Mr Tait

As I ride pillion through this primeval forest, I don’t think
of the ancient trees, how they give us the smooth paper leaves
on which we love to press down with granite
made from the centre of the earth; 
nor of the fungi beneath, how one fruiting body brings us certain death
and another alters our consciousness
with its saprotrophic strangeness;
nor of the native bees, how their furry-bodied industries
sustain our food security and survival
as a species;

but instead

of Mr Tait, whose smile 
was a warning, and how he taught
us to bookmark a book with its own pages
without damage, and how he showed us how to mitigate
injury from possible falls when using a chair 
as a ladder, and how he use to call 
all the boys Fathead!

©️2020 K Price

Country Churches

Astride the KTM beast, we ride
the country roads of New England, passing mini
country churches not big enough to swing
an axe (other than the verbal kind). At the crossroads
in one hamlet, there are two, along with a pub
and a servo, and I wonder if on Sundays
the population of around 150 evenly splits
itself between the green fibro Catholic and the beige fibro
Anglican House of God diagonally opposite. Or do the agnostics
and atheists muddy the holy water? Truth is
I’ve never seen any flock
to attendance, so who goes there? The farmers
praying for rain? The fossickers praying
for that nugget, the alcoholics praying for forgiveness
for beating their wives and children senseless after one
too many at the public house on a Friday night?
Or are these houses of worship mere relics
of the past along with the town’s faith
on account of all that flood, fire
and filicide?

©️2020 K Price

In the Paddock

Leaning into corner after corner on a wheat-
fringed country road, we come upon
a pair of vintage Renaults sitting side by side
in the paddock, like an old couple enjoying
the sun. But age has wearied them and the years
condemned to a slow rusting death, the for-sale sign
long faded. Who drove them to their final destination
full of hope they would go as a bonded
pair to loving home?

©️2020 K Price

Isadora

I’m riding pillion on the KTM beast
when our silhouette on the damp bitumen paints my scarf flying
like a Siamese fighter’s tailfin in the slipstream

and I think of you
Isadora

and wonder if in that nano-second that the forces of the universe conspired
to smash you into the cobblestones of the Riviera
you had a chance to think:

How absurd!

I tuck in the delinquent ends
I wouldn’t want your spectacular end
to be in vain.

©️2020 K Price

emoji-San

In February, this little creature came into our lives.

Hello!

Born in early November last year, he arrived from the breeder a bit worse for wear: our local vet confirmed he was underweight and treated him for an evidenced flea infestation and a suspected case of worms.

Little Mangy Mouse

But with lots of TLC (not to mention sleep and food)…

..he’s thriving.

Such a funny, sweet creature, who chirrups and chats away. Considering Mainecoons can reach up to 16kg, let’s hope he stays that way 🙂 .

Smile

I chatted to this chap while riding the spectacular Tadami Line in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan in January. He has travelled all over the world and, now retired, loves to travel on the Japanese rail network on his pensioner’s card. He told me that he is 84 but climbed Mt Kilimanjaro when he was 75: “Three days up, two days down. Climbing Mt Fuji is a lot easier.”

While we were talking he smiled a lot with his spectacular gold-filled teeth, but when he posed for me to take his picture, he struck a more serious look.

Traveller on the Tadami Line

Snow Monkeys of Jigokudani

The friendly, helpful staff at Kanazawa Station Visitors’ Centre advised me not to attempt a day trip to the Snow Monkeys from Kanazawa. Not unsound advice, but I ignored it anyway (as I only had time for a day trip) and caught the 8:58am Hakutaka567 Shinkansen (bullet train) from Kanazawa to Nagano. On arrival at Nagano Station, after asking directions, I flew down a couple of escalators and bought a day pass to the Jigokudani Yaen-Koen. The pass included the return trip on the local Yukemuri express train (or the express bus) between Nagano and Yudanaka on the Nagano Dentetsu line, the local bus between Yudanaka Station and the park entrance, as well as admission to the park.

