Japanese National Holiday #5,372

For the record, today is Showa Day, which celebrates the birthday of Emperor Hirohito (of WW2 fame), who was born in January. Go figure that one out. In doing research for this blog post regarding Showa Day, very little of which I will actually refer to, I was somewhat baffled the holiday's tumultuous past. It's too confusing and not interesting enough to get into here, but Wikipedia is waiting for those of you whose interest has been piqued.

We decided to embrace the day off by taking a drive, which we haven't done in a while. When it comes to taking drives around Kanazawa, it's either the mountains or the beach. We opted for the beach since it was spectacular day.

I had this vague notion, from talking with one of my friends, that there was a nice drive right along the coastline not far from here. Chieko and I located what we thought we were looking for on the map, and headed in that direction. An hour or so later we were surprised, though not disappointed, to find that what we had thought was a scenic coastal road was actually a hard-packed stretch of beach that people, including those in tour buses, drive along. Given the holiday and the weather the beach was pretty active, but I imagine it's jam packed to an unpleasant degree on a summer weekend.

Here's a our trusty civic just feet from the lapping waves, Daytona Beach style.



There were loads of these on the beach, which had me pondering whether they are sand 'dollars' even in Japan.



I concluded that they are not.



On our way home we headed inland a bit and skirted the foothills of the mountains. The roads weaved between rice paddies and periodically slipped into the woods, and generally took us through lots of places I'd much rather live than the place we live now. The highlight of this part of the jaunt was a dairy research facility (at least that's what we think it was). It was situated up on a hill that overlooked rice paddies in the foreground and the ocean a little further off. But it wasn't the view that impressed us. It was the cows. And not just any cows, but CLONES!!!

They looked a lot like normal cows, and naturally, a lot like each other. And they definitely smelled like normal cows. Several of them were gurgling away as though they were about to vomit profusely, while the other two incessantly licked everything within reach of their freakishly long tongues. It was mildly uncomfortable.



On an unrelated note, we now lack neighbors on either side of our apartment, which means I can play my guitar as loud as I want at any hour I want, at least until someone else moves in. The bad news is that the obnoxious dogs across the street have yet to mysteriously vanish from the face of the earth. I'm hopeful.