and the lower level is for local traffic between Watazu and Gotsu Honmachi. It is used on the local manhole cover design.

The next one is the bridge that carries the single railway track of the Sanin JR line. It was built in 1920.

The last bridge before the sea is the one that carries Route 9 through Gotsu.



From there its just a few hundred meters to the mouth of the river and the open sea beyond. The east bank is very sandy.

The west bank has the huge factory and of course tetrapods.

105 years ago today.

On May 28th 1905 the Russian ship Irtysh ran aground on the Shimane coast just off the fishing village of Waki (now part of Gotsu).

The villagers took to their boats and helped to successfully save and bring to shore the more than 200 crew and officers.

The Russians were given food and shelter and helped in every way by the mostly poor fishermens families.

Every year, this year on June 13th, Waki celebrates a Russian festival and dignitaries come from Russia to thank the village once again for their kindness.

In the small Waki Community Center is a small museum with photos, documents, items salvaged from the Irtysh, and gifts from Russia.

The story of how the Irtysh came to its end is pretty interesting.

In 1904, without a declaration of war, the Japanese attacked the Russian Far East Fleet in Port Arthur (Manchuria). Comparisons with Pearl Harbor are obvious. So began the Russo-Japanese war.

In a bold move the Czar ordered his Baltic Fleet to sail 18,000 miles, half way round the world, to hook up with the remnants of his Far East Fleet at Vladivostock. The Irtysh was a supply ship attached to the Baltic Fleet.

In the straits between Japan and Korea the Japanese navy engaged the Russians in a great naval battle that has been equated with Trafalgar. Known now as the Battle of Tsushima, the Russians were soundly defeated, and the damaged Irtysh was seen limping away from the battle and the next day ran aground off Waki.

Another Gotsu sunset

Went for a short walk along the mouth of the Gonokawa and couldn't resist some sunset shots.

Round Windows: looking in (modern)

The last post, for a while at least, on circular windows in Japan. These are in Milky Way Hall in Gotsu.

This one is at the local aquarium, Aquas.

These are the doors to the Treasure House/ Storeroom of a shrine in Yamaguchi City. Gandalf or Dumbledore or Santa is being watched by a komainu

This one is at the Contemporary Art Museum in Hiroshima City.

And another one from Aquas

Princess Yakami

Yakami Hime was a beautiful princess ( as all such princesses must be) in the land of Inaba, now western Tottori. She appears in the old myth The White Rabbit of Inaba.

In Izumo, Okuninushi's 80 brothers, known as the Yasogami, head off to Inaba to try and win the princess's hand. Okuninushi was relegated to baggage carrier for his brothers.

On a beach they discover a sick rabbit, and the yasogami are cruel to it. When Okuninushi arrives he helps the rabbit, and seeing his kindness, Yakami hime falls in love with him.

Eventually Okuninushi marries her, but later dumps her so he can marry one of Susano's daughters.

The photos are from the kagura dance Yasogami, performed here by the Tsuchi Kagura Group at last years Gotsu kagura Festival.

Down the river to the sea

A few weeks ago, before the onset of the rainy season and its attendant humidity, I took a little bike ride 20kms down the river to Gotsu.

The Gonokawa (Go River) is the longest river in West Japan, and is only 194 kms long. Now tamed by a single dam upstream at Hamahara, it is still a very pleasant river.

For most of its length there is a narrow ride running alongside the railway line, and a larger 2 lane road running along the opposite bank. The 10k from my village downstream to Kawahira is the only stretch that doesn't have the small road, so I cycled down the main road to the bridge at Kawahira.

There is not a lot of traffic, maybe one or two cars an hour, and just a few small settlements. Its not unusual to see troops of monkeys exploring the edge of the rail tracks.

Every few K there are Jizo altars, often looking the worst for wear, but still maintained by some of the locals.

Geologically speaking, the Go River is very young, and has yet to form an estuary or delta, but it does get a little wider and deeper as it turns the last horsheshoe bend before reaching Gotsu and the sea.

It was at this point that I discovered something quite remarkable, something I've driven past hundreds of times and not noticed. That's tomorrows blog.

Kamikaze

Last year 9 wind generators began operating on top of Takanoyama behind Tsunozu and Uyagawa. I was surprised to learn that it was a public works project of the prefecture in partnership with Gotsu City.

Another 12 have now gone up on the beaches at Asari and Kuromatsu, this time erected by a new local company Gotsu Wind Power.

