Kjell Hahn

(colored dots and lines refer to attached map)

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To get to work everyday i ride my bike about 25 km each way across a mountain pass to the next town. the map attached covers maybe 40 percent of the trip home. I live to the north along the blue line but lost too much resolution trying to fit it on the screen. i work at the bottom of the map at the yellow dot.
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the other day I planned to go to a hot spring bath house (onsen) partway home at the purple dot. since the bathhouse is cheaper after 5pm and the swine flu got me out of work at 3:30 i decided to do a little exploring. normally the yellow line takes me down hill to Minano town and then i have to climb back up as I come around the back of the mountain. it might not look like much on the map but its significant on a bicycle and you kinda get tired of sweating up the same hill after 200th time. All that going up and down seemed inefficient and gave me an idea. a little mountain climb through terraced farms and forest seemed like a pleasant alternative to the crowded street I normally use, even if there were a few more ups. i didnt realize it at the time but the mountain between the two is 600m – 1800 feet tall; more than a few ups. Anyway, without the benefit of looking at a map i was fairly certain that if i made a straight shot across the nearest mountain the bathhouse would be waiting for me on the other side. With an hour and a half of sunlight left I took the dark red path in the direction I assumed the bath was in. While more difficult than my usual course, I enjoyed the quaint little farm houses chiseled into the side of hills, no cars and a view of the surrounding town. The unfamiliar area made the whole outing feel like one of my old bike trips across the country.
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after several minutes up a steep incline I met an old man who told me the street wasn’t a dead end. good news. Unfortunately he couldn’t provide any details on where it would take me. I kept on going until I came to a clearing where the street began to go back down, disappearing behind another clump of mountains (orange dot on map). I stopped to access the situation figuring the street would probably just wind back to the main road and that my little wilderness trek had already ended. Ive done a lot of unmapped riding on mountain roads and learned that most just lead back to the bigger roads. Finding interesting, out of the way routes is quite uncommon.
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Standing there overlooking Chichibu city I heard a rusting sound down the cliff in front of me. Halfway expecting to find a wild bore I looked over the edge. No pig, but I saw one of those old ladies permanently bent over at nearly right angles you find all over the Japanese countryside. I didn’t know what she was doing since there was no garden or house nearby. I called down to ask directions and she immediately stopped fidgeting with some dirt pile and scrambled up the cliff to meet me. clearly not one to get many visitors she decided to compress a normal week’s worth of conversation into our brief encounter. Now I can speak Japanese pretty well and was only asking directions but found myself completely lost after the first few sentences of this woman’s ramblings. She went on about a relative in France, then japanese-american relations and somehow we ended up on the subjects of the edo period, the meji revolt, ancient gold routes and am pretty sure she brought up something about outer space. When I told her I was trying to get to the onsen on the other side of the mountain she lit up. “oh, oh. Wanda! Wanda! Go Go! Yes! Yes!” she belted out while jumping side to side with her arms in the air. apparently I was on some kind of trade route that hadn’t been used in 100 years. She insisted i continue on but was a little concerned about me running into ghosts that had never met a foreigner before with it being a forgotten path and all. She assured me that if I made a lot of noise so as not to startle them I’d be able to make it across the mountain safely. Maybe I looked hesitant or something because she did another of her one legged “wanda! Wanda! Go! Go!” dances in an attempt to urge me up the mountain. –wow, this woman was a lucky find. usually when you tell an old lady you plan to enter a mountain forest just before sunset you get a lot of “muri! Ikenai wa!” “that’s impossible, you cant go that way!” No, my new friend may have been out of her mind but she was all about adventure. I had to find this path that possibly led to gold, riches, ghosts or maybe even outer space.
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I took the road up an increasingly difficult slope to the end of the dark red line. Here there was one last building on a dead end street. I didn’t see any way to continue on, only a small creek bed that went up the mountain. No pavement, no signs, no more road. The crazy lady had been too insistent about this thing for this to all end so I entered the forest near the creak in search of some way to continue on. I climbed up several meters along a retaining wall and found that there really was a way cleared into the forest. I pulled my bicycle over my shoulder and hiked up.
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Now after 4:00pm the sun had sunk low enough that the mountain valley was already in shadow. if I was going to make it to the top before dark I had to hurry. I checked my flashlight and pushed forward. I made good time and got just below the mountain ridge when the path suddenly branched off in two directions. I followed both as far as I could but they just faded off into nothing. to the right I could make out some dark shapes deeper in the forest- maybe caves or cliffs? I wasn’t sure, either way they werent going to get me to an onsen. I didnt understand why the path would just stop so close to the top. I had all these ideas of ghosts and ancient riches floating around in my head and was just a minute or two away from the top. i knew i could make it up, path or no path. more than anything i wanted to continue on.. once i cleared that ridge the rest of the way would be all downhill. On the other hand I had no cell phone reception or compass, one light sweatshirt and a little thing of milk with me. I didnt even have a map or know for certain how close the onsen was. Realizing that if I lost the path in the last minutes of light i might have an incredibly long night ahead of me, my only choice was to stop and turn around.
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facing South down the mountain I could see the last sliver of the sun as it fell behind the horizon. I turned on my flashlight, shifted my bicycle to the other shoulder, and hurried down as fast as I could.
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Someday I gotta find the “wonder wonder” world the mountain lady jumped up and down about.

