Posts Tagged Izu

Secret Soba

Fri, Apr 17th, 2009  |   Food 2 Comments

entranceAn integral part of the pleasure of travelling in Japan is the food.

Izu, for example, is famous for fresh seafood, as fishing is one of the primary pillars of the regional economy and society. Fresh fish and other marine products are available each day, which means awesome sashimi, sushi and other traditional Japanese seafood dishes.

Perhaps less well-known outside the country is the long-standing noodle tradition in Japan.

You may have heard of soba noodles, which are made out of buckwheat, and you might have even had some.

But store-bought dried soba (or even worse, the sad soggy stuff they serve on some airlines) is to the real stuff what pre-packaged, mass-produced white bread is to piping-hot, fresh-from-the-oven French bread.

Not to be a culinary snob, but there’s just no comparison to the real thing.

Here in Izu, Shinohara-san took me to a well-kept secret…a soba place that’s tucked away in a residential neighborhood, inside a normal house. The family who lives there serves lunch five days a week…and the soba noodles are out-of-this-world delicious.

soba noodles

Even better, it’s inexpensive. For somewhere between 800 and 1000 Yen, depending on what you order, you get fresh soba plus side dishes…more than enough to satisfy even big eaters like me.

The best part though, is that the restaurant is completely off the tourist map, which means there are usually people there but it’s never swamped, the food is always terrific, and the people there remember you.

Paddling Pinecone

Thu, Apr 16th, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 1 Comment

In keeping with the cute theme, here’s a pineconefish (Monocentris japonica), known as a matsukasa-uo (マツカサウオ) in Japanese.

These adorable paddling pinecones are here in Izu all year-round, with juveniles like this one hiding in crevices and in between rocks. Adults get pretty big, say 20cm or so, and apparently head out to open water and go deep.

Their choice of habitat, coupled with a tendency to turn tail to the camera, makes it a bit of a challenge to get a nice photo of these fish.

Another point of interest…they have light-emitting organs on each side of their face (not visible in this photo).

pineconefish

Japanese Inflator Filefish

Thu, Apr 16th, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 3 Comments

This is a Japanese inflator filefish (Brachaluteres ulvarum), so named for its ability to inflate its body to appear bigger…presumably as a means of self-defence.

I had no idea this fish had special powers.

I just took the photo because the filefish is cute and has pink lips…presumably to match the background?

filefish

Piscine-Pondering Pioneer

Wed, Apr 15th, 2009  |   Marine Life, People, Places, Adventures 3 Comments

During this trip to Izu, I’ve had the good fortune of getting to know one of the pioneers of recreational diving in this area…Shinohara-san…a little better.

He was one of the first few people to start a dive shop here twenty-some years ago, and he’s still as active and enthusiastic as anyone I know.

shinohara-san

In addition to taking time to answer my endless list of questions, he’s been kind enough to introduce me to lots of people, and also take me around to some great restaurants (more on that later).

As if that weren’t enough, we sat in his shop a couple of days ago poring over guide books to try to figure out some fish IDs I’ve been puzzling over…the most difficult of which was my little piscine pokemon from Lembeh.

After a bit of sleuthing and plenty of head-scratching, I think we figured it out. We decided that it’s most likely a pitted stonefish (Erosa erosa), known as a daruma-okoze (ダルマオコゼ) in Japan.

puzzled look

The grumpy expression, unique patterns on the pectoral fins and the deep indentation on the top of the fish’s head led us to this conclusion.

See how much fun it is being an international fish geek?

Pretty Pair

Tue, Apr 14th, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 2 Comments

This is a pair of Japanese blacktail triplefins (Spingerichthys bapturus), known as hime-ginpo (ヒメギンポ) locally. The one in front is the female, the orange one to the rear the male.

Japanese blacktail triplefins

Apparently, they’re normally relatively drab, uninteresting fish. The individuals pictured here are dressed to impress. More specifically, these are their mating colours.

Scampering across the face of a vertical slab of rock, this pair appeared to have decided on one another already, and probably mated in the evening.

