goya

So that I can find this information on growing goya again this year, this is an article I found back in May this year.  

'Green curtains' block heat, save energy

The Yomiuri Shimbun http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110509004046.htm

A growing number of people are turning to nature to help them save electricity this summer, creating so-called green curtains of climbing plants.
According to the Energy Conservation Center, Japan, a key element in power conservation is reducing the use of air conditioners, which consume the most electricity in homes. A green curtain helps block the sun and keep room temperatures from rising through transpiration of the plant's leaves.
Green curtains can be easily set up at home, and Tokyo's Itabashi Ward Office has been promoting them as an effective way to battle global warming.
With power shortages expected this summer as a result of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the ward office has received an increasing number of inquiries from local residents about growing green curtains.
It also received more than two applications for every spot available in a class organized by the ward office on how to grow a green curtain.
Likewise, Katsushika Ward of Tokyo distributed free goya bitter gourd seeds to residents in late April. All 500 packets were taken by the second day.
A Katsushika Ward official in charge of distributing the seeds said, "Interest is higher [in growing goya] than usual. Many people are trying to grow it for the first time."
Tsuneo Kobayashi of Itabashi Ward, 79, has grown goya since 2009. He said the plant can make a four-meter high and three-meter wide green curtain as its vines grow.
"The room with a green curtain is clearly cooler than one next to it, which gets direct sun," Kobayashi said. "Seeing green plants soothes me."
Plants suitable for making green curtains include goya, bottle gourd, morning glory and others.
Accordnig to Koichi Sugawara, secretary general of the Tokyo-based nonprofit organization Midori no Curtain Oendan (green curtain cheering squad): "You can save money on electricity by making green curtains, which also give you the joy of growing and harvesting something."
Ichiro Awano, public relations director of Sakata Seed Co. in Yokohama, recommended goya for green curtains because it is easy to grow. People who want to use planters should purchase one that can contains at least 36 liters of soil, Awano said.
Goya seedlings should be planted 20 centimeters apart in a planter filled with soil for growing vegetables. It is important to fix a garden net firmly under the eaves, which goya vines could twine around. A net with a mesh of 10 to 18 centimeters should be used, Awano said.
When goya has seven or eight mature leaves, the tip of its stem should be nipped off to help lateral buds grow. Provide additional fertilizer after goya begins bearing vegetables, he added.
"If you want to make a thick leafy curtain, you should give extra nitrogen fertilizer," Awano said. "But this will result in a slightly smaller harvest."
It is now the season for planting seedlings in Japan, but the best time differs slightly by region.
"Before you actually start, you should seek advice on how to grow seedlings at the garden shop where you purchase them," Awano said.

(May. 10, 2011)

See also
http://hobiger.org/blog/2011/07/
http://greenjapan.com/living-in-japan/3597/

Bitter Gourd (Nigauri)

I've just found this post that I started back on 15th August, but never got round to posting.  This strange knobbly looking vegetable is a goya, quite possibly one of my favourite vegetables for its fresh unusual taste and nutritional value.

I first ate this five years ago when I went to Okinawa, the southern-most group of islands in Japan.  In Okinawa, it is most well-known in Goya Champuru recipes.  It seems to be a vegetable that causes mixed reactions.  Many people say it is bitter and so they don't like it.  But paired with the right ingredients it is incredibly refreshing!  Having said that, I love it so much I eat it raw in salads and smoothies.  

It is extremely rich in vitamin C, B vitamins and many essential minerals, higher than other dark green vegetables.  It's also supposed to show improvement in psoriasis sufferers, but difficult to pin that one down!

As far as growing it is concerned, it is a very popular summer plant in Japan.  It is a climber and forms a dense mass of leaves so is known as one of the 'Green Curtain' plants.  'Green Curtains' block sunshine going into the house and so make rooms much cooler.

This year I decided to have another go (3rd time lucky?) at growing this vegetable.  Previous attempts have been abysmal, really through my own fault (too small a pot the first, planting late in the season in poor soil the second).  But this year, there was more information available on the internet on growing this vegetable due to energy saving requirements in eastern Japan after the Tohoku earthquake.

When I started this post in the middle of August, I was feeling rather discouraged...  As well as the above I had written, 'So far I have eaten 3 of my own goya, plus have another 5 currently on the plant, hopefully more to follow!  This is from 2 plants.  Don't think that's exactly a roaring success, and the leaves are rather sparce and pathetic actually, although they do block some of the heat.  But...  much better than previous years, and I pinched out the growing tips rather too late I think, taking the advice I thought I got from my goya-expert neighbour!  I'll definitely try this again next year.  Apparently, planting directly into the soil also helps get a much denser curtain but that's not really an option without a lot of planning...'

