Category Archives: August 2010

Letter From The Editor: New Kids

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s all kinds of new faces in Toyama. Along with late March / early April, when the new school & fiscal year begins, August & early September is one of the two times of year Toyama sees foreign people–particularly English teachers–moving to the prefecture en masse.

I love it when the kids get here. Sure, they have no idea how to use the trains, and you have to order for them at restaurants, but it’s totally worth it to make a little effort.

First of all, it’s a sweet little self-esteem boost. I’ve made peace with my life of Japanese fails, but it’s nice when I’m in a group of people, and I don’t know the least about what’s going on.

They bring news of the homeland. Sometimes it’s good–DVD rental vending machines at MacDonald’s? I’ve bought some pretty crazy stuff in Japanese vending machines, but I think that’s a pretty impressive system. And sometimes it’s bad. Like awesomesauce. I hope that’s over before I get back to the States, or I’m gonna stomachsauce in someone’s face.

And best of all–they’re game for whatever. They want to go to all the festivals, all the sights, all the parties. It’s fun to be around people not yet complaining about how there’s nothing to do in Toyama.

Anyway, if you meet a new person, do me a favor–say hi and hook them up with The TRAM. There’s all kinds of information here about welcome parties and trips.

If you’re new, welcome to Toyama. Hope to see you out there!

Disco

Toyama-ken, Beach Paradise

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by Laura Rountree

The first time I located my new home-to-be on a map of Japan, I was thrilled to see that one side of the prefecture included a nice chunk of the Japanese Alps, and the other side formed a nice U-shaped bay on the Sea of Japan. Mountains and beaches, what more can you ask for?

While experiences in Toyama’s elevated regions–from admiring the breathtaking view from an Unazuki onsen to ruining your Sunday morning at a crazy Toga festival–can be the stuff of legend, Toyama’s beaches don’t seem to get as much love. It’s understandable–unless you’ve been landlocked your whole life, you’ve probably seen better. But the last time I checked, it was 33 degrees outside, and if it were any more humid, we would be under water. So maybe you need to save your unblemished white sand fantasies for winter holidays, lower that bar, grab your flip flops–or thongs or jandals or whatever you call them–and get your pasty ass to the beach.

But first, I want to address the two main complaints I hear:

1. The concrete.
Unfortunately, I didn’t go to an actual beach spot the first time I visited the Sea of Japan, and it’s hard to put a word to how I felt as I looked around me. “Horrified” seems a bit melodramatic, but that’s as close as I can get. I had been warned about the concrete, but nothing could have prepared me for the ugliness of land falling off into the sea, not as sand or pebbles or cliffs, but as a concrete slab. Combined with the massive piles of tetrapods that rose from Toyama Bay, it felt like Japan was saying a big “fuck you” to the earth, the sea, and me personally.

Fortunately, not all of Toyama’s shoreline has been treated this way, and some of it is actually quite lovely. Still, be prepared for a little more concrete on the beaches than you’re probably used to. You can learn to ignore it. Maybe you’ll even become one of those people who love tetrapods.

2. The litter.
It’s amazing how the beaches in a country so concerned with cleanliness and rules about the appropriate disposal of garbage can end up looking like Koh Phangan on New Year’s morning. I’ve heard rumors that it’s garbage from other countries, but I lack the culturally ingrained tolerance for cognitive dissonance needed to look at an empty chu-hai can and believe it floated over from Korea.

Just like with the concrete, some beaches are more affected than others, so don’t swear off the Toyama coast if you visit one beach and it’s littered with fireworks debris. Some beaches, like Oshima Beach in Himi, even have organized cleaning events–get in on those if you want to be part of the solution. Definitely make sure to bring a bag to take home your own trash so you don’t make things any worse.

Now for the beaches: there’s a lot of coastline between Asahi and Himi, so I asked some people around the ken to weigh in on their local beaches.  We came up with six (plus one bonus) winners–enough to get you through to autumn.

