Regina Glei's Blog

Dust and Glory

And another one done! I had thought the sixth Dome of Souls novel would be the last, but, as you can guess from this formulation, it isn’t! The “end” of number 6 just screamed for a number 7, which I have already written (third draft status or so). It looks like number 7 will indeed be the last of my Dome of Souls series, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s talk about number 6: Dust and Glory.

We have come full circle. In Dome Child, during the first Dome revelation ever, Jove Hendricks saw a couple of planets, those turned out to be Bahrein, Fangust, New Earth and a fourth planet described as such: “Jove saw a fourth planet, gray, brown, dusty, no surface water and a fleet of spaceships in its orbit, weird ones. They were clearly alien, definitely not human, formed like capsules, spherical but not round, bulky in the middle but thinned out left and right. They were spiked with what looked like antennas and entirely black. They didn’t seem to be made of metal, but some other unidentifiable material.”
Jove thought this was a fourth planet. He didn’t know that Earth would look like this after those bombs that his friend and nemesis Shavendra built, would be triggered after all.

Contrary to common belief on New Earth, the exodus of humankind from Old Earth was not 100% complete. A thousand people stayed behind, gathering in the city of Jordan. The population doubled in the meantime, now two thousand people live inside Jordan’s barrier. To his shock the botanist Jinclair finds out that those two thousand humans are not the only ones anymore that are living on Old Earth. Without the people in Jordan even noticing, mysterious aliens have settled on Old Earth and they mean trouble.
Finally all of Jove’s visions in his first Dome revelation have become reality. It took a couple thousand years to get to this point, but here we are, in the middle of Dust and Glory, facing a hitherto unknown, new, and aggressive, alien species.
It was very satisfactory for me to come full circle and to have completed Jove’s Dome revelation, well, it’s only really completed in book 7, but the mess starts in book 6

Backwahn

Backwahn is not proper German, but the nice thing about the German language is that you can create new words by just connecting nouns The literal translation of Backwahn is baking mania (for Germans of a certain age Backwahn reminds of Bhagwan, the Indian mystic/guru movement of the 70ties and 80ties, which was quite popular in Germany. Anyway, that’s another story).

Pesto – Parmesan folding bread

So, baking mania! As so much else in my life this is driven by the strong hunter and gatherer gene in my body, lol. Hunting for and gathering whatever items has been a major form of entertainment for me as long as I can think. The first thing I collected were pictures of dogs. Then pictures, goodies from my various movie and music fan interests. In past years this has diversified into collecting succulents, a short bout of mineral collecting, cocktail ingredients and now it’s baking.
There is stuff that never dies like collecting fridge magnets from all the places I’ve traveled to and band T-shirts

Apple cake with crumbs (Streusel)

The trouble with collecting is that it eats up space in the apartment and I’ve tried to restrict myself and the number of items I collect as best as I can.
The brilliant thing about baking is that you collect perishable ingredients and they have to go at some point. That is fantastic! Lol. I can serve my need to collect, but it is also going away bit by bit, which is highly welcome. I am honestly glad that I finally found something to collect that doesn’t last and gathers dust! Don’t get me wrong, I still had to buy two additional racks for all the baking goods, hahaha, but now I seem to have reached a kind of equilibrium and it doesn’t look like I’m going to need a third new rack at the moment I am not the kind of person to say ‘never’ though, so let’s see how far the baking mania will go.

Chessboard cake

Since I started with the baking mania in earnest only when I bought a relatively decent oven at the beginning of this year, I consider myself to still be in the learning phase and am baking quite ordinary cakes, however, I have put my eyes on FB groups that boast with their cake masterpieces (themed cakes from Cinderella’s castle to ocean floor jelly cakes) already. These cakes are not cakes anymore but edible works of art. Let’s see to what extend the cake (and bread) mania will grow
For the moment I am simply pleased with having found something to collect that doesn’t gather dust. Alas it gathers calories! There’s always a downside, isn’t there, darn! Lol.

Kiwi tarteSpeculoos (Spekulatius)

Bagels!

