Miyazaki

Some pics from Miyazaki last month:

Not a bad first wave

Shame it was at the airport

Aoshima

 Curren's Point in the distance. Flat as a kipper's tit.

Reefs everywhere, just no swell.

The Rivermouth, first night. Never quite did it... this time.

The Rivermouth again, just before the first sunrise

2' solitary rights just South of the rivermouth.

Loads of monkeys down there (watch your wax) but these were the only ones I was quick enough to get a photo of.

A win for the marketing men who decided to name this shochu, "Mumblings Of An Old Man". I bought it just for the name, but it was bloody lovely.

A freebie from the owner of the izakaya we went to every night, Sakichi-san. He said these were turtle-feet, and I was relieved to find they weren't actually feet of a turtle. Some sort of shell-fish.

The man himself, Sakichi-san, who apparently I loved like a brother at the time... Jack Sparrow to his mates.

Street light outside the Man Nen Boshi, or Ten Thousand Year Star distillery.

Family run for over a hundred years, the Watanabes were happy to show us round their small but quality distillery on a Sunday morning. Watanabe-san's grandfather started this place over a hundred years ago and now he runs it with his wife, son and nephew. Beautiful stuff and much cheaper down here.

The other end of the price scale is Mori Izou from a small village in Kagoshima. Each bottle here is worth up to 40,000 yen or $500 in Tokyo but I'd been told you could get it cheap around here. There was no-one around but peering through the window of these unlocked double-doors you could see loads of pallets loaded with full crates of freshly bottled nectar. Each create held 12 bottles and were packed 4x3x3 on every pallet.  So each crate was worth $6,000, and each 36-crate pallet was worth $216,000 and I could see more than 10 of them! Over two million bucks! If this had been the UK, I wouldn't have been able to get past security. Here though, I had to open the double-doors and call out for someone to come and see what was going on.

 The guy turned up eventually and said although they only did tours if you won an exteremely well subscribed lottery, they did have a shop he could show us. Behind the counter was a bottle of finest Moriizou in a wooden presentation case, lovingly crafted and selling for only 1,275 yen or about $15. I coudn't believe it and ripped open my wallet wondering how many crates I could fit in the rent-a-car. He saw my excitement and quickly pointed out that they didn't actually sell any of the booze from the shop, in fact you couldn't get it anywhere in town, the 1,275 yen was just for the wooden display box!

Back in town at the shochu dungeon.

 

these two were having so much fun.

Cliff-top (well, cliff-middle) temple. 

I think I can feel a Tom Jones tune coming on...
 Is that normal?
Well, it's not  unusual.

These wild horses on Cape Toi at the very South of Miyzaki are apparently national treasures.

 Well, they've never had any complaints.

El Gasóleo

I got some post yesterday that reminded me of a 1987 trip down to Northern Spain in my VW van. Another Welshman Paul Roberts had made his fortune (or so it seemed to us) with Cardiff Skateboard Centre at the height of the craze selling  £20 Coyotes to most of the population of S. Wales, then met a Spanish girl in The Canaries and moved to Sopelana in the Basque country. Since some of the boys had been down there the year before we bolted through France and started there.

After a first-night fiesta in Plencia that saw some of the crew sleeping in a potato field, we headed to Asturias through Ribadesella as far as Playa de Rodiles scoring some great waves before making our way back to Sopelana living on San Miguel, Menu del Dias, Pollo Asado, Vino Tinto and Sidra. On the way home we called in to check out Mundaka.

Just outside town we filled up for petrol and were stoked to see how much cheaper it was compared to Asturias. Then, as the van started juddering round the next bend we realised the difference between the words gasolina (petrol) and gasóleo (diesel). The red-beret wearing basque police stopped to help and we told them we thought we must have filled the van up with gasóleo. The odler guy said he'd go back and give the petrol station owner a bollocking for not checking with us first but wanted to syphon out some of the fuel first to check if we'd put in gasolina or gasóleo.

He told the younger copper to start syphoning out some fuel while he stood back and had a smoke break. When the youngster finally hacked his way through to getting some fuel spurting out, the older guy moved forward but as he did, he mis-flicked his just-finished cigarette butt and it landed smack in the middle of the pool of fuel at our feet.

As his cigarette hissed and went out in the pool of diesel, he looked up at us and nodded, "El Gasóleo!"

We slept in the van in Mundaka for 3 or 4 nights parked outside the local garage but had to clear out each day while they completely took the engine apart and cleaned out all the diesel. No waves the whole time. We gingerly drove back into France on four, then three, then spluttered on and off the ferry on two cylinders to get back into the UK where a selection of AA vans finished the journey home.

While we were in Mundaka, I had to spend most of the time on the phone to the inappropriately named AA 5-Star European Car Insurance folks, dealing with some customer-service guy who sounded like he was in Bulgaria. On the third day, after being on hold for about 10 mins he came back on the line to say he was having trouble locating my records and could he have my name again. I spelled my name out again for what seemed like the fifth time, P-H-I-L-L-I-P  R-E-E-S! After another 10 mins he came back with a heavily accented apology, "I ham sorry Mista Prees, I can not finda your file... can you please spelling name again?"

So 24 years later, this is what I get in the post. (I added the Club 51 bit)

Cheers Ian! Could be worse I suppose. 

Chiba

Took these all within a couple of minutes yesterday down in Southern Chiba before suiting up. Looks inviting but the water's still full-suit cold.

The tsunami didn't cause any harm to people or property this far South but there was some damage to property in Northern Chiba about 50kms away.

Plenty of guys out at some of the other spots... but just a handful here.

Good to get back in even if some of them were a bit.... straight.

Tohoku: More Before

 I've been watching this home video quite a lot lately. I put it together after a surf-trip from Tokyo to Tohoku, Northern Japan in September 2004, four months before I moved up here. In fact, this trip played a big part in me making the move up here from Sydney.

Looking back, the choice of the first track, the cheery tone, the opening shot, all seem very inappropriate now, but it is what it is. After all, this was over 6 years ago when no-one had any idea what was coming. 

A lot of memories. Every surfer I met whether it was in Ibaraki, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi or Aomori was pleased to see me, there was no locals-only attitude, everyone was really mellow and just stoked. The waves weren't perfect, but man they were fun. It reminded me of why I got into surfing in the first place. Some more stills to follow at some point.

Shonan

Had to rent a van to move some stuff yesterday so hit the coast straight after in an optimistic attempt to get some waves. No such luck, even the longboarders were having trouble. 

 Great spot when it's firing though and the haze lifts.

 Just West of here would have been where Hokusai got the inspiration for his Great Wave Off Kanagawa, nicely updated by my mate Sqz.

These  black kites are awesome but worse than seagulls if you're eating out in the open. You usually see them in packs and they'll dive for anything.

Next time...