Flowering Farms and Magical Music Boxes -- Last Look at Japan

Still hot and humid and bad air here in Cebu.  There have been fires and volcanic eruptions in neighboring countries that have caused a lot of what people here call "bad air."  To me the air doesn't seem as bad as southern Alberta on a windy, dusty day when land is blowing and you can't see more than a quarter of a mile.  Or when forest fires north or south of us send smoke our way!

I heard a fun speculation recently . . .  When God confounded the languages at the Tower of Babel, most of the people must have gone to the Philippines!  

Maybe that's why there's about 180 different languages in this very small country.  Most people speak for sure 3 languages -- the national language of Tagalog, their own provincial language, and English.  Many speak 4 or 5 or more dialects.  And the dialects are not just a difference in pronunciation but they are completely different languages.  These are smart people.  So yes, maybe they did come from the Tower of Babel!

A few pictures from September and then on to finish up the Japan pictures.

A pickle ball tournament is in progress here in the Temple compound.  Still very hot but at least the sun has gone down.  The sun beating on your back really burns.

We don't understand how people can do any kind of outdoor sports here in this hot weather, even though it cools down somewhat at night.  But really, these people don't know any different and their bodies are used to it.  Many don't like it but can't do much about it.

Basketball too.  There's no playground for the many little children who come to the temple with their parents.  While their parents are in the temple, the children make do with whatever they can.  They don't seem to need playgrounds to have fun.

Thursday nights, many temple workers come to our apartment for an hour of singing. 

On our mission in Nairobi, we spent time singing regularly with the young missionaries in the mission home.  And in Sweden, we had the young missionaries over every Sunday night for an hour of singing and eating.  Sometimes we traveled to zone conferences where we sang with the young missionaries while they waited to be interviewed.  Elder Torrie was in his element as he played piano for all these events.  So many happy memories.

So glad that President & Sister Ong and Sister & President Preciosa can join us for Thursday night singing.

And President & Sister Gison (pronounced hee-sohn) too.  Love these people.

And after the singing . . . the eating.  Chocolate covered raisins, mixed nuts, sometimes homemade brownies.  So fun! 
Someone told us that the reason Filipinos like to eat is because there might not be food tomorrow.  So true (and so sad) for many people here.

Now for the last couple of days of our Japan Adventure -- Flowering Farms and Magical Music Boxes and last look at an amazing country.

We're on our way from Hell Valley (see previous post) north to a couple of flower farms.  We're interested in anything to do with agriculture.

We've often seen these red and white arrows and we theorized on what they could mean.  Maybe it means a curve is coming?  No, often it's not before or on a curve.  Or should we drive right under the arrow?  No, no one is doing that.  I finally asked google.  Here in Hokkaido, there is heavy snow in winter.  The arrows point to the edge of the road so you know where to drive when you can't see the white line.  Good idea.

So now we know what two signs mean.  And there will be one more coming.  This, of course, as you know from my last post means to watch out for Japanese red foxes on the road.  And I was lucky enough to see one at the edge of the road as we whizzed by.  No, we didn't hit it.

So many tunnels here in Hokkaido.  I lost count of how many we went through.  Some very short and some extremely long.  Reminded us of the many tunnels in Stockholm.  There, some even had intersections and stop lights within them.

And between tunnels, beautiful foliage.

This tunnel is one of the longer ones we drove through, at 1540 meters -- almost a mile.

This tunnel even had an open area and then another tunnel. 

Notice that we are driving on the left side of the road.  LeRon says that there are two problems with driving on the left side.  Besides just driving on the "wrong" side of the road, you have to make right and left turns correctly.  Secondly,  you have to get used to the car being on the "wrong" side of you, and you have to make sure you are far enough over on the right side of the driving lane. 

In the UK, it was hard not to scrub up against the hedge-rows on the left side of the road.  Luckily they did not have hedge-rows in Japan, but they did have a lot of guardrails which we had to stay away from.  And on a divided highway, the slow lane is on the left and the faster lane on the right.  Backwards to the way we drive in the west.

What a beautiful sight!  Clouds, small mountains, cropland.  Makes us happy.

Not such a picturesque sight, but good to our farmer eyes.  Onions curing in the sun.

Check out this stop sign.  Yes, it's a Japanese stop sign.  Be sure to come to a full stop.  Very different from stop signs in many parts of the world.

More gorgeous farm scenes.  We're getting closer to the flower farms.

First look at the Shikisai-no Oka Flower Farm.  This farm is strictly for tourists.  The flowers are not sold.  They are only to be looked at.  So beautiful.  Colored beds and blue mountains and green foliage. 

