Big Sur River: After Rain


DSC_8430

On days when there is threat of rain, when you exhale steam, and when it hurts to get out from under the covers, it is often rewarding to push all reservations aside and to go play outside. On this particular day, I was rewarded for my efforts with almost complete solitude on my walk through the woods.

DSC_8443

Though the sky was gloomy for much of the day, and drizzle sifted down through the trees, the water was all sorts of beautiful shades ranging from pale blue to dark green. Colors that you might associate more with tropical beaches than a riparian surrounding.

DSC_8447

Shrooms are sprouting all over the place right now. I bet those who are knowledgeable (or people who think they are) about mushrooms are having some pretty epic feasts this season.

DSC_8460

I don’t know what etches these lines into the trees beneath the bark (beetles?). Reminds me of an episode of X-Files where bugs hidden in the trees are unleashed upon humans and eat them alive.

DSC_8461

 

 

 

It’s amazing how high on the shoreline the river deposited all of the crap that built up after the previous flush.

Also, the density of signage led me to half-expect Yosemite Sam to jump out from the trees and tell me to “back off” when I got close.

DSC_8429

I wonder how high the water level has reached on this bridge.

IMG_0194

The wet weather has given the moss everything that shampoo/conditioner commercials promise to give to your hair.

IMG_0198

This moss, too, looks X-File-esque.

IMG_0196

Up close, it looks like a Chia-pet, huh? On a side note, the iPhone 5 takes better macro shots than the stock 18-55mm D50 lens in many situations.

IMG_0220

Given enough time, water wins.

IMG_0221

I bet there’s some nice fish hiding in some of these spots along the river. Not all of them are easy to get to, and I hope it stays that way.

Posted in Uncategorized

Hammer Time! Making Mochi

Once upon a time in Japan, the making of mochi was not performed by automated machines, but rather by people using large wooden mallets/hammers to pound rice in heavy-duty granite bowls. Pounding was performed to a rhythm, pulverizing the rice into delicious submission. Though mochi machines now exist, my family continues the old tradition with the start of each new year because pounding your food with huge wooden hammers is awesome. And besides, as any rice cake connoisseur worth his shoyu will attest, mochi tastes better with a bit of sweat and little wooden slivers in it.

DSC_8523The hammers are made of wood, and soaked beforehand, though if they make contact with the granite bowl, they will splinter. Breaking the handle is also easy to do, if it strikes the bowl. You can see the rice steaming in an old school wooden box in the background. Doneness is ascertained by smooshing a grain of rice between the fingers to check hardness.
DSC_8546

 

Pounding must be done in coordination with your partners, and usually the tempo is controlled by he who wields the shamoji.

DSC_8567

 

In olden days, the maidens of rural Japanese households were expected to take up arms against any enemies who threatened the village while the men were away. It is said that blood ingrained into the mochi hammer helps to impart a desirable quality found only in the highest grade of rice cake.

 

 

DSC_8794

 

She missed the bowl completely shortly after this was taken.

 

 

 

 

 

DSC_8787

This is a chance for fathers to show their sons how manly they are. Loud grunts and smacks = good parenting.

DSC_8771

 

I have no idea how my aunt was able to swing the hammer so hard while laughing. For some reason, I find this terrifying.

 

 

 

DSC_8747

 

My dad putting the smack down.

DSC_8696

Yumi and Kohei making the big wad of rice cake into smaller cakes.

DSC_8690

This is the son’s chance to play whack-a-mole with the father’s thumbs!

DSC_8648

Maybe we should give the little ones quarter sledge-sized mallets, but until that time a tandem session will have to do.

DSC_8608

Here’s Wes, about to bring down the wrath.

DSC_8586

These brothers efficiently assault the mochi. As Sean bludgeons away at it, Susumu taunts the rice cake. Susumu’s other job in this process is to reach in the bowl and position the bolus of smashed rice in such a way that it is exposed to maximum blunt force impact from the hammer. As the cadence of the blows can reach a fevered pitch, I am amazed that his hands remain unblemished, and the mochi white.

And as the last of rice is dispatched of, we all head in and pig out on amazing food and share in good company. Happy 2013, everybody!