(home near end of dark red line along the “wanda wanda” gold route)

the weather couldnt have been better today. i headed out on my mountain bike looking for some more ridable trails in the area and came across a network of pretty good courses on the mountain range next to my house, called Sakura Yama. its hard to find trails in japan where you dont have to walk you bicycle,but this place has promise. at the top of the mountain the trails just kept splitting and crossing over one another so there has to be something in that maze. too much too explore in one day. Also, since the top was just fire roads, most motor vehicles cant make it over the mountain pass. so there is zero- absolutely no – thru traffic up there even on the paved roads. i know most mtn bikers hate fire roads but its still about a billion times better than city riding. ill take it for next door.

as for the map of the course; im just going to take a photo from a real map next time… google earth seems like a great program on the surface but when you really need detailed information about an area its faults really start to stand out. the program makes it almost impossible to figure out where anything is unless you zoom all the way in. and for some reason none of the streets want to line up if you try to combine images. anyway im not going to use it again for cycling courses.

more cycling to work.

might have been a slightly mistaken thinking that you can get anywhere on a bicycle.

today i visited a school in chichibu again for a one day class. the school was significantly farther away from the other schools i’ve been to. nice scenery and all but on the way home tonight there were some snow flurries that just continued to get heavier and heavier as I rode. the combination of the wind and wet snow made the ride far less enjoyable than it should have been. Bike computer on the fritz so i dont know the exact distance- probably in the neighborhood of 50km one way. I definitely will do the course again when the weather is more cooperative.

note: keep clicking on img to zoom in

i know the site is all messed up still. There are a few points on the home page I cant figure out myself and need mr. kuehnle to tell me what i did wrong. so it will take a few more days till i get it all straightened out.

in the meantime I have been doing substitute work this week at a school about 25 km (15 miles) across a small mountain range in the town of Chichibu. I thought I’d post an image of the course since I’ve been doing it on my bicycle and have really enjoyed the trips. leaving at 6:30 in the morning the mountains have very little traffic. you almost couldnt ask for a more ideal cycling situation. now, im not a bike nazi or anything but i cant help but feel somewhat hostile towards even the occasional motor vehicle. city cycling just sucks, so I was excited knowing this job would take me out further into the country and give me an excuse to ride more. i cant think of any other way i’d like to start the day, and some obnoxious pile of steel and plastic couldnt be more out of place. i know 99% of car occupants think i must me miserable or out of my mind when they pass me going uphill but i think if people would just try it, they’d get addicted to it as well. people’s bodies adapt to whatever situation you put it in, and after a little regular riding you can go up just about any hill and it actually feels good.