As a prelude to mating, the female stopped every once in a while and wiggled her tail in an enticing manner, which inevitably sent the male into a flurry of frenzied activity…darting to and fro…eventually coming full circle and ending up next to his companion again, who maintained an air of innocence throughout.

Ahem…sound familiar?

male fish

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Tue, Apr 14th, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 5 Comments

For my first couple of dives here, I hit the water at a site called Yokobama (ヨコバマ) in Futo harbour (富戸). It’s a shore dive, with entry and exit ramps clearly marked by buoys and ropes.

Though it’s been over a year and a half since I’ve used my drysuit, it only took a few minutes to sort myself out, with the most difficult task being re-acquainting myself with adjusting buoyancy and maintaining trim without the use of my BCD.

Donning a drysuit has its rewards, like having an opportunity to see what’s probably my favourite moray eel…the dragon moray (Enchelycore pardalis), or tora-utsubo (トラウツボ) as it’s known in Japanese.

dragon moray eel

I’m sure these eels live in other places, but it’s pretty much a shoe-in to see them if you dive in Izu.

Translated literally, tora-utsubo means “tiger moray eel”. Personally, I think they look more like dragons than they do tigers, although it’s interesting to note that whoever gave these eels their respective common names in English and Japanese both wanted to connote a strong, fearsome animal.

In real life though, these guys are shy…just like other morays. Much of the time, you’ll come across them hiding under rocks, in crevices and otherwise staying out of the limelight. Hence…the title of this post. I had to bend, contort and twist in all different ways to get photos yesterday, because the erstwhile dragons were so well concealed.

So the “crouching” part actually refers to what I had to do to get eel pictures…but it just so happens that they’re called tigers in Japanese too. Clever movie reference, no?

I thought so too, until I googled the binomial name to make sure I’d spelled it correctly, and discovered that another common name for this eel in English is “leopard moray eel”. Somehow, “Crouching Leopard, Hidden Dragon” didn’t have the same ring to it.

Anyway, there’s significant variation in colouration among these eels. The one below, for instance is a lot whiter overall. I’m not certain whether the variation is due to age, sex, genetics, etc., but the practical implication is that you need to look around a bit to find just the right nuance of dragon, tiger, or leopard that you prefer.

dragon moray eel

A couple of other photos of these eels that I took previously here and here.

In Izu

Sun, Apr 12th, 2009  |   Places, Adventures No Comments

Woke up really early for the drive to Izu. I expected a lot of traffic, since it’s spring and Sunday, but as it turned out, there wasn’t much at all.

The weather looked a bit iffy in the morning…grey and overcast…so that may have had something to do with it. Or more likely, everyone else was still asleep.

By the time late morning rolled around, the sky had cleared, and there were more people out and about, especially in the tourist areas.

bridgeThough I tend to avoid tourist places, we stopped off at a suspension bridge in Jogasaki, known as the tsuribashi (城ヶ崎吊橋), which is a “must do” for domestic tourists who visit the eastern side of the Izu Peninsula, as well as for visitors from other countries travelling on packaged tours.

(Actually…the main reason we stopped was to use the bathroom. There’s a nice public bathroom here, but they’ve started charging 500 Yen for parking, so I’m going to have find somewhere else to make pit stops.)

It seems like everyone who visits the bridge has to pose for group photos, a process that’s pretty entertaining to watch if you’re not actually in a hurry to get to the other side of the bridge.

The reason this place is popular (other than the toilet) is the nice view from the bridge and surrounding cliffs, which overlook the Pacific Ocean.

During public holidays and other peak times, visiting this area isn’t such a great idea, unless you happen to fancy the prospect of being overwhelmed by hordes of camera-toting tourists.

Today wasn’t too bad, as there weren’t all that many people around. But after taking a few obligatory snapshots of other people taking obligatory snapshots…we wandered off the path and sat on some rocks overlooking the ocean to enjoy a few homemade onigiri and some green tea for lunch.

onigir

Summer in Spring

Sat, Apr 11th, 2009  |   Musings, Places, Adventures 3 Comments

Spring has arrived in Japan. Actually, it arrived some time ago, but I wasn’t around, so it’s just arrived as of last week as far as I’m concerned.