Rishirifuji

On my last full day of adventures, I borrowed a bicycle in the morning and pushed it up Rishirifuji for about 6 km and 500 meters of elevation to a viewing platform called Mikaeridai. Despite the fantastic weather there were a few clouds clinging to Rishirifuji. I just wonder for how many hours per year you can see the mountain fully. The view down to the town of Kutsugata where I stayed and Rebun island were magnificent though.

The way up to the viewing platform winds itself through forest and I was pretty much alone there, apart from a few cars, bikes and one other cyclist who rode down. There were a gazillion bugs buzzing around my head and it was quite a struggle to push the bicycle resulting in a serious case of “are we there yet?” But I pushed through, the view was indeed fantastic and the ride down the mountain too
After a short rest in the hotel, I took a public bus to a small lake at the southeastern side of Rishirifuji. Kutsugata, where I was staying, is on the west side. I was super lucky because the clouds lifted for the few moments while I was there. The mountain looks completely different and even more rugged from that side and the view was just breathtaking.

During a little walk around the lake clouds came in again and blocked the view to the top. I am pretty sure that many people visiting the island never get to see the mountain. That evening also presented me with a perfect sunset and the sun sinking undisturbed by clouds into the ocean. Wow. It’s not often that I have seen an undisturbed sunset.

I watched it from the roof of my hotel, which opens it as a viewing platform. I also checked out the starry sky. While there are more stars to be seen than in the greater Tokyo area, there was still too much light pollution from the town for a wow effect. From the top of Rishirifuji you were surly able to see the Milky Way that night.
The next morning was already departure day, but I got another treat of finest weather and perfect views of the mountain’s northeastern side, before I had to say good bye to the two islands of Rebun and Rishiri.

I had all weather, so-so with clouds, crazy hot, fat storm and cold and then the last three days of perfection. Both hotels I stayed at open from 1st of May to 30th of September. For five months there are visitors, for seven months the around 2500 people on Rebun and the around 5000 people on Rishiri have their islands to themselves. I cannot imagine really what life must be like there in mid winter. One thing is for sure, the islanders are surrounded by grand nature and coming back to the concrete jungle of the greater Tokyo area, I do envy them a bit, despite those harsh winters they must be having.

view of Mt. Rishiri from Wakkanai airport

Off to Rishiri

I had a rather quiet day on Tuesday the 10th of August. Luckily I went to the Jijouiwa rock pillar the day before, because in the morning the weather was really nasty with rain added to the crazy wind. I only went to the supermarket and back to the hotel quickly, happy to get the last loaf of toast bread. They won’t get new one the next day or two with no ship arriving. Checking the ferry’s homepage in the morning saw all of them cancelled.
In the afternoon it stopped raining thankfully, even if the wind was still as strong as ever and I walked to Cape Kanedano again. Or tried to… it was very tough walking the last few meters into the wind. The sea was actually a little bit calmer than two days earlier.

Then, over night, the storm ended! Just as quickly as it had started. The sun came out, the sea got calmer. I checked the homepage of the ferry operator and all signs were on go! I really hadn’t expected that. Thus I checked out of the hotel and went to the ferry port and boarded the boat to Rishiri island as planned. Since the boat went sideways to the swell it swayed quite a bit, but nothing of the sort that would make me feel seasick. The ride is also short, just 45 min from island to island. On the way the clouds disappeared one after the other.

I checked in to the hotel on Rishiri, promptly borrowed a bicycle and rode toward the mountain. By the time I was doing so, the last cloud ceased to exist and Mt. Rishiri, or Rishirifuji presented itself in its whole glory. I had almost made peace with it that I wouldn’t see the thing, but I got super lucky. It is a hell of impressive mountain, rising from the sea just like that to 1721 meters height. The island and thus the mountain have a circumference of 50 km. Rishirifuji was a volcano but is long inactive. Thanks to that the rough wind of the north, ice and snow have shaped it over the years and given it its ragged look.

The first afternoon was just a bit of exploring, then I got treated to a fabulous dinner with lots of seafood of the area.