From the local bus stop to the park main entrance, it’s a short uphill walk along the road, and once you’re in the park, you climb a set of stairs, walk approximately 1.6km through the forest, and then climb another set of stairs at the end of the trail to reach the macaques.

The park’s visitor advisories stress that visitors ensure they wear appropriate footwear, but humans being what they are ignore advice when it doesn’t suit them (yes, I know, I ignored advice not to attempt the day trip), and I saw many people attempting to walk the snow- and ice-laden forest trail in the most ridiculous footwear, including one chap in sandals and socks.

Forest trail to the Snow Monkeys © 2018 Karen Price

The walk is beautiful but quite treacherous even for those in sensible footwear. You need to watch out for iced sections; I saw people land flat on their backs without warning. And while the unfenced forest drop-off is not exactly sheer, it is precipitous, and you’d need rescuing with ropes if you slipped on the ice and disappeared over the edge, so a good sense of balance comes in handy. And bear in mind that you’re walking at altitude, even if it’s only 850m, so you need at least a basic level of cardiovascular fitness. Many visitors seemed to struggle along the way.

Is it worth it?

Snow Monkeys © 2018 Karen Price

The monkeys are utterly fascinating to watch, particularly those bathing in sleepy bliss in the hot spring, and I wish I’d had the time to observe them for a bit longer.

Japanese Macaque – Jigokudani © 2018 Karen Price

However, it’s not quite the scene of simian serenity depicted in the brochures. It’s not so much disturbed by the constantly scrapping, screeching macaque troupe romping about in the surrounding snow, but rather by their human cousins behaving badly. Contrary to the blurbs that advise that the monkeys ignore humans, this is not what I observed, and my guess is that the situation has developed due to our endless stupidity. The park provides many clear warnings to visitors to not bring packets or foods into the area and to not attempt to interact with the monkeys in any way, all of which were ignored by some people on the day I was there. I watched as a macaque went for a girl who attempted to retrieve a torn packet of junk food rubbish from him. Another bystander amused himself by throwing snowballs at the animal, which it blocked with a fascinating human-like action. And the way that macaque sat and stared long and hard after the idiot as he walked off down the path chilled me to the bone.

Jigokudani means ‘Valley of Hell’, and in Jigokudani Yaen-Koen, Hell is other people.

Bliss © 2018 Karen Price

A few things to note if you’re planning a similar visit:

• The JR Rail Pass is incredibly good value for getting around Japan (not to mention much more convenient and relaxing in comparison to flying), and I cannot recommend it enough. But it doesn’t necessarily cover all local train routes, so check beforehand (in my case, it covered all the local train trips I took except the local train from Nagano to Yudanaka).
• Although the Shinkansen (bullet trains) are equipped with all the modern conveniences including impeccable toilets, many of the local trains do not have toilets, including the local train from Nagano to Yudanaka, so make sure to check, and take your comfort breaks before boarding.

SnowSilence

I do not know

This silence, the silence

Of snow

Light in the Smog

It’s been 8 months since my last blog post (sounds like confession). Where has the time gone?

Since then I’ve changed jobs and finished my degree.

And the world seems to have gone quite mad.

At least the Blogosphere is still turning.

Shanghai Smog

Cherry on the top

My work meeting finished at 4pm. I still had minutes to type but was also due to meet a friend for dinner and the theatre at 6:30pm on the other side of The Bridge.

Anybody who lives in Sydney knows that trying to get across the Sydney Harbour Bridge by car into the city from 5pm onwards gobbles time. So I made the journey at 4 and typed the minutes here. A lovely way to end the work day.

Look Up

Concealed in the sameness
the faded blue suit
Clark Kent by day
Who cares, who cares to look?

But out there
when darkness falls
it’s kite-flying breathtaking riddles
out of dayshadows, an infinite teasing
of zetetic minds
unphysics exploding:

The Universe –
ultimate mystery man.