While not the biggest in Japan, with towers of 80 metres and blades of 45 metres, they are pretty impressive close up.

The towers were made in South Korea and the generators are from Germany and Finland.

Japan lags far behind other countries in wind power generation, not because of a lack of wind, but because there is no national grid. There are 10 seperate regional power companies that don't share excess electricity across their borders.

Iwami generates a miniscule amount of hydro-electric power, and most of our electricity comes from the coal powered Misumi power station. There is a nuclear power station on the coast up near Matsue. (built on a fault-line of course!)

Meteor, Mountain, Manyoshu.

Bristling with towers and antennae, the 470m high Shimanohoshitakayama, hereafter known as Star Mountain, is visible from up and down the coast and from Rte 9 or the train as one passes through Gotsu.

The star on the mountainside, most visible after a snow or when lit up in August, symbolizes a meteor that slammed into the mountain in the year 874. At the site of the impact a temple was built. Reisyo-ji, and the meteor itself enshrined as Inseki Daimyojin, which could be translated as Meteor Great Shining Deity.

The space in the door of the little shrine is so you can reach in and touch the meteor. It is a decent size... I haven't been able to find out its weight, but it's close to a metre in length.
The crater made by its impact is now a small pond just in front of the temple.

The small temple itself is fairly nondescript, but outside there are several large statues of Kannon.

Like most temples or shrines that have a strong "folk" tradition, there are an interesting, eclectic, collection of little statues of assorted kami, buddhas, and saints.

Right next to the temple is a park with over 500 Camellia trees. Also nearby is a miniature golf course, and the local "Clean Center" which is where the trash gets recycled and incinerated. Only in Japan could a place that produces toxic dioxin be called a clean center!

There are several spots with scenic overviews of the coast and beautiful downtown Gotsu below.

There is a small settlement up here too, though I was surprised to learn that people didn't move on to the mountain until the 1940's.

The local shrine is named after Kakinomoto Hitomaro, probably the most well known of the ancient poets whose work is in the Manyoshu, the oldest anthology of Japanese poetry.

It is believed that the mountain is described in one of his famous poems, On Leaving Iwami, and the evidence is strong. The Sanindo, the ancient road linking the region to the capital in kyoto, passes in front of the mountain, and kakinomotos wife is from Tsunozu at the base of the mountain to the west. Actually he had quite a few wives, but Yosami no Otome is the most well known as she was a poet in her own right and her works are also in the Manyoshu. The love story of Kakinomoto and Yosami was made into a childrens picture book and images of the couple appear all over the Gotsu area, looking suitably cute.

This is a follow-up post to an earlier post.

Gotsu

The draincover for Gotsu shows a stylized view of what you see out of the train window as you come into the town from the east. The flowers are azaleas, the town flower, and cherry blossoms.

The new doubledecker bridge carries traffic on the by-pass, avoiding the town centre. The lower level is for local traffic between Watazu and Gotsu Honmachi. Gotsu is the smallest of Shimane's cities, but is really just a collection of villages spread over the surrounding area, including my own village.

A view of the bridge from the Gonokawa River.

Behind the bridge is Hoshitaka Mountain, "Star Mountain". The star is most visible after a snowfall, or when the azaleas are blooming, or at night in August when it is lit up. Star mountain gets its own post in a few days as there is a lot of interest.

Looking east over Gotsu. That is Star Mountain on the right.

Typical Japanese Landscape 10

The "beach" at Gotsu

The good guys versus the bad guys

Yesterday was the annual Gotsu Kagura festival. 7 hours of exciting entertainment for less than the price of a movie ticket!

Kagura is sacred dance, and its home is in the local shrine, but here in Iwami, kagura has become so popular that various opportunities exist to see it outside of the shrine matsuri. Many towns now have an annual festival held in school gyms or auditoriums. Rather than seeing one group perform all night, up to 10 groups each perform just one dance. It's a kind of showcase where groups can see each other.

Being performed on a large stage rather than the usual small kagura space in a shrine means that dances with larger numbers of participants can be staged.

One of the common features of most kagura dances is combat. Bows and arrows, halberds, and swords are used. The theme of many dances is the triumph of good over evil, and in many cases this means the the Yamato defeating their enemies.


With the faster 8-beat kagura of Iwami some of these sword battles can be quite exciting, as can be seen in the short video.