Jade Beach (by icoro.photos)

Jade Beach (ヒスイ海岸)

As far east you can go before you’re in Niigata, this beach doesn’t get a lot of hype, but can be worth the trip. I asked Adam Iwamoto (Asahi) for the details.

Good for:
Swimming and watersports. It’s quite rocky, but drops off quickly.  Not a lot of shade for picnics though.  If you’re motivated, you can always search for jade throughout the beach.

Features:
Great views because it’s right next to the mountains.  Some toilets.  There’s a campsite as well with cabins, spots for autocamps, and generally really nice facilities including a bbq area, but it isn’t free.

Concrete situation:
Minimal.  No tetrapods except on either side, but the actual beach part isn’t affected.  There are big concrete steps going down to the beach, but that’s a couple of hundred feet from the water.  Closer to the concrete is sandy but with large rocks.  Towards the sea there’s no sand and just the little stones.

Cleanliness:
The beach is very clean.  The toilets are so-so unless you’re at the campground, in which case they’re quite nice.

Anything else worth mentioning:
As its name implies, Jade Beach is famous for jade.  There used to be tons of it, including a few yellow-plate car-sized pieces which are now in the town hall of Asahi.  Nowadays you can still find jade if you look hard enough, but it certainly won’t be anything that big.

How to get there:
Hokuriku Line to Etchu-Miyazaki (last stop in Toyama Prefecture) and a short walk from there (less than 10 minutes).

Ishida Beach

Ishida Beach (石田浜)

The location of many a summer BBQ, this beach is a favorite for people living in the Niikawa area. Thanks to Chris Noel (Kurobe) for information about this beach.

Good for:
The water gets deep very close to the shore so it’s great for swimming. There are often wakeboarders, jet skis, and even windsurfers there. It’s next to a park golf course, a free camping area (very nice) and a bbq area.

Features:
The view is like nothing else. It’s beautiful at sunset. There are toilets and BBQ pits practically across the street. The beach is lined with some nice restaurants, like ジャランポラン, a Polynesian restaurant with a lunch special and salad bar. Good food.

Concrete situation:
There’s a little sand, lots of small pepples. Some tetrapods around the beach but they don’t get in the way. There is a paved walkway but still lots of beach.

Cleanliness:
The one bad point about this beach is that there is a lot of fireworks garbage and cans / pet bottles / etc…

Anything else worth mentioning:
“GO! GO! GO! and call me!”

How to get there:
It’s about a 40 minute walk from Kurobe Station, but less than a kilometer from the Ishida Dentetsu Station.

Iwase Beach

Iwase Beach (岩瀬浜)

Toyama City people often head here for their beach needs. James Floyd (Toyama) and Logan Alexander (Toyama ’09-’10) both weighed in with their opinions. I’ll let you guess who said what.

Good for:
Swimming, sand, surfing sometimes. Although people do swim in the water, do test it out first, as certain times of the year cause it to take on an odor. Lots of space for picnics and BBQ though. Camping nearby.

Features:
Fanfuckingtastic view, about 100m wide, relatively clean nice soft sand, pine tree lined bike path starts there. Boat shop (with rentals) across the road from the beach. Toilets and BBQ pits abound. No special swimming area and the beach is not patrolled.

Concrete situation:
No pavement on the beach itself, but tetrapods yes. Bear in mind that it is a Japanese beach on the Sea of Japan, so piles of big concrete tetrapods are scattered near the shore, creating an eyesore for those of us that fail to see art in everything.

Cleanliness:
Not bad, but it’s still Japan. When not in peak season, the beach can accumulate trash, but it’s not everywhere, and nice spots are easy to find. Seems to be kept cleaner in the summer months (Jul-Aug), but no regular upkeep that exists in more trafficked beaches in Hokuriku.