Windy Rocks

Since the weather forecast for Tuesday promised even worse conditions than Monday, I decided to try to risk it and catch the bus to the southern end of the island. Monday forecast: very windy, few rain, Tuesday forecast, very windy, lots of rain. The bus came punctually all right and the bus driver seemed totally unimpressed by the wind that hit the bus as soon as it turned to the east side of the island and into the wind. I guess he still does the ride in double the wind speed and I felt like a total landlubber! Lol. A pic taken out of the bus window into the churning sea.

Arrived at the Kafuka port (all ferries cancelled again apart from the first in the morning), I walked towards the target, the so called Jijouiwa rock. The walk included a 1.5 km stretch through a tunnel, which connects the east and west sides of the island. The tunnel is new, built in, or finished in 2015, and while walking through a tunnel isn’t the greatest of all walks, it was okay and better than climbing up and down hills in the crazy wind. The wind was still blowing through the whole length of the tunnel, but it wasn’t too bad. What was impressive though was the noise cars make when driving through the tunnel. It echoes and amplifies through the entire length of the thing and is ridiculously loud.

Arrived on the west side I walked straight to the rock, being the only tourist around. There was a sign and a rope to not go closer due to danger of falling rocks, but you couldn’t see from that angle that the rock is free-standing. So I ignored the warning and went closer, to at least be able to see that it’s detached from the rest of the mountain. Going between the rock and the mountain was tempting, but the falling rock warning seemed all too real in the high winds and one day that rock is destined to crumble.

Jijouiwa is to the north of the tunnel entrance and Momoiwa is to the south. That’s where I walked next and the scenery is truly stunning. It was great to see Momoiwa from the sea side and from below as well as the whole mountain range I walked over in the clouds a few days earlier. Alas the wind was enormous and at times I was walking in a crouched fashion and always at the hill side of the road, not the sea side. One bus with a bunch of tourists rode past me once, but they were gone again when I arrived at the viewing platform at the end of the road.

The remoteness of this island and the lack of people are like balm and the older I get the more I need this break from time to time from the 20 million something people area where I usually live and work.
I admire the people who live in places like this. I cannot really imagine what it must be like there in the half a year of Hokkaido winter, the strength of the winter storms, and just how cold, rough and lonely it must be. That 15 meters per second wind I struggled against must be a balm breeze to them…

Stormy Days at Rebun Island

Wind and rain continued throughout the night and early morning. I had contemplated on going by bus to the main town again and from there to the Motochi rocks, but considering the wind and rain in the morning, I quickly gave up on that, unsure also whether the buses would even be running. I checked the ferry homepage and while they operated the first ferry in the morning (amazingly) all other vessels for the day were cancelled. Luckily the rain stopped for a while and I decided to brace the elements and to go out there. I checked the lake and the beach inside the bay and the latter teased me into wanting to see the open ocean. Already the bay’s waves were quite animated, so what would it be like “out there”?

So I walked the three kilometers one way to Cape Kanedano, which is the northeastern tip of Rebun island. (Cape Sukoton is the northwestern tip and a tad further north than Kanedano). Cape Kanedano did not disappoint. Since the waves are blocked there by land, they were virtually boiling.

The wind came from the southeast and staying on the western side of the cape thus put the hills in my back, which made for relatively comfortable watching of the happenings. I peaked a nose down the eastern side of the cape, but could hardly walk against the wind and quickly fled back to the western side and its wind shadow. Said wind was only at 17 meters per second, or 60 km per hour, which is far from being terrible. I stayed for almost an hour at the western side of the cape, gawking at the waves and taking tons of pics and videos. The road is only at four meters above sea level and since said sea level was elevated it looked pretty amazing, as if standing in the middle of the boiling sea. While I stayed there, three, four other people drove by and stopped for pics, but I was the only one on foot
It was well worth the walk though, those waves were truly amazing.

Cape Gorota and Heat

They predicted a change in weather for Saturday evening and I wanted to make use of the fine weather in the morning and took the bicycle again to Cape Gorota for a “revenge”, since I didn’t manage to climb it the first time due to rain. That worked out fine and this time I managed to get on top of the cape, which is about two hundred meters high. Same story here though as at Momoiwa, clouds shrouding the view.

