BETWEEN TWO MOUNTAINS WHERE THE RIVER MEETS THE SEA

In Kai Hin Koen looking toward Nomadake.

                         Between two mountains,
                     Where the river meets the sea,
                         There you will find me. 

     On a park road near my favorite old tree, I would always stop for my favorite view of Sunset Bridge and Kinposan, the mountain with 3 peaks.

If a short burst of freedom took me to Takeda Jinja,  I always came to the ocean if I had more time.  It was a 20 minute bus ride with stops.  And once I had to walk back by mistake, not realizing a bus schedule was different on the weekend.  After that bit of torture,  I started to go by bicycle.  It was 6-7 miles one way and the ride was mostly through rice fields, some small homes and along the river the rest of the way.  This entire area by the sea was a sanctuary for me, as well as the migrating birds that came to winter from Siberia and China.  

We ALTs went alone or with each other and we took our new friends that came to visit from other places around Kagoshima and beyond.  We discovered a very large, well-landscaped, and well-planned park called Kai Hin Koen (seaside park).   One focal point was Sunset Bridge from the mainland to a small island that had, I felt just for me, a small building with scopes overlooking a wading pool in the river where the migrant black-faced spoonbills spooned and dipped for fish along the bottom.  

Kinposan was the mountain looking east from the park, and it had 3 rounded peaks.  Looking west was Nomadake, with one graceful peak.  These two mountains, both dormant volcanoes,  were well known from any direction and when I saw them from the bus, I would know I was getting close to home.  At some point, probably later in my visit, that lovely, simple apartment became home and, with these surroundings, I can still see why.  The river was the Manose, coming from the Kawanabe Cho area, winding through farmlands mostly.  It emptied into the East China Sea.  It was a picturesque place, obviously, but I found peace there.  

I also found Japanese birding friends, who spoke no English, but quickly warmed to me when they saw the binoculars and a Japanese bird book in English, with the same format and pages they had in their book.  They would find a bird, motion for me to come over and have it already sighted on really good quality spotting scopes.  Then we would compare notes and photos in our books.  I looked for them whenever I went, and I felt they looked for me also.

There was a certain area where the black-faced (white bodied) spoonbills came every winter from Siberia, a small flock of 20 or so that drew lifers here to record their sightings since they were considered very rare.  But there were also herons and cranes and other smaller birds that had their fair share of the attention.  I was at home here, with or without the language.

Later in our stay here, our friend, Arimura San would bring many of us here to look for large sea turtles laying their eggs along the beach.  He would catalog the visits, the number of nests and estimate the numbers of eggs from year to year.  I was able to see the baby turtles once, but only the tracks of the mothers laying the eggs.   Especially in nature, timing is everything.

The park also had large areas of formally planted areas with hundreds of azaleas blooming in spring.

Nancy, with Richard, a Canadian who taught in Chiran for a private school.  He had his own car and could drive us over to the park.
Nancy, Brigid from the exotic island Amami Oshima, and Evelyn.

Although some of the photos might have been taken later, this is what we found when we went for any activity:  beauty, nature, wading birds, and many other people from near and far enjoying the same things we were.  They came to fish, to clam, to walk and to picnic.

 

  This seemed so like home, an outing to go fishing with Richard.

Casting, like riding a bike, is something you don't forget.  And like many fishing expeditions, we came up empty.

My ALT friends and I liked this photo.  It indicated the nomadic lifestyle we seemed to have embraced, not quite sure how we ended up here, and not at all sure where we would wander next.

    Sunsets don't get any better than this!

The Manose River flows under Sunset Bridge to the East China Sea.

While August had been a rough month to adjust, eight weeks later with places like this, I found myself settling in to a comfortable pace, going places that I would learn to love, with people that I enjoyed.  I didn't fully realize it, yet, because I was still counting down to the end of July of the coming summer when I could leave Japan and return home.