Gokanosho

Working in the mountains

I’m a forestry worker for the time being, until our borders are fully open and individual tourists from overseas can enjoy visiting Japan freely.

This is very good excise for me, though.

I’ll be back on track as soon as the borders are open and am hoping to see you soon!

A couple of tours done in March

I am alive! And I’ve been safe and healthy here.

In March, I was lucky enough to have run a couple of tours for 2 foreigner-groups who live in Japan. A 2-day Gokanosho tour and a Takachiho & Mt Aso tour.

Gokanosho tour

Ogata-ke, House of descendants to Heke refugees

With Mr & Mrs Matsuoka, innkeepers of Heike-so

Takachiho & Mt Aso tour

Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to do any tour in April though, I’m supposed to do a couple of Takachiho & Mt Aso tours in May.

I haven’t got vaccinated yet, but I’ve been very careful not to get infected with COVID by wearing a mask and washing my hands frequently. Luckily enough, we haven’t had anyone tested positive to COVID here in Gokanosho (approx. 250 people).

If you would like to join a guided tour, Text/Call me. I am available here. I would be pleased to be of help to you.

Road work

I’ve been working at a local construction company, on removing dirt from the roads. Most of the inhabitants in Gokanosho are safe, but there are some who have been living in shelter with neighbours together since they had lost the roads to their homes due to the landslides caused by torrential rains that happened on 4th July.

It will take a long way to remove all the dirt and fix or build & repave the roads, as they are a small local company. So I would like to be of help to them.

End of the rainy season

We are all safe here in Gokanosho!

Thank you so much for who sent me warm messages! We have no problem now and living normal lives (almost).

At last, it seems the rainy season will come to an end soon, hopefully the day after tomorrow (29 July) if the weather forecast is not telling a lie. Normally, we have the rainy season starting from early June and finishing around early or middle of July. But it appears to be shifting later and bringing more heavy rains that fall intensively in short period of time, which can bring us floods and landslides.

I did some forestry work until the end of last week and will do similar work this week. It’s a long way to the top if I wanna Rock n’ roll!

Forestry

Lately, I have been working in a mountain of Gokanosho as a forestry worker with Mr Ogata, a.k.a. “Lord Ogata”, who is also an innkeeper of Sakura-so and whose ancestors had been the rulers of one of the villages of Gokanosho. I was lucky to find a job easily thanks to him. He has been running his own forestry business for many years along with his accommodation Sakura-so and needed help to finish his forestry work as soon as possible and I happened to be there.

We have been working on mowing the grass on the steep hills of a mountain, where its elevation is around 1,400 meters high above the sea level.

Momigi, one of the villages of Gokanosho

Recent work 2

Off to Mt Shiratori, one of the neighbourhood mountains in Gokanosho, to cut the bamboo with a mower. Mt Shiratori is a very good mountain for beginner trekkers to climb where there’s no big ups or downs throughout the trail from the start to the peak (1,450 m – 1,650 m ).

Having finished this work ( I had my wife together for this work ) earlier than we had expected, we went on to see if “Yama-shakuyaku” (= peony) are already blooming, which usually bloom around the middle of May.

Some of them are in bloom but many are not. It seems they will come in full bloom next week as average years. We, in Japan, are not in lockdown due to our constitution that forbids us to restrict our rights of freedom. Therefore, our government is not allowed to force us to self-restrict to stay home in order to stop the virus from widespreading. So there will be some trekkers who would like to see those beautiful flowers soon, and that is the reason for my work this time.

Recent work

Hope you all are safe and healthy.

Due to the situation we all have, I have lost all the tours which I was supposed to run during this spring. But I got to do something to feed my family. So I decided to do some mountain work.

The following photos are some of what I have been doing recently .

And when all this is over, I am looking forward to having you here in Japan and would be pleased to take you on a guided tour. So check out my updates to be posted here!

Stay safe. Make sure to wash your hands if you have to go out. And try to wear a mask if available.

Present Situation & Tour Photos, 18 Mar 2020

Present stituation

Given this situation due to the COVID-19, schools, universities and colleges are closed and big events are requested to refrain from holding by Prime Minister Abe. And we have lost most of foreign tourists who visit other countries.

However, I still had some foreign tourists who wanted to join my tours and I successfully ran all those tours and they enjoyed it.

Here in Japan, we have relatively fewer infected and dead compared to many other countries, thanks to their hard work who work at medical centres and our efforts of keeping hands clean with soap and alcohol and wearing a mask when go out. Actually, I haven’t got infected though I have had the chances to go visit touristic places.

We have alcohol bottles set at many entrances of restaurants / convenience stores / department stores / any public buildings for hand washing. I would like to tell you that this is considered to be the way we Japanese have practiced to keep ourselves clean and healthy. And I believe this is the best way to protect yourself and people around you. Follow us.

Let me show you how I enjoyed running tours in February and March despite this situation, as follows.