Dances with cucumbers

   Every day at school lunch we have three dishes. One is usually a bowl of rice. The other is usually soup. The third plate generally holds a slice of fish and a salad, or, less often, a piece of meat and a salad. I say "salad" because that's what they call it here, but it never contains lettuce or even raw vegetables. It's always a pile of boiled vegetables doused in salad dressing, or, less often, mayonnaise.

   The one thing this so-called salad invariably contains is sliced cucumber.

   Cucumbers with  corn and kale. Cucumbers with daikon and sesame seeds. Cucumbers with diced pumpkin. Cucumbers with radishes and carrots. There are endless variations. Apparently everything pairs well with cucumber.

   I went to a nearby castle recently. The other castles I've visited have all been carved out and turned into carpeted, fluorescent-lit museums on the inside. But this one still had its original interior. Unfortunately, all the pictures I took inside came out looking totally lame, so I'll just have to describe it to you.

   The castle had a huge rock foundation, but the rest of it was completely wooden. Huge, dark wooden beams criss crossed the ceilings, and the floor consisted of long, wide slabs of wood. The stairs were ridiculously steep, more like a ladder than an actual staircase. I had to bend my knee way past ninety degrees to get up to the next step.
   The wood was very old but well-cared for. None of the visitors were allowed to wear shoes in the house, so the floors were smooth and shiny. We went on a beautiful, sunny day, and the wood seemed to absorb the sunlight and reflect it back in warm glow. It was pretty hot outside, but it was cool and dark inside.
   One of the scary things, aside from the Cirith Ungol-like stairs, was the fact that you could see light winking up at you between floor boards. The stairs and floors also creaked like crazy, so if any ninjas wanted to sneak in and assassinate a warlord, they'd have to be pretty good.

   Castles and shrines in Japan are traditionally built entirely of wood (and stone). They don't use nails or screws. Instead, they cut the wood so that it fits together perfectly, using other pieces of wood as wedges or locks to hold it all in place. They have a special title for the type of carpenter who knows how to build and repair these all-wood buildings: "Miya-daiku." Castles like the one I visited are repaired, not rebuilt, but some temples and shrines are torn down every fifty or so years and completely rebuilt. One reason for this, presumably, is to keep the craft alive and people with that highly-specialized skill in business.
   It's really cool to examine the ceiling, the railings, and the staircases and see how all the wood was built to fit together.

behind an abandoned coin laundry

   If you play video games, you'll understand why I am uploading pictures of rusty barrels. I keep happening across these in Japan - something that never ever happened to me in America.

at the top of a hiking trail near a shrine

   In video games, barrels are strategically strewn about warehouses, parking lots, the basements of corporate research laboratories, or the alleys in an urban sprawl - you know, the type of places where you typically encounter barrels in real life.  The red ones always contain something flammable, so when you shoot them (usually takes three shots with a pistol, or a quick click with your automatic rifle) they explode and kill lots of enemies, and maybe you, too, if you are standing too close.

at least this looks like a warehouse where maybe they actually need barrels to store stuff

   But their only purpose in Japan seems to be to convince me that at any moment I might have to drop everything and go thwart an evil, corporate conspiracy or stop aliens from enslaving the human race. 

no red ones. maybe they're just there so i can stack them and jump up to the second story