Anything worth mentioning:
“Iwase Beach is by far not the prettiest beach to be found, even by Japan standards, but it has its charms. One plus is the location, being the closest beach to Toyama City and easily accessible by public transportation. It’s quite large, but never crowded, so it’s nice for quiet strolls or a game of frisbee. Lots of parking and space for BBQ and picnics, with a handful of decent supermarkets and convenience stores nearby. Bicycles can be rented for free outside the CANAL KAIKAN building right next to the tram stop. The building also houses a nice restaurant, souvenir shop, softcream kiosk and sits next to the harbor, where you can sit out on the dock and admire the boats while eating your ice cream.”

“SSSSSSIIIIICCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!”

How to get there:
Take the sparkly PORTRAM from the North side of Toyama Station all the way to the last stop, Iwasehama. It costs 200 yen and takes about 20 minutes. Exit, make a right, and walk across the street and past the houses to the beach.

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Picking Up Speed: The Road Bike

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The second installment of The TRAM’s series on cycling.

By Ryan Liverman

There comes a time in every man’s life where he finds that the mamachari he loves and holds dear simply no longer meets his needs.  It’s a stable bike, reliable, and easy to care for.  But it’s not fast, it’s not flashy, and it doesn’t compensate for the hair he’s losing and the weight he’s gaining.  When these bitter realizations come, it’s time to grab the Amex and purchase yourself a road bike.

If the mamachari is the 1984 Chevy Celebrity of the bicycle world then the road bike is surely it’s 1961 Ferrari GT California.  Light, efficient, elegant, comfortable and fast, the road bike is everything the mamachari is not.  The differences between the two could not be more vast, ultimately though they’re both damn fun to ride in their own way.

I’ve never been one to describe a bike as beautiful; it seems silly to me.  A fine work of craft for sure, but beauty I think is a bit strong of a word.    I feel firmly that the bicycle is a tool, one that in my opinion manages to transcend others in the pleasure it can bring, but a tool nonetheless.  With that in mind, it’s about picking the right tool for the job.  If your interested in fitness, racing, or going for a longer ride lasting anywhere from one hour to a day please allow me to recommend the road bike.  You’re no doubt familiar with them.  If you’ve ever heard about the Tour de France or that Lance Armstrong guy then at the very least you’ve seen a picture.

Without getting too nerdy about bike history, the road bike experienced it’s first major brush with popularity in the United States during the seventies and eighties.  Buoyed along by such highlights of cinema as Quicksilver and Breaking Away as well as America’s first Tour winner, Greg Lemond, the road bike also had the good fortune of really being the only kind available.  Mountain bikes had yet to be mass produced and BMX were popular but of limitied utility beyond a dirt track.  Unfortunately most people bought bikes that fit poorly, or inherited bikes from friends and family that fit poorly  and the image of the road bike was long tarnished as uncomfortable, fragile, and undesirable.

Following the boom in mountain bikes during the nineties and all of the innovation that drove it road bikes have received more and more attention in the last decade and are enjoying a bit of a renaissance at that moment.  Gone are the days of riding a Schwinn Varsity that is 4cm too large.  Say hello to the current crop of road bikes weighing as little as seven kilograms, sporting power meters, deep dish carbon fiber wheels, and built from carbon fiber, titanium, aluminum, and steel.

One of the most distinguishing features of the road bicycle are its handlebars.  Referred to as drop bars, they offer a number of hand positions which allow the rider to adjust to several different and hopefully comfortable positions during the ride.

If you’re going to be out there cruising along for 4 hours it’s nice to have options.  Drop bars allow you to rest your hands an four primary locations: along the top of the bars, on the brake hoods (not pictured, sorry!), in the drops, and on the end of the drops.  The names of the locations aren’t so important as the idea that you’re meant to move your hands around a bit, explore, and get comfortable.