Opposites

Ugg Boot Face-off

To find oneself, at 50-something, studying astrobiology (under duress) as a subject in a Bachelor of Arts (Linguistics) degree is a little discombobulating, to say the least. Particularly if your last contact with the fields of chemistry, mathematics and physics was some 30-odd years ago (and geology, never). But the university at which I’m studying crawling through my degree has a rule (which only came into effect after I started) that every undergraduate student must complete a Planet unit and a People unit outside of their stream in order to complete said degree.

So, every week this semester just past, a very grumpy band of Arts students, including me, would huddle together in the prac room, muttering furiously over concepts such as chirality; and biomarker composition; and whether the lump of rock before us was sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous; and whether another lump of rock before us was a stony, iron, or stony-iron, meteorite; and whether the earth was oxic or anoxic when another lump of rock before us was formed.

On the opposite side of the room, sat a bunch of engaged, aspiring astrobiologists, scientists and geologists, who spoke in a language even the polyglot Arts student doesn’t care much for. We were strange bedfellows; almost different species. 😀

What a discomfiting experience.

But, it blew my mind!

I learnt so much. About how far (and not) scientific knowledge has come since I was at school; why the exploration of our solar system (so what’s the big deal about a bunch of dead rocks and gassy balls in the sky?) is deeply interesting; the mysteries of the vast and strange universe that we find ourselves in; and, most fascinating of all, the extent of the microbial and extremophile world around, beneath, on, and in us. I even had a bit of fun with the Design-a-Lander-for-Titan assignment (the tutors mentioned that they were looking forward to the Arts students’ designs. Yeah, I thought, some comic relief).

There is much value in seeking out our opposites and differences in knowledge, beliefs, philosophies and interests.

What have you learnt recently that has broadened your mind?

Curve

I’ve had the good fortune to travel to Shanghai twice in the last 6 months for work. On my most recent trip there, I was lucky enough to be shown around by wonderful hosts, and so I got to see the some of the incredible architecture in the Pudong area for the first time.

This is the interior of the Shanghai Grand Hyatt hotel from the top floor, a view not for the fainthearted.

Evocation of Art

‘Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that holds the direct opposite of mimesis. Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who opined in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”. In the essay, written as a Platonic dialogue, Wilde holds that anti-mimesis “results not merely from Life’s imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy.”.

What is found in life and nature is not what is really there, but is that which artists have taught people to find there, through art. As in an example posited by Wilde, although there has been fog in London for centuries, one notices the beauty and wonder of the fog because “poets and painters have taught the loveliness of such effects…They did not exist till Art had invented them.” ‘                                 Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imitating_art

 

Nature creates art in the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Vancouver

I don’t agree with Mr Wilde; surely the fact that artists painted the fog is because they saw its beauty in life, and thus art imitated life in this case (chicken vs egg). But I concede that art provides us ways of seeing and appreciating life from a number of different perspectives which we may not otherwise notice.

Nature Conquers All

In time, Nature conquers all.

Vibrant

A Rainy Day – Ningxia Road, Shanghai

 

“This week, share a photo of something vibrant. Let’s wash the web with a rainbow of colors to keep the winter gloom at bay.”

The Daily Post

Think Big

Eurasian Tree Sparrow – Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai

He’s thinking, “Lunch!” I’m thinking, “Wildly optimistic.”

 

Alphabet Arcana

S – The Annotated Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks

This is a page from one of my most treasured books: The Annotated Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks. The page contains over 1000 things that begin with the letter S, including the Semaphore alphabet.

See what you can find.

 

Jesus, take note

Weekly Photo Challenge – Weight(less)

Shanghai

Tonight

I’m in a city of 14.50 million

(give or take a few, including me)

souls. I know no-one

here. I’m a nano-human, a speck

in the smog. I make myself big

riding the subways with no-one

with light-coloured hair. No-one notices

the gweilo; the ghost-person, I think,

until I step into the deluge at Shanghai

Library, and a dark-haired

girl steps in time beside me,  her umbrella

banishing the rain, her words, my ghostliness

“Where are you going?

Can I take you there?”