Yesterday I mentioned squat toilets, which are no doubt favored in public bathrooms because they are hygienic and easy to maintain. They do clash however, with modern Japan's technological society, so I think the bathroom in my hotel deserves an honorary mention. The toilet here is of the Western type, at least in external form, but has some unique amenities. For example, the seat is heated, so your buns don't undergo a shock when you first bare them to the wind. The other unique feature is the lavage available with the push of a button. You can start with a gentle spray that refreshes the overall area, followed by a more energetic jet to loosen up the crusties. A bidet function also brings irrigation to the frontal area, so by the time you are done you can be certain that your nether regions would be as fresh as those of a baby.
But I digress. The main event today was the train trip from Sapporo (on the west coast of the island of Hokkaido) to Kushiro (on the east coast), where I was to meet my traveling group for the Wildlife and Adventure 8-day trip. It was a delightful trip along very scenic green hills, and not the trip through alpine mountains I had envisioned. Turns out the big mountains are on the west, where they intercept the moisture-laden air that blows over the Sea of Japan, so the east portion of the island is a bit drier (plenty of moisture from the Pacific, but without the massive snowfall that happens in the west). I took plenty of naps in the four and a half hours the trip lasted, so I might have missed a pretty landscape here and there.
Once in Kushiro I saw my guides Kazu (Japanese) and Richard (English) waiting for me, and shortly thereafter we were joined by a second traveler, Hellen from England. We then loaded on the van, driven by Mr. Fuji, and went to pick up a family composed of mom Annie, dad Chung, and son Rei from Singapore. The team was now all ensembled and without further delay we headed northwest to visit the Kushiro Wetlands (now the heart of the Kushiro Shitsugen National Park, established in 1987.
The wetlands are the sediment-choked estuary of the Kushiro River, whose recent geologic history goes back to the end of the last glaciation, 18,000 years ago, when sea level was as much as 130 m lower than it is today, and the Kushiro River excavated its valley deeply into the coastal plain. How do I know this? Because the waves cut the most beautiful cliff along the west side of the valley, as I had a chance to explain to my fellow guides and adventure travellers (there is a certain advantage to having a geologist be part of the group). Then the glaciers melted and the sea level rose, invading the valley and forming an estuary like today's Chesapeake Bay. But the volcanic highlands to the west were shedding enormous amounts of sediment into the estuary, which slowly filled up to create a swamp. This swamp was considered a wasteland in the old Japan, and despite efforts made to turn it into agricultural land in the late 1800's and early 1900's the end was a miserable failure (I guess they didn't have the drainage technology used by farmers of the Sacramento-San Joaquin estuary). Just like in California, the swamp accumulated a considerable thickness of peat mixed with volcanic sediments, which made it a reducing environment with low fertility.
Then, in the 1920's, the inhabitants of a nearby mountain village, Tsurui, discovered deep into the wetlands, a small family of red-crown cranes, which were thought to be extinct. The village took it upon itself to bring these cranes back from the brink of extinction and started feeding them with good grain. The small family of 10 soon grew to 20, and then to 50, and then to 100, and the Red-Crown Crane conservation project got underway. It was a major battle between the folks who were focused into the modernization of Japan prior to World War II, and with its reconstruction after the war, but the conservationists fought hard for the cranes and their wetland habitat, and finally in 1987 they succeeded in creating the national park. We were lucky to see three of the cranes (still feeding on corn in a farm). They are very large and imposing animals, and later at the hotel I was lucky enough to see the work of a local photographic artist who has done a great job at capturing their beauty in flight, our when they flock together in the winter. It is an inspiring story.
You would think conservation would come easily to the Japanese, with all their love for Zen and beautiful gardens, but my guide Kazu quickly dispelled that notion, assuring me that a man may be in total harmony with his Zen garden, but as far as he is concerned the other side of the fence is not his Zen Garden, so for all he cares it can be plowed or used to receive waste.
The owner of the hotel where we are staying tonight is also an artistic photographer, and I had the chance to walk through his gallery admiring fabulous photographs of the wetlands, the mist, the snow, and a bewildering variety of dancing cranes. Two of my favorites are a flock of about 20 cranes in the middle of a stream surrounded by banks of snow, and a couple of cranes at sunrise exhaling big clouds of steam. Gorgeous!
We finished the day with a four course meal that included appetizers of pickled bamboo and cabbage, sashimi with rice, beef steak tips in a savory sauce with noodles, and frozen sweet cream. It is a hard life, but someone has to live it.
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