You can rent golf carts for 2000 yen (about 20 CDN) for 15 minutes and then 500 yen for each 5 minutes after that.  Yes, this is definitely a tourist business.

Here's our pricey and very old golf cart that we weren't sure would get us anywhere!

White petunias.

Colorful cosmos.

Love the red and yellow.

Orange and yellow marigolds.

Lovely purple liatris.  Can you see the hearts in the distance?

Golden sunflowers waving in the breeze.

Multi-colored zinnias.

Stunning red celosia.

All of the above flowers were either at the Shikisai-no-Oka flower farm or at this Kamifurano Flower Land.  This flower farm actually sells flowers.  Not so touristy nor as big as the other one, but still beautiful.

I'm in Narnia country now.  Here's the door into the other world.  Hope I don't go there soon.

Now we're heading south to Otaru.  Enjoying the farming country.  LeRon would like to walk through this very muddy rice field but he has no boots.

The rice heads are interesting.  He is comparing them in his mind to wheat heads.

Each rice head is very long -- from my fingers to where LeRon is holding it against my arm.  Zoom in for a closer look (all ye farmers).

The yellow sign now no longer sports a running red fox, but a mama bear and her cub.  Look out for bears crossing the road and notice the red and white arrow pointing down so you won't go off the road.

Lots of rest stops here in Hokkaido.  Love these hydrangeas.  So glad I can grow them by my house in Alberta.

We've driven 3 hours south from the flower farm to overnight at Otaru.  Exploring the backstreets, we found many restaurants.  Where should we eat tonight?

LeRon is searching the menus.  I am happy with whatever he chooses.  We generally like the same things.

He's chosen this tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant.  Seats for only a few.  Japanese television.  Prices on the chalkboard.  LeRon remembers eating in many places like this during his two years of service as a young missionary from 1972-1974, although he was never up here on the island of Hokkaido.

This street brings back many happy memories for Elder Torrie.  Hard to believe he left Japan 52 years ago.

This morning we are on our way to the Music Box Museum in Otaru.  We were so surprised to see a rickshaw here.  No passengers yet this morning.

Beside the museum is a huge tree with huge leaves.  This is an empress tree, also known as a princess tree.  Yes, I can see why it is called that.  Its leaves are soft and fuzzy.  It's one of the fastest growing hardwood trees, growing several feet each year.  So fascinating to see leaves so huge.  I know for sure they wouldn't grow in Alberta.

This steam clock was made in 1977 in Vancouver, B.C. by Canadian, Raymond L. Saunders.  (An identical clock is in Vancouver).  It stands outside of the Music Box Museum and retail store, into which we are heading.  But first, let's learn more about this clock.

Click to zoom so you can read the plaque.  It's run by steam that comes from an electric boiler inside the building.  Every 15 minutes, it plays the Westminster chimes.  If you wonder exactly how it works, you will have to read the plaque yourself.  I am not interested in HOW it works, just that it does.  Probably because I don't understand it anyway.

LeRon is waiting for the next quarter hour so we can hear the clock play the Westminster chimes.  The building that houses the Music Box Museum and Retail Store was built in 1915 (the year my dad was born).  Most buildings in Otaru are made of stone, but this one was built of brick.

See video below to hear the clock steam the chimes.  It was a very different sound than we were expecting.

Three floors of the Music Box Museum and store are packed with everything music boxy.  The first floor has all kinds of music boxes for sale.

I am on the second floor where the historical music boxes are kept.  So really, this floor is the museum part of the place.

The third floor has displays of Disney-type dioramas, all using music boxes.

We're hitting the 2nd floor first, with its many historical music boxes.  On the right is a record-type of music box (called a polyphone, which you can learn about if you listen to the YouTube video below).  On the left is a demo music box with eight well-known songs.  So lovely.  I videoed one before I read the sign that says do not video.  See below.  Don't tell anyone.

Gorgeous woodwork on this "Porter" cabinet.  The record-type disks work the same as the "combs" do, as in the video above.  But really, how does any of it work? 
See the link to an interesting 7-minute YouTube video.  It's not the best quality video but very informative.  (And in this case, I really was interested in HOW it works, unlike my disinterest in how the steam clock worked, though the steam clock itself was very interesting).

The presenter even demonstrates how to play Three Blind Mice on a comb.  Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ-HbfV2pq8

The first music box may have been invented as early as the 800's by Persian inventors.  There were many iterations in the following centuries.  See the Wikipedia article about music boxes.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_box 

LeRon was very taken with this very expensive music box that is for sale here on this historical floor.