Posted in Food

Hokusai Waves and Almond Scented Arthropods

Today, I was one of the few people out, enjoying the ocean and the woods, and for that matter, driving on Highway 1 South. Stepping out of the car, I had an overwhelming urge to walk towards the ocean, and this is what I saw:

Side note: Please excuse the finger blocking the top of the photo – I was trying to keep the lens clean. Also, I’m pretty impressed with the camera on the iPhone 5. You be the judge–all of the photos in this post are from the same camera

I had never seen waves that looked distinctly like Hokusai’s famous depiction, that you see everywhere it seems, but today the waves were breaking exactly that way (though I didn’t manage to capture one in a photo). Tall, high cresting beasts surged in relentlessly, pounding anything in their way. Small waves would from on the face of a swell, and other wavelets would sideswipe, race to swallow or otherwise join with their kin, followed by the gaping maw of the mother wave that would inevitably chomp down upon the cavernous trough below.

I don’t think anyone would have stood much of a chance if they fell in the water today. I imagine even the fish had a hard time staying safe. The seaweed in the water exploded into the air, large pieces catapulted high in the sky and molecules of sulfurous rotting algae permeated the crazy wind-whipped sea spray.

On the hike up to the waterfall at Garrapata State Park, I found an alternate trail up a creek that joins up with the main trail and spent most of the afternoon exploring game trails. There are few things more satisfying than hiking on wet, springy foliage and humus, balancing on fallen trees that cross over water and going just a little further to see what’s on the other side (of the hill, bend, thicket, etc).

This was not the first time I have seen a banana slug, but this one was rather large. Here’s a close-up:

The mushrooms were out in force today as well:

The most interesting critter I came across today was a strange looking millipede. This is the first time I’ve run across this particular creature, and I’m really glad that it was on my terms (as opposed to suddenly feeling prickly legs unexpectedly on my skin):

As I read about this particular invertebrate, I’m bummed that I didn’t know that I should have smelled it. The yellow-spotted millipede (Harpaphe haydeniana) apparently smells like almonds (maybe that’s why it’s called the almond scented millipede), due to its ability to secrete hydrogen cyanide when threatened (perhaps that’s where it’s other name, cyanide millipede, comes from). The life lesson here is as follows: If the Kool Aid, or millipede, smells of almonds, it is best not to consume. One more picture of our flamboyant, poisonous friend:

I have to admit, I’m really enjoying this chaotic weather, and I hope that it results in some snow so that I can hit the slopes. Hopefully I’ll be able to post about an epic snowboarding trip this year!

Posted in Uncategorized

Katsuma Dan – The Last One to Go


World War II? Midget submarine base? Marine Biological Station? What’s this all about? I saw this picture hanging up in Hopkins Marine Station, and I wanted to find out if there was any more to the story. Apparently Time Magazine wrote a piece called “Appeal to the Goths” (unfortunately, you can’t read the article unless you subscribe to the magazine) on December 10, 1945. Read more about the history of the note and about the Japanese embryologist/biologist who wrote it:

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Thoughts on fish eye movement


I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fish track me with its eyes when it’s out of the water, however, underwater I’ve seen them move their eyes quite frequently. Just today, I went on a dive to the Metridium Fields (at the Breakwater, enter the water several hundred feet from the jetty, right in front of the restroom, swim out a few hundred feet, then descend on the big pipe. Follow it out until the end, then head on a bearing of 0 degrees/North) with my intern and saw many incredible critters including melibes that were larger than two of my fists put together, a huge orange/white nudibranch, tons of sunflower stars, smatterings of sea nettles (which stung the intern in the face), a giant kelp greenling, perch, rockfish, gobies, octopus, crabs, barnacles, clumps of squid eggs, and a small lingcod (just short of two feet). This lingcod, unlike the one pictured above, tracked my movements with its eyes very intently as I hovered a foot away from it. I stayed just above it for a good thirty seconds, and although it clearly knew I was there and that I was interested in it, the lingcod did not budge! Still, I wonder why the eye of a lingcod seems to stay stationary when it is out of water, vs. the quick, minute movements that the eye makes when it’s submersed. I would expect that if a lingcod was stressed out that the eye would be darting all around, above or below the water. I wonder if there’s something that prevents the fish from moving its eyes when it’s out of the water, if it does happen but I just haven’t observed it, or if there’s something else that I’m missing. In any case, lingcods have pretty cool looking eyes!

Posted in Uncategorized

If you make funny faces…

In Calvin and Hobbes, there is a great thread of strips that depicts Calvin having his picture taken by his Dad, usually when he’s dressed up for the purpose of creating a family greeting card, a shot for the yearbook, etc. Though he dares not anger my Mom and sisters by making faces in family photos, he takes delight in not taking serious photos. I don’t think he planned on me posting these online though. Oh well, enjoy!