Now it's another month on, and I've been really happy with the number of goya I've got, at least for my first attempt.  In the last few weeks, the leaves have become really abundant from about a metre  and a half off the ground, and in the last week or so I've had a goya a day!  Seems to be a late starter!  I've just taken this photo today.  Thinking about the fact that the leaves were sparce at the beginning and never ended up growing at the bottom of my plant, I think I've worked out the reason for that. Thinking I was cooling it down, I sprayed the leaves as well as watered at night.  But that seems just to have killed them off.  Next year!

New pet...

Wow!  I've just discovered I have a pet!  No picture yet, because he/she won't stay still for long enough but he looks like this http://www.nara-edu.ac.jp/ECNE/kaerhebi/kaisetu/yamori.htm...  The other evening I was on the telephone and heard a loud noise between the picture rail and the wall.  I assumed it was an unnaturally large cockroach, because I saw rather too many of them last summer (ie the first summer that I lived here).

This year however, I've seen maybe only two cockroaches and I'd assumed that that was just because I'd eliminated them the previous year (the house had been empty for at least a couple of years before I moved in). 

But I think I now have my answer...  I just saw a gecko in my lounge!  My first thought was 'aaghhh, how do I catch him and put him out' but reading up about him on the internet, I think I might keep him.  He's way too fast to catch anyway, is likely to drop his tail (painful for him) if he feels threatened, and apparently feeds on cockroaches and other insects.  Do I keep him, or use mothballs to repel him?  And how did he get into the house in the first place? I think he'll probably leave pretty soon of his own accord as soon as it starts to get cooler given that my house is either roasting hot in summer or freezing cold in winter!

More reading tells me that gecko is 'yamori ヤモリ' in Japanese, meaning 'house guardian'...

Lake Toya and Furano/Biei, Hokkaido

Well, that was a lovely relaxing holiday!  I went up to Hokkaido for a few days - one night at Lake Toya and 3 nights in Furano.  I was really lucky with the weather too - it didn't rain as much as it was forecast to, and so I was able to get a day and a half of cycling in which was what I had planned.

 Lake Toya was beautiful, although a bit too onsen resorty for my liking.  But I wanted to see fireworks and see em I did!  Breakfast and dinner were also great.  I stayed in the Hotel Lakeside Terrace and had arranged the free (2.5hour) shuttle bus both ways - excellent value, as was the hotel (booked on Rakuten) with a huge healthy buffet breakfast and dinner.  The hotel was also huge, built in 3 wings - the dining hall alone probably seated about 300 people at a time.

It was wonderful to see Furano in June, the flower fields were beautiful.  Even so I was still a little early for the lavender - mid-July is probably the best time, but end-June was when I had my holiday.  It was beautiful cycling around the Biei countryside.  There is a great rental bike shop 'Guide no Yamagoya ガイドの山小屋' near Bibaushi station (美馬牛 Beautiful Horse Cow?!), ask at the station for directions, or check online at www.yamagoya.jp (website appears in English, but many of the links have English as well.  It cost me 1500yen for a full day hire of a 7gear mountain bike.  Cheaper bikes are available but don't have any gears which would make those hills quite tricky!  They also lent me a rucksack and have left luggage facilities too.

The previous day I hired a bike from a souvenir shop just on the corner near Furano Station.  Again they have left luggage facilities if people need it.  I then spent half a day visiting the Cheese Factory, Wine Factory and Grape Factory.  In the afternoon, expecting rain, I took the bike back and caught the train to the seasonal station Lavender Batake to go to Farm Tomita.  Very nice to see again.  This is perhaps the most famous lavender farm in the area, probably partly because it's the easiest to get to, however I was much more impressed with the scale of the fields and mountain backdrop at the Hill of Shikisai about 3km from Bibaushi station.

On my final day, I took the bus to Asahikawa to see Asahiyama Zoo (last went there 6 years ago, and they are still making changes.  This is the best zoo I've ever been to, their vision being to make life as comfortable and interesting for the animals as is possible in a zoo which in turn make it as interesting as possible for the people that visit.  Little by little they are redesigning the animal areas, however the areas for very large animals haven't been redesigned yet.  This is an amazing turnaround for a zoo that in 1995 was near bankruptcy and close to closing down.  (In 1996 only 260,000 people visited, by 2007 that figure had swollen to 3,060,000.)  I recently really enjoyed the drama documentary about the story of how the zoo started to be redesigned Asahiyama Zoo: Penguins in the Sky'  http://www.nipponcinema.com/trailers/asahiyama-dobutsuen-monogatari-trailer.  It was amazing just how close the animals were in the redesigned areas, you are sometimes only 50cm from a very fierce furry animal through a well-designed double fence.