In between un-packing, un-sorting, re-sorting and re-packing, I’ve managed to get a bit of time to walk around and take in the fresh, crisp spring air and to marvel at the many flowers in bloom.

I don’t really know much about flowers, but when Pasta was around, we used to go on long walks together and she’d sniff various plants, stopping occasionally to eat a few flowers here and there. She was partial to rare and valuable flowers, usually from someone’s garden, so I had to keep a close eye on her.

I miss Pasta.

In Pasta’s memory, I’ve been taking time to look closer at the flowers I come across, like this summer snowflake (Leucojum aestivum)…a plant which, despite its name, blooms in the spring, not the summer.

flower

Anyway, I’m packed and I’m heading out again…this time to the east coast of the Izu Peninsula, where I’ll be diving in 14ºC water. Actually, I’ve never dived in 14ºC water before. And who knows…I may yet come to my senses and chicken out. 14ºC is cold…like half the ºC that I’m accustomed to. Half. We’ll see how it goes.

If all goes according to plan and I actually get in the water, I’ll post updates from Izu.

A couple of previous posts from diving in Izu here and here.

Quick Trip to Izu

Sat, Jan 17th, 2009  |   People, Places, Adventures No Comments

I made a quick overnight trip to Izu recently to discuss an upcoming project, and I took advantage of the opportunity to visit friends and make new friends too.

First, I stopped off to see Keiu-san and Michiyo-san, who own and operate Dan’s Dive Shop. They took wonderful care of me and a couple of friends during an extended dive trip in Izu a couple of years ago (meaning they were incredibly patient with us!).

keiu and michiyo

They’re both veterans of the diving scene in Izu, and they seem to know just about everyone in the area. Keiu-san also has a species of basslet that he discovered named after him, Rabaulichthys suzukii.

I also met Yokota-san who runs a dive shop named Go To The Sea. Actually, I “met” Yokota-san virtually (via email) some time ago, when news of the recently discovered Maluku frogfish broke.

yokota

At that time, I sent him a few photos of the fish that I had received from Maluku Divers. Yokota-san is a die-hard frogfish maniac, and he was one of the first people in the world that I know of to point out that the Maluku frogfish probably belongs to the Histiophryne genus.

Yes, I know. If you’re not a fish nut, this revelation probably doesn’t mean much. But at the time, there was significant debate about how to ID the new frogfish. In case you’re interested, DNA tests have subsequently been performed, with results to be announced shortly.

These days, Yokota-san is focusing his energies on ID-ing hermit crabs. He showed me a couple of albums filled with hermit crab images and IDs. I never realised how many different species there are.

And finally, I hooked up for a chat with Yamabe-san of PNG Japan and Shinohara-san of Sea Front. If you’ve read my blog posts before, you know I’m a big fan of PNG, so I’ve known Yamabe-san for some time. This was the first time I met Shinohara-san, however.

yamabe and shinohara

He’s one of the pioneers of diving on the eastern side of the Izu peninsula, concentrating on the Futo area. He also takes people to Hatsushima, which is a small island just off the coast. I’ve never been there, but from photos and video he showed me, there’s a lot of soft coral (I would’ve never imagined) and large schools of fish swarming around.

Of course, no trip is complete without good food. Keiu-san’s family owns and operates one of the best known citrus gardens in this part of Japan, called Suzuki-en. If you find yourself in the Usami area of the Izu peninsula, it’s worth dropping by to pick fruits yourself (which is much more fun than it sounds), or just buy some fresh fruits.

Just as I never realised how many different types of hermit crabs there are, I was amazed at the variety of citrus fruits at Suzuki-en. Apparently, one citrus fruit or another is in season from October to August, so there’s only about a month each year when there’s nothing ready to pick on the trees.

I love citrus fruits, so we stocked up (or more accurately, Keiu-san and Michiyo-san stocked us up).

And just before I left Izu, Shinohara-san took us to a small soba shop that’s hidden away and nearly impossible to find, as it’s run out of a small house. The noodles were seriously delicious, so everyone had seconds. But for a lack of time, I probably would’ve gone for thirds.

food