Kissing a lingcod.

Tasting a sea cucumber (I tried to help him with this, and almost succeeded).

 

Taunting a rockfish.

Posted in Uncategorized

Thrown for a loop

I’ve been running lately around Pacific Grove and Monterey, partly to get exercise and to feel good, but also partly to explore. There are numerous alleys, park pathways, hills and offshoots to explore, and I never fail to see something new. In front of one particular stretch, a faded blue Peugeot from the 80’s sits in a driveway, perpendicular to an old American sedan with a bumper sticker that reads, “Jesus is my chauffer, He drives me”. Just past the conservative sedan, a late 80’s Subaru wagon shows off a large herbivorous mammalian skull riding shotgun:

I like to peek in this car, and the mid-90’s Toyota sedan parked just a few feet away, and to concoct stories about who owns them. The detritus is ever shifting, with some elements being added to the substrate, some vanishing, and some remaining a constant. There is certainly no discernible system of organization–but somehow, it screams out to me “Grad school student, science major! A collector of curios and obscure information!”. I suspect that the owner of the car pictured next may be the same as the owner of the car we just peered inside. Or maybe they’re well-paired room mates or have some other close relationship. Take a look:

Is it alive? Is that large beverage for the iguana? Is that lizard comfortable sitting on top of that Kirkland box, wedged behind the driver’s seat?

This lizard is, very clearly, no longer alive. It used to sit behind the left rear passenger’s head rest, with dried out scales flaking on to the upholstery, skin delaminating from the body, and a specimen tag hanging from its open maw. Was it a beloved pet? A fearsome wild animal bravely subdued, killed and cataloged by a dedicated taxonomist in the name of science? A treasured heirloom passed down from parent to child? The Grateful Dead sticker on the window only adds more questions. The stories grow richer.

Sometimes if you’re in the right place and  happen to be paying attention, you will find yourself trying to make sense of something, where none ever really existed in the first place.

Posted in Uncategorized

In the water

I have been itching to get into the water lately, but there have been bacteria level advisories that made jumping in the ocean seem like an idea best acted upon by someone who had a strong immune system and more free time. Then Friday came, and I suddenly didn’t care any more–I would plant my face in the bay, provided the conditions were suitable.

The waves toward Asilomar are tiny, and there is scarcely a breeze to balance out the clear, sunny skies. I pull over, selecting a spot that is too exposed to the waves and surge on all but the calmest days–all but days like today. As thousands of tourists fan out on the California coastline, I don my wetsuit, strapped on a mask and fins and leave them all behind.

The water is murky and brownish/bluish green in the shallows–the result of photosynthetic organisms going crazy from being fertilized by nutrient rich water and sunlight as well as the dead stuff (mostly the very same photosynthetic organisms and other detritus) pulsing and whirling around perpetually in a slow, but unrelenting food processor. As I lunge face first into the briny, cold soup, water leaks through the zipper on my back and in around my neck. Aaaaahhhh! That’s refreshing!

Clearly I can see a cancer crab carapace complete with collosal claws chowing down. Is it a dungie? Rock crab? Whatever it was, it looked delicious. One moment, it was exposed, and then it was gone. Then there is another, eating the same red, fuzzy seaweed that the first had been eating. I look around, surrounded by red algae of all textures and colors, swaying hither and thither. Some are iridescent, others absorbed the light and looked luxuriously soft, like something you’d like to wrap around you on a cold and rainy morning when you don’t have to get out of bed.

After a deep breath, I look down and am startled to see the rocks swaying past the kelp! “That didn’t happen”, said my brain, something it will constantly have to remind itself. When everything else is in perpetual motion–the kelp, the water, the fish, and the observer (me), the stationary world looks like it’s moving. It’s quite an unorienting sensation, not having a point of reference that you can depend on underwater. Like a psychotic pair of bifocals, when my head pops above the surface, I can focus and instantly know what’s going on, but when I submerge, it’s different enough to be confusing at times. I felt as if I were in a dream, because these were not the rules of the real world that I was used to. My heuristics were vulnerable out here. My brain was being hacked by H2O.

As I approach the guano encrusted rocks, upon which perched lazy cormorants, tiny bubbles tumbled with the crash of each wave, obscuring the view. Though the waves breaking on the sandy beach were small, out here away from the shore they rise out of the water, then crash with a ferocity that you wouldn’t appreciate unless you were right underneath. I imagine it might look similar to the view you get from being inside the neck of a vigorously shaken (not stirred) champagne bottle after having the cork popped. Fun. And a bit scary.