The narrow tire is another distinguishing feature of the road bike.  If you remember in the last article I mentioned pumping up the tires on your mamachari as a great way to make the bicycle ride better.  Road bikes take that idea and expand upon it.  The idea here is efficiency.  The tires on a road bike generally range from 21mm to 25mm wide and can be pumped up to 160psi or 11bar depending on the manufacturer.  Narrow tires at that high of a pressure are very efficient because their rolling resistance is so low.  It takes less work to ride a road bike than it does most any other type of bicycle, that means you can go farther, faster.

So those are really, in my opinion, the main physical differences between your garden variety road bike and most other bikes including our old friend the mamachari.  There are other things that separate bicycles for sure: the frame design, gearing, suspension, etc. but when it comes down to it a bicycle is a tool.  A tool with two wheels, a saddle, some pedals and a way to steer.  All the main parts are the same, it’s how you ride that determines what bicycle is best for you.  So let’s talk more now about why you would choose a road bicycle.

Well, first of all they’re fun.  All the efficiency that comes from those tiny tires and the aerodynamic positioning means you can go fast without too much effort.  Road bikes provide a great cardiovascular workout and are low impact.  So as far as exercise goes they have a lot to offer.  You’d be hard pressed to ride a mamachari far enough and fast enough to get exercise of any consequence.  It’s better than driving, but it’s not really a workout.

Riding in a small group is a great way to socialize and it can provide some good quality time with your friends.  Group rides are often times as much about chatting as they are about riding.  You also have the bonus of not being the only person walking around dressed up in spandex like second tier superhero when it comes time to get coffee and snacks after the ride.

You can race them.  I’ll be honest–racing road bikes is kind of stupid.  In order to be competitive you need to devote a lot of time to training.  Professionals will put in upwards of 20,000 miles a year training.  Racing road bikes is a sport that rewards long term commitment, as in years.  To a certain extent you can buy speed but you can’t buy legs.  Putting in the miles is absolutely necessary if you want to be fast.  That said, there are numerous different disciplines within road racing that all provide their own rewards.

Personally, I’ve owned a car or two in my life but I’ve always considered them burdensome.  Taxes, gasoline, maintenance, parking, and insurance are all things I would rather do without.  For me a bicycle has always represented freedom.  My road bike allows me to explore the area I live in comfortably–by myself or with friends.  In the case of Toyama, or really anywhere, a road bike will allow you to get to the areas that mass transit doesn’t cover, or sometimes to get there in less time and on your schedule.  There’s a great deal of beauty in this prefecture that is easy to miss when driving or riding the rails.   Riding a bike allows me to experience that, justify eating whatever wonderful pastries the local bakers can concoct, and spend time with my friends.  Win win.  Next month I’ll be heading to Hokkaido for some bicycle touring.  It’s not really my area of expertise, but I’ll share what I learn in the next installment of The TRAM.

Review: The Last Airbender

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by Lachlan Dowling

A word to the wise, loyal readers: if you are a grown man who likes a cartoon made for eight year olds for more than just nostalgic value, do not tell your friends about it. In fact, should you find yourself in such a situation, I suggest you go to great lengths to cover up your viewing habits. Hide the first edition collectable figurines when you’re entertaining, clear your browsing history after an afternoon of checking out fan pages, and refrain from getting the main character of the series immortalized in a tasteful yet discreet lower back tattoo. I am in a position to give this advice based on personal experience: you see, about a year or so ago I was introduced to a Nickelodeon animated series called Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The series is set in a world dominated by four nations, each representing one of the elements Earth, Air, Fire and Water. In each nation, there are ‘benders’, people who are capable of controlling their nation’s corresponding element through a mixture of kung fu, yoga, and interpretive dance. There is also a hero known as the ‘Avatar’ born into every generation who is able to bend all four elements. The story revolves around the Avatar as a young boy (Aang) who, at the beginning of the series, has been frozen in ice for 100 years. When he is mistakenly thawed by a ragtag brother and sister duo, he has to deal with the war which was allowed to be waged in his absence. The series brings together a perfect mix of humour, adventure and serious themes, and seals the package with unforgettable characters.