Here's LeRon's caption for this picture:
As explained in the YouTube video link above, a "standard" music box features a rotating drum that has little pegs protruding out from the surface.  These little pegs pluck the teeth of the comb, positioned next to the rotating drum, each comb tooth corresponding to a note.  After each rotation, the tune just starts all over again, so the tunes are short. 
The fancy "Techy" music boxes in the photo above do not use a drum at all.  They utilize very fancy "combs" with many more teeth than a normal music box.  The comb teeth are plucked with electronically controlled "pluckers", which in turn are controlled by a computer.  The tunes are stored electronically in the computer so the music box can play many, many songs and they can be as long as desired by the programmer.  But all the songs had the beautiful "music boxy tinkly sound." 

The music box pictured above had a playlist of several hundred classical music songs.  It was "only" about 7,500 USD!  A lot more than LeRon would ever even think of spending.

This was a slightly scaled-down version of the electronic music box described above.  It was only about 3,500 USD, still out of our range!!  Besides, we would have had to somehow carry it in our carry-on luggage on the plane.  So no, we will not buy today.
 
After we got back to Cebu, LeRon got thinking about the lovely melodic music box music.  He wanted something that would play different music box songs automatically once started.  He searched Youtube for "Music Box Music" and found many recorded songs.  He extracted the sound files from many of these free YouTube music box videos and just added them to our computer files.  Now we can listen to as much music box music as we want to, without having to "wind up" the music box, and without having to spend a whole lot of money.

So now we have our own high tech music box -- and for free.  True, it doesn't come with a beautiful wood case or a twirling figurine, but we don't have to wind it up.

No, we did not buy an expensive music box.  But we had fun listening to many of them on the 2nd floor and of course to the cheaper ones on the first floor.  People were loading carts with them.

We were somewhat tempted to buy one of these music boxes because we were reminded of my dad who found these nuts and bolts characters intriguing.  I think he tried his hand at making one (but not with a music box attached).

We were also tempted to buy a grand piano music box.  But we already have a grand piano so we don't need a music box that looks like one. 

But we had fun for a couple of hours listening to a cacophony of tinkling music boxes.  It was a great museum/store and we highly recommend it if you will be in Otaru anytime.
Just as we were leaving, the clock was ready to strike another quarter hour.  Below is another video.  Seems to me that it's a bit more in tune this time.  And we could feel the steam.

We're driving through gorgeous farming country back down to Hokuto-Hakodate to catch the Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo and home to Cebu.

A field of white blossoming buckwheat.  In Japan it's used in noodles and teas.  The hulls of the buckwheat seeds are used for, of all things, stuffing for pillows.  Now I know why our pillows were so crackly sounding.

So happy to feel the cool breeze on my face.  I'm enjoying it one last time before we hit hot Cebu.

We're gassing up our rental car.  Interesting way to have gas nozzles.  Just hanging in the air.  Just park under it and the attendant pulls the nozzle down and fills your tank.

We're staying in the hotel attached to the train station.  Thought we should try something we hadn't tried before.  You will never guess what it is.

Shark fin over ramen noodles.  It didn't taste fishy, just kind of "meaty."  We often buy Sapporo Ichiban ramen noodles at home.  So yummy.  But they don't come with shark fins!

And a last walk in the evening.  Ever the farmer, LeRon is testing the feel of the soil.

And ever the tree-lover, I am enjoying the sculpted trees.  Our harsh climate in Alberta is not good for sculpted trees.  Too little leaves in comparison to the trunk, making it harder to survive the winter.

All the hotels provided bath robes (yukata-type robes) which you wear to the public bath in the hotel.  Just choose your size and go.  (You can also wear the yukatas to breakfast if you choose).  The public baths are segregated but since I would be in my birthday suit with women I didn't know, I chose not to experience that part of Japanese culture.  And we have a perfectly good shower right in our rooms.  

We feel like millionaires when we open our wallets.  10,000, 5000, and 1000 yen notes are what we regularly used.

Ready to head to our 6:30 a.m. train.  Google images says this is "Zushi-hokky (ずーしーほっきー), the official quirky mascot character" of Hokuto-Hakodate in Hokkaido.  It's supposed to look like a  clam over sushi rice.  Cute mascot.  I have eaten salmon over sushi rice but never clam.  Clams are kind of chewy and not my favorite.

We took the Shinkansen the 4 1/2 hour ride under the sea to Tokyo.  Our connection was tight.  At the train station we didn't have long to catch the local train to the airport.  But guess what?  The local train was cancelled due to flooding on the track.  Buses were full.  So we took a very expensive taxi ride to the airport.  The taxi driver was great to go as fast as he could so it wouldn't cost us so much.  For that one hour ride, we paid almost 300 CDN.  Thank goodness there is NO TIPPING in Japan!  We caught our flight and made it safely back to Cebu.  So nice to be in our own apartment again.