Swimming around the rocks in the bubbly, aquamarine water I try to put the thought of what I must look like to any potential white sharks, namely, a really dumb and grossly misshapen pinniped, out of my head. I note that it’s in these areas, the really creepy and well-oxygenated areas, that the larval rockfish prefer to hang out. Maybe they are safe here for the very reason that my subconscious mind is screaming at me. I find a passage through the boulders–a gully that had been carved by water and rocks–and ride the waves through an area that I would have to crawl through otherwise.

This is a world of windows that are ever opening and closing around me in a strange synchronicity. A hole in the kelp exposes a sunflower star for an instant, then it vanishes in a thicket of sea grass. The grass and algae sway over and around each other, and then unexpectedly they part, revealing the star, and a keyhole limpet. There’s simply no way we can know more than a tiny fraction of what’s going on in this world. The best I can hope to do is to concentrate on one of the many events and hold on to it.

I pass through a thick, healthy curtain of feathered boa kelp and scare a large school of barred surf perch! They brake into two groups, swimming laterally by me and rejoin each other past my fins.

Strange that all of these animals in the sea tend to hang out in very specific areas and seemingly nowhere else. I reflect on not seeing many rockfish, and swim over to the thick tangle of kelp that forms a mat a few acres wide. I find the border to the kelp forest and locate a vertical rock face that’s shadowed by the dense canopy. Diving down, I find half a dozen abalone shells and methodically stick my face in holes, looking for these giant snails. Not one live abalone is to be found, which makes sense. If I could see them, so could an otter. Only the best hidden abs survived in this kelp forest.

My head pushes through the matrix of stipe, pneumatocyst and blade that formed a ceiling above the water. It is a strange thing to get used to, having your vision completely obscured while swimming, and having your focus zoom in on the critters hanging out a few inches from your eyeballs. The water below is inky black, except for the columns illuminated by where I had created a hole in the surface. Sunbeams rain down like a shimmering spotlight. I look up and saw a sea otter scoping me out. Then I look down and find myself surrounded by rockfish! Where were they all before? Now they’re coming up to me, looking curiously at this ridiculously graceless, noisy land mammal. I am Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

Have you ever gone to a foreign land and encountered children who have never seen your kind before? They literally think you’re an alien. That’s what it feels like. Some approach me directly, then veer off at the last moment. Others swim slow circles around me. The larger ones lurk as magnificent silhouettes amongst the columns of kelp in the background. I dive, and they scatter, but then immediately turn and follow me through the kelp. I find another submerged rock jutting up towards the canopy, and find a legal sized ling cod. Face to face we stare at each other until I have to go up for air. I descend once more, and hang out with it again. I think it is impressed by my entourage of rock fish.

I come up and startle a cormorant, who decided that, unlike the rock fish, it wants nothing to do with a dumb human. I put my face in the kelp next to the rock and find a small school of tube snouts. Plunging down into a chasm lined with giant green anemones–I ride the surge through this ditch, and enter a field of sea grass. The hypnotic movement is reminiscent of the graceful curves, lines and motion that you see in shampoo/conditioner commercials, yet even more vibrant and volumnuous, seductive and sassy. The green ranges from Seven-Up green to the flourescent green of alpine lichens, to the black green of a sea turtle’s shell. Hidden amongst the strands of grass, a cabezon betrays its position by moving its jaw contrary to the flow. I dive down to say hello, and it says goodbye.

Slowly, I work my way back to shore, towel off and drive home listening to some old Rolling Stones song. Given the chance, I don’t think I’d spend my afternoon doing anything else. This was perfect.

Posted in Uncategorized

First Summer Photos

Cool seed pods

 

Tidepool anemone

 

Crab Fight

Crikey!

Monastery

Test and shell

Whitewater

A dog bolo ties up Heather.

Posted in Uncategorized

Beastie Boys: Top 5

1. My first copy of Check Your Head. Thanks Justin.

2. High school show at the Forum–Hello Nasty Tour

3. Older cousin introducing me to Licensed To Ill. Thanks Brett.

4. Not giving a fuck about the being the only one calling for an encore at a show in Osaka (that crowd was WEAK, but thanks to Justin and Taro) — To the 5 Boroughs Tour

5. Clearing out a Karaoke Bar with “Sabotage” and “Fight for your Right” — a recurring delight, though not a crowd favorite

Posted in Uncategorized