I was so impressed that for a couple of weeks after marathon-ing the entire three seasons, I was telling every man and his dog about how amazing this series was. It basically went a little something like this:

My Friend: Hey Lachy, I saw you chatting to that hot chick at the bar a few nights ago! Did you go anywhere with that?
Me: Oh yeah man. She was really cool.
MF: Come on mate, spill the details!
Me: Well usually I don’t kiss and tell, but this night was just so awesome… Ok. After you left the bar, things started getting serious. She leaned in close, asked me if I wanted to go back to her place for a coffee…
MF: Yeah, yeah??
Me: But I said no because it was wayyyy past my bedtime! So then I went home and watched a children’s cartoon all night. You should check it out, it’s called ‘Avatar’, and I can loan you the whole series on DVD!
MF: WTF.

Needless to say, I soon became a popular object of ridicule among my friends, and I quickly learnt to cover up my viewing habits. It wasn’t long before my friends were forced to laugh not at my Aang tramp stamp, but instead at my Aang tramp stamp removal scar. “But Lachy”, I hear you ask with a faint mix of incredulity and condescension coalescing in a barely distinguishable undertone of scorn, “Surely you could have seen this coming? We’re talking about a show on Nickelodeon here. You know, for children. Why didn’t you just avoid the ridicule by keeping your mouth shut from the start?” It’s true, loyal readers, I did anticipate ridicule in the wake of the revelation that I am addicted to a TV show for children. However, in spite of this I couldn’t help but spout the virtues of the cartoon: it’s just too damn good.

It turns out the rest of the world agreed with me. Not long after I watched the entire series, a movie trailer showed up on the web, depicting a live action Aang Airbending in a temple on a rocky cliff as Fire Nation battleships closed in on his position. The trailer looked totally badass. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted to see live action “bending battles” until after I saw that trailer. The clincher of it all was that the movie was directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Yes, “Sixth Sense” Shyamalan! Never mind that he hasn’t made a good film since, I was ecstatic. Not only would I get to see a movie based on one of my favourite TV shows, but this lent a sense of adult credibility to what previously appeared to be an indefensible childish indulgence. I was soon allowing myself to feel cautiously optimistic that this would end up being another one of those situations where I was just a little bit ahead of the pack, like when I was listening to S Club 7 while everyone else was still stuck on the Spice Girls.

Three weeks ago I saw the movie (entitled only The Last Airbender for what I presume are legal reasons). When a movie based on popular source material is released, fans are often concerned that the movie will not do the source material justice, that the source material will be somehow undermined or ruined by the existence of a poor quality movie re-make. I am happy to say that there is no risk of that happening in this case. This is because the movie is just so damn awful it is impossible to associate the cartoon with the movie. There is absolutely no risk of the movie becoming confused or associated with the cartoon. Each now occupies a clearly distinct and separate area of my mind, as disentangled as “light” from “dark”, “day” from “night”, and “right” from “wrong”. This is the only good thing which can be said about the movie.

The movie is painfully aware that it has a number of cartoon-defined ‘plot hoops’ to jump through lest it be called out for being too dissimilar to the cartoon. Thus we have Aang exploring the Airbending temples and going into an Avatar fit as something which ‘must happen’, a grassroots revolution being started in the Earth kingdom as something which ‘must happen’, and a climactic battle at the northern Water tribe something which ‘must happen’, to name a few. There are two problems with this: the first is that in the cartoon, all of these things happened over the course of an entire season of 24 minute TV shows. That’s 8 hours. Trying to cram all of those events into a movie means that there is no room for character development and every single line has to be expository for it to make sense. It still doesn’t make sense, by the way, even with the bland expository heavy dialogue.