As you can see from some of my photos, the seals have perspex tubes to swim up and down in if they want (they don't have to), the penguins are clearly visible swimming through the water alongside you as though flying in the sky, the large cats have a very high volume to move around in as they can climb right up trees and structures within their enclosure, the lesser red panda can cross over your head on a panda foot bridge!

Useful starting webpages for traveling in this area:
http://www.furano-kankou.com/english/home.htm
http://www.cbnet.co.jp/furanobus/lavender.html　(timetable for Lavender Bus)
http://www.asazoo.com/index.php?bus　(timetable for Asahiyama Zoo bus)

Trains and buses are infrequent, so you will need to use a combination of bus and train, and plan well to make sure you do as much as possible between transport stops.  Except for when going to Lavender Batake station I recommend using normal JR as the Norocco tourist train is twice as expensive.

Photos at the right link!

Gomi Zero no Hi - Zero Rubbish Day

As I start writing this post I am already onto my 2nd cup of coffee, remarkable only because it's only 9am, and I've been up for 2 hours already.  On a Sunday.

Gomi Zero can be read as Zero Rubbish or as a go-mi-zero (5-3-0).  It's a play on words.  Every year, on or around 30 May, Gomi Zero is held.

Every year throughout Japan on Gomi Zero Day, residents are invited/press-ganged into picking up rubbish to help beautify the country.  A lovely idea, as I'm sure you'll agree!  Mine however starts very early (supposedly from 8am, but actually from 7:40am each year).

This year the selected day was today, because 29th May is a Sunday and so most people have the day off.  However, I was secretly hoping it wouldn't happen because heavy rain was forecast due to an approaching typhoon...  At 6:45 I woke up, and noticed it was raining but not too heavily.  Sigh.  No lie-in perhaps.  It would go ahead if it was only light rain.  Perhaps this was light enough.  A check of the 10minute rain forecast of my area for the next hour showed it was going to vary between light and heavy rain, with more typhoon like rain predicted for later in the day.  OK, probably won't happen, but I'd better get showered and dressed.

At 7:30 in one of the heavy rain intervals, the announcements started through the city loudspeaker.  Ah, I really need to improve my Japanese.  As I was listening, I could pick up some but not all of it.  'Good morning...  after a lot of discussion this morning...  please'.  Surely....  Surely they can't mean...?!  But then in neighbouring houses shutters were opened, and people started popping out with umbrellas and wellies.  Plainly everyone else wasn't sure it was going to be cancelled either.  Mutterings of 'but it's raining...  I'm surprised...  amazing eh...  It's not going ahead in neighbouring X-city and Y-city...  Can't be helped...' were heard.

And so, armed with a big umbrella in the bucketing rain, but coffee-less, I walked down the road with my neighbours for the cheery introductions, and doling out of gloves.  We were instructed just to clean around the front of our own houses.  Everyone's thought of 'but but but it's clean' was mostly unheard.  Umbrellas in one hand, people picked up leaves, and tiny weeds for a full 10-15 minutes of show, and then started gathering again and talking.  At 8:30 it was considered the right time to walk back down the road to be thanked and officially dismissed.  Have no idea what was said really, partly because it was raining so heavily on a nearby tin shed, but they seemed to talk about the summer picnic (to be avoided) and thanked everyone a lot for coming together despite the bad conditions.

Then there was the invitation for the retrospective bribe of a can of drink, and a not exactly polite scrum for the cans of beer, I was too slow so only got a can of coffee.

Exchanged the 'thank you for your hard work' with my neighbours.  Then home to put on the kettle and change and dry out.

So that was how my morning started.  Gomi Zero 2011 in heavy rain.  Rather nice really.

Takamatsu, Shikoku

Back in February, I went to one of the 4 major islands of Japan - Shikoku.  Now I have been at least once to all 4 of the major islands (Hokkaidō, Honshū,  Shikoku and Kyūshū)!

I had been meaning to visit Shikoku for some time, but without knowing much about it.  In fact the deciding point for me was that I booked the couple of nights whilst I was still feeling ill in January, with the main reason being that (aside from Okinawa) it seemed to be marginally warmer on average in February that the rest of Japan!  However as I researched more, I discovered that it seemed to be a very interesting and beautiful area.  I wasn't wrong!