i guess the thing that bothers me most about the car is that people just use it as a default for everything when you really dont need one most of the time. not only is it more expensive to drive, it often takes more time.

anyway, getting to the mountain commute, i dont know the best way to post a map- the japanese maps on google arent very good. so i took a screen shot from google earth which looks a little better even if none of the roads are labeled.
if you are interested, click here for the google maps link

onishi to chichibu cycling road

so, i was in thailand for 10 days for two reasons 1)my japanese visa had run out and 2) i had gotten too anxious worrying about working and my artwork. I needed a restart and didnt have much money. i spent a short time in bangkok but quickly headed south looking for a less hectic environment.
here are some photographs from my little canon g10. i wrote descriptions on most of the photos.
(note: *you can keep clicking on the images to zoom in.
*i know the spacing of the images isnt correct. still waiting for an update for the blog software)

makin me a table.
my landlord, who happens to own a sawmill, gave me this big chunk of wood and said “make a table”
so here is the finished tabletop, just in time for the new year.

sitting next to my new table

I was stressed out about work, galleries, money and all kinds of fun stuff so i went hiking through the mountains near my house today.   logging areas dot the landscape around here and i came across a few on my walk.  I heard somewhere that the planted forests that cover the mountains are too dense and the trees would just choke one another if they weren’t thinned, but that doesn’t really explain clear cutting.   I’m not sure why they do it since the logging companies often leave most of the trees behind.

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*all photos taken with a canon g10

**again, bugs have yet to be fixed with a wordpress update, sorry.

well, things are moving along studio-wise.  no more running around for a little while so I can focus on my work.  next week im going to the other side of the country to help fire John Dix’s kiln and to meet with an Osaka gallery owner. after that i have to find a job. boo hoo.

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in the meantime im working on the house for a few hours a day and drawing the rest of the time. im really satisfied with these non-specific organic clump works I’ve been making recently.  the media isnt giving me problems like I had in the Nagoya crowd series.   the shapes in the drawings take on a life of their own, with the same kind of dynamic interactions as the Oni Landscape series but without feeling as automated as that series had.  i’ve done a couple on wood paneling and MDF but most of the ones I like best have been on paper.  im aiming to get a couple of the larger pieces in a finished state, and hopefully documented before I leave town.

many pictures to come of the studio and new work, but first.. nature photography because i love the earth.
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the sun was out the other day so I took a break from the kitchen and went cycling in the mountains around here. this is by far the best place I have ever lived for cycling. there are empty roads crisscrossing mountains in every direction.  just down the street from my house they climb over 1600 meters (5250 feet) and I can hit 3000 meter (10,000 foot) mountains in a day trip.  this time I took it easy since i almost broke my leg the day before falling down a rotted out staircase.   on the way back home I found a nice place to relax just 10 minutes from the studio.  damn the water was cold.

jimmy kuehnle and I decided we needed yet another vacation a few days back. Tani, a friend of his told us there was a good river for swimming across the mountains to the east so we rode our bicycles 15 km down to the end of the Green Road expressway to kill an afternoon and see what kind of trouble we could get ourselves into.  the bike path along the highway was ridable but not exactly the best course.  i’d personally like to thank the city of Nagoya for requiring bicycles to take every exit ramp, then ride back on the next entrance ramp.  very efficient use of my time.  knowing the cars had to pay to go along the same course was some comfort but this town generally has a pretty shitty attitude toward bicycles. sometimes it feels like amerika with the narrow shoulders and lack of crosswalks,  but what can you expect from the largest car manufacturing city in the world?

anyway, after riding though 37 degree heat for an hour we finally came to our destination, a huge (by japanese standards) rushing river complete with beach and shade trees.  while slow-moving on our side the river was was an absolute torrent on the opposite bank so we had a great time swimming out and seeing how far we would dare to go.  we couldnt get out far enough to get a good picture of the current, but it was incredibly fast and deep.  jimmy had the impulse to kick me as i struggled against the river and it was impossible to regain my footing. before I knew it I was bouncing off boulders 25 meters downstream.