The second problem with these must-have plot hoops has to do with the fact that Shyamalan’s imagining of the characters in The Last Airbender is totally different from those in the cartoon. Therefore, there doesn’t seem to be any motivation for these new Shyamalanised cardboard cutouts to move towards the next ‘plot hoop’, as there is for the characters in the cartoon. However, the story still lurches inexorably towards these key points. It’s like this: Shyamalan was given a totally working car. Unimpressed with the car, and in an attempt to express his own individuality, Shyamalan decided to take some fancy mechanic’s tools and mess around with the shiny parts under the bonnet (despite having no actual mechanical skills). Unsurprisingly, the car stopped working. Now, in a desperate attempt to convince the people who gave him the car that he is not a total moron, he is running around holding up a cardboard box with a car painted on the side making a “brmm brmm” noise with his mouth. We’re not fooled, Mr. Shyamalan: what you’re showing us now is not what we gave you to start with.

Another major criticism (last one, or we’ll be here all day) is with the overall style of the movie. The cartoon effortlessly moved between the comical and the more serious subject matter, while the movie seems stuck in a gear somewhere between ‘post-apocalyptic’ and ‘existentialist dilemma’. Neither of these styles is well suited to the subject matter. The end result was that even the bending battles and cool 3d effects felt boring, and I spent half the movie looking at my watch.

I was lying before: this movie has one other redeeming feature. It has shown me the turning point in a number of child actors’ careers. Often, while reminiscing about washed up child actors, I think: “Now where did they go wrong?”, but it is rare that I can pinpoint the exact point. I can now say for certain that the child actors in this film have finished their ascent (marked with such achievements as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ for Dev Patel and the Twilight movies for Jackson Rathbone) and will now begin their descent into obscurity. Thank you, Shyamalan, for ruining these actors careers for my entertainment. I guess it is wishful thinking that this latest crapheap ruins your own career as well.

On the bright side, I’m no longer ridiculed for liking a children’s cartoon. Now I’m ridiculed for ‘liking’ one of the worst movies ever made. Zero stars and I hope M Night Shyamalan gets hit by a bus.

A Miracle Tonic

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apple cider cinegar

by James Floyd

For several years during my childhood and early adolescence, my grandmother lived in our family home. A pleasant and hilarious lady, she was a joy to have so close. One of the things I best remember about her time living with us was her “miracle cures.” Despite being a smoker, she was a health nut when it came to nutrition, and one remedy she suggested over any other was Apple Cider Vinegar. Now, although I was fond of vinegar as a condiment, the thought of consuming it by itself conjured up an image akin to that of someone eating butter or mayonnaise on its own. “No thanks, I’ll stick to my Flintstones Chewables,” I remember thinking.

It was not until years and years later, while living in Japan, that I revisited this mysterious “miracle” potion. I read articles and talked with friends who swore by the stuff. In short, the medicinal properties of Apple Cider Vinegar exist in its raw, organic form. Most grocery stores sell ACV in its refined form, which results in a golden, uniform hue, but all of the good stuff has been boiled out. Raw ACV is a cloudy, translucent liquid that, while not as pretty as its refined sister, contains all the goodness that ACV as a supplement brings. The benefits are endless; better skin, hair, nails, more energy, helps the digestive system and is a natural weight loss formula. A small daily dose of ACV has also shown positive effects on many allergies, arthritis, acne and high blood pressure, to name a few.

Taking ACV as a supplement is easy. Just throw 1 tablespoon in a glass of water and take it back. Then rinse your mouth with a second glass of water. Do that 1 to 3 times a day. You can heat the water, add honey, lemon, whatever you like. If you’re feeling ill, double the dose for a quick recovery. I personally don’t love the taste, so I just add it to a full glass of cold water and suck it up.

Articles and books have been written about the wonders of ACV, so feel free to google it. With people these days emptying their pockets for harmful prescriptions, its nice to know there is a natural, healthy miracle drug out there. Give it a shot!

Organic, raw Apple Cider Vinegar can be purchased from James directly or online from Tengu Natural Foods online store. Email me for any details.