This was indeed a really beautiful area, and one that had a lot going on.  I want to return some time!

Photos at the link on the right.

March 11th - 17 days on

This is a difficult post to write, and please be aware that these are just my perceptions from living in Japan and from what I see on the news here and internationally.  Although aware through my own research and living here, I am not a scientist or an expert on the current situation, but I don't think the true picture is completely apparent outside of Japan.

It's been over two weeks, and in some ways I think the timing of this post is right.  For me, I'm starting to grasp more of the enormity and reality of it all and could only now write this.  Perhaps for many people outside of Japan the initial horror has passed, and it's just another news item.

I think that in the last week, the focus on international media (and even domestic media to a lesser extent) relating to Japan has shifted from the devastation in northern Japan, to nuclear power plant and radiation worries internationally.  Of course the nuclear power plant situation in Japan is a very serious concern, and has added to the number of evacuees and problems of food supply, not mention the large number of workers and their families.  However outside of the 20km zone, airborne levels are low.  For example in Tokyo, about 240km from the Fukushima power plant, after a very brief alarming spike they are currently at 0.11uSV/hour - higher than normal in Tokyo http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/28/1304324_2819.pdf but still well under the international average of 0.27uSv/hour (based on an average background radiation of 2.4mSv/year). Outside of Japan, increases are minute (for example about one millionth of what you would get in normal daily background radiation).  This fortunately isn't another Chernobyl.

The devastation in northern Japan hasn't gone away, even if the focus on the news has.  Pictures in the news show the remarkable transformation of a major road with a great chasm after the earthquake - six days on you'd never know.  Businesses are starting to relocate and get back on their feet.  This enables some supplies to get through to the affected region.  These stories are great.  But the reality is that whilst things are looking better, they are still not good.  Food, water, basic supplies and medicine are starting to get through now, but the diet is poor because non-perishable foods have to be used.  As at March 22nd 320,000 evacuees are staying at about 2,100 shelters.  The risk of contagious disease such as flu is high. http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80009.html.  The landscape is still flattened.

There is a still a lack of basic supplies, electricity and heat in many areas.  It is still very cold.  This means that people, especially the sick and elderly are still dying having survived an earthquake and tsunami.  This is correctly described as Japan's worst disaster since World War 2.  This page shows a translated interview with some local people. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/110322/japan-rebuilding-tsunami-earthquake-ofunato-iwate

It seems that many people feel that because Japan is a rich technologically advanced country, people don't believe that they need donations so much.  Yet the United States is also a rich technologically advanced country and they received substantially more donations in the first week after Hurricane Katrina.  http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/18/pf/japan_earthquake_aid/index.htm.
Often  people donate in the first week whilst the emerging images are so strong.
Japan always donates generously to disaster relief funds, again for example Hurricane Katrina http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2005/September/20050915165123ajesrom9.768313e-02.html and now Japan needs help to rebuild  itself.

The northern area of Japan, especially the coastal areas, is not the richest region.  If a situation like this were to happen in the UK, then international help would be needed.  Japan is no different.  I think that people see videos and pictures on television and see people behaving in a quiet ordered manner without asking for help, and assume that help isn't needed.  There has been little looting in Japan, people tend to be more honest.  The culture in Japan is often to endure quietly and to try to resolve your own problems, not to ask for help.  The 'stiff upper lip' reputation of the British is more apparent in the 'gaman' of Japan.  Just because people don't ask for help, doesn't mean that we shouldn't give it.  Money is always needed for rebuilding no matter how developed a nation is.  Rebuilding homes, services, companies and lives.

Donations are the best way to help, so that the relief agencies can spend it on what is needed most.  The Red Cross in your own country will have a donation fund for the Japan Earthquake/Tsunami and is a good way to help.  This is the key aid agency organising support in Japan.  They will ensure that the money is used efficiently and, in the event that it can't be used efficiently in Japan, they will use the money for other countries that need it even more.

In Britain http://www.redcross.org.uk (online, or by phone or post), or you can use Google Checkout to pay via the Google Crisis Response site http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html
In Japan there are many more options which will get aid to the right place.  Almost every convenience store and supermarket has a box, many legitimate charities including Second Harvest http://www.2hj.org/, but again you can donate on the Red Cross website http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/index.html

You can also donate by buying the Songs for Japan on iTunes for GBP7.99, $10 or 1500yen - all proceeds go to the Japanese Red Cross.