In a way I was also grateful for the clouds, since they made the climb bearable. While it is cooler here than in Tokyo of course, it was still close to thirty degrees Celsius and that sun beat down mightily. Without the clouds it might even have been too hot to climb.

I rode on to Cape Sukoton once more and then back to Funadomari, getting roasted. After a rest I went once more to the seals to check what they were doing and I found them hunting, only popping their heads out of the water from time to time. On the way back to Funadomari it was the first time ever since I came here that the clouds lifted and I could see the full mountain range to the southwest. During the five minutes I spent in the supermarket the weather changed completely, no joke. When I left the supermarket, wind had come up and clouds had come in and the temperature dropped for five degrees, wow!
The drop in temperatures was highly welcome though since my hotel had no air conditioning and I suffered for three nights in a room of about 28 degrees and the outside temperatures not dropping below 24 during the night. Back in the hotel I opened all windows and gladly put on extra layers of clothing instead of nothing but underwear! I was highly fascinated though with the super sudden change in weather, that’s remote island life!

Momoiwa Trail

There are public buses on Rebun island (running around five times a day) and I wanted to go to the south of the island also and took a bus to the main town of Kafuka. There I wanted to change buses and go to a place called Motochi, which is another cape with stunning rock formations. There would be a 90 min gap between the buses and I thought I check out Kafuka in the meantime. Turns out the tiny town is checked out within twenty minutes. Not wanting to waste any time, I started with the hike up to a viewpoint for a place called Momoiwa (peach rock) with the intention to go down again and catch that bus to Motochi. Turns our Momoiwa is fantastic too!

The hiking trail there looked much better than the one to Mt. Rebun, and I ended up doing the entire Momoiwa observatory hiking trail of 7km which ends at the southern tip of Rebun.

While there were a few people at the Momoiwa viewpoint, since it is also accessible by car, I met a total of four people on the hiking trail south beyond it.

The view was hampered by clouds, but they gave the hike also a bit of a thrill and a mystic touch.

There is a bus from the southern tip fishing village to Kafuka, but when I arrived down there I had a two hour wait to look forward to in a village that does not even have a drink vending machine. So I walked the four kilometers back to Kafuka along the ocean road also! I haven’t walked over ten kilometers in one day in a while.

Undergrowth and Seals

Inspired by the two hour hiking from the day before, I thought I’d tackle the highest hill of Rebun island, which is just shy of 500 meters tall. It has an official hiking trail to it. I rode the bicycle for six km to the entry point but gave up on the first (steep) hill. There was a zigzag path up the hill, but it was so overgrown and entangled that you couldn’t see where you place your feet. I fell twice trying to get up that first hill and gave up on it.

Back on the road I rode around the eastern peninsula instead of taking the shortcut directly to Funadomari. It’s a winding coastline of seven km with plenty of lonely fishing villages along the way. To live here needs some extra stamina. Things are nice enough in summer, but this is Hokkaido and there is snow and ice for six months from November to April. I’m quite interested to know though what it’s like there in winter.

I’m glad that I rode up that road, since at the very tip of the peninsula is a group of seals. They seem to be living there during the summer and can be spotted very often according to a knowledgeable couple watching them whom I chatted with. The seals were holding siesta when I came by. The pics are not so good, since they were too far away for my old iPhone.

I also rode around on the roads close to the not-anymore-in-operation airport of Rebun island. The military area in the back is off limits though, but they sure do have a nice spot up there.

Cape Sukai and Wilderness

Not many words today, but more pictures On the second day I bicycled to the next cape, Cape Sukai, which has a viewing platform showing this magnificent view with cape Gorota in the distance.

At the tiny fishing village below the viewpoint you could get “nama uni don” raw uni = sea urchin on rice. Freshly caught in the morning, this stuff melts on the tongue and is good! (For those who like it).

It was actually quite early in the day yet and on the way back to Funadomari is the entrance to the longest hiking path of the island. I walked into the path for about an hour, meeting no one else on the trail.

It offered gorgeous views of the rolling hills and also cape Sukai. I met no one else on the trail, so beautiful and lonely and social distancing guaranteed.