I Failed To Mention This In The Original Post, But Meiji-jingû Is Also A High Point Of Sumo Culture.

The Fog on the Rhine (is all mine, all mine)

After three weeks of marking, I finally managed to get out of my hole in late January. I was beckoned out by dense fog, seizing the chance to enjoy the misty atmosphere. When I reached the park that straddles the French-German border, I found it on the edge of a fog bank, with haze on one side of the footbridge and perfectly clear skies on the other.

While not among the most outstandingly beautiful parks, the Jardin des Deux Rives has things to offer on both sides of the border, and, just for that ability to hop over to another country, it ranks very high on the cool factor.

Not that the birds would know. They were just taking in the winter sunlight while they could.

The Tower of the Sun

With another World Expo underway at Osaka this year, a massive park to the North of the city (actually in the neighbouring city of Suita) sits on the site of the first Japanese World Expo in 1970. There's usually some form of centrepiece: in 1889 it was the Eiffel Tower, and at Osaka Expo '70, it was the Tower of the Sun.

It is a massive sculpture by Taro Okamoto, which it was possible to climb into to view another work called the Tree of Life. As it was going to have people inside, it needed a lightning rod - that's what the top face (officially a mask, but I tend to call it the "bird face" - whose eyes light up at night apparently) is sporting. The three faces on the back, front and top represent humanity's past, present and future respectively, though some art critics and historians have a more bleak interpretation due to Okamoto's larger body of work and stance against technological progress, something the Expo would put emphasis on.

Similarly to the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of the Sun was supposed to be a relatively ephemeral structure, and nearly all the Expo pavilions around it have been demolished. Like the Eiffel Tower, it was avant-garde and no doubt not everyone liked it. But this building is one of the few to be preserved, and requires regular attention - again, like the Eiffel Tower which needs periodic repainting. In any case, the Tower of the Sun is one of Osaka's most iconic landmarks.

Notre-Dame... de Strasbourg

I know, I know. Notre-Dame in Paris just reopened. But Notre-Dame is a very common name for churches in France. In fact, we covered one in Le Havre not that long ago, possibly one of the smallest cathedrals in the country. At the other end of the scale, one of the largest, if not still the largest, is Notre-Dame de Strasbourg. Built during the same time period as its Parisian counterpart, its facade has striking similarities: the grand rose, the two square towers at a similar height (66-69 m)... but while Paris stopped in 1345, Strasbourg kept going for almost a century, filling in the space between the towers, and adding a whopping octagonal spire on one side, reaching 142 m above ground.

Of course, there were plans to make the monumental facade symmetric, but the ground under the South tower wouldn't support the weight of 76 m of spire. In fact, huge structural repairs had to be made during the 19th century to avoid collapse.

The cathedral was the world's tallest building for a couple of centuries, from 1647 to 1874. Considering it was completed in 1439... Yeah, it didn't grow, it owed it title to the Pyramids of Giza shrinking from erosion and taller spires on other cathedrals burning down. Then it lost the title when churches in Hamburg, Rouen (another Notre-Dame Cathedral) and Köln were completed.

But talk of records is just talk, and 142 m is just a number, until you're faced with it. My favourite approach to the cathedral, to truly give it is awesome sense of scale, is the one I inadvertently took on my first proper visit to Strasbourg. From the North end of Place Gutenberg, walk along Rue des Hallebardes. The town's buildings will hide the cathedral from view for a moment, only for it to reappear suddenly at the turn of a corner, much closer, the spire truly towering over the surrounding buildings which also dwarf the viewer. I don't pass by there too often, to try to replicate the breathtaking reveal.

PS - We've already done a piece on the astronomical clock housed in the cathedral, an absolute treasure.

Where I grew up (initially): Great Chesterford

Going back to Great Chesterford with my current eyes was quite interesting. I hadn't realised (as no 6-year-old would) how pretty the village centre was, with many charming houses and thatched cottages. The nearest town, Saffron Walden, is even better, but I'd need to go back and visit properly. This time, we just passed through there to go to the shops - and pick up a bunch of biscuits and sweets I remember from my childhood!

Said sweets and biscuits are very nice, of course, but also a tad underwhelming. I remember feeling disappointed by the size of Party Rings the last time I bought some, and I had a similar sense of underwhelming when passing near the school. The wall along the street was much higher in my memory, as was the hill at the back of the playground - in my mind, it was a proper hill! But take into account the fact that I was so much smaller back then, and it all checks out, really!

The old school building itself was apparently built by a single person between 1845 and 1849. Chesterford has a very rich history, dating back to Roman times (and if nothing else on the topic, I remember dressing up as a Roman at school once), and the church dates back to the 13th century. The village's biggest claim to fame is probably having been the home of Germaine Greer, a feminist author from the 1970s, for a few decades.

Temples on the high street: Kyôto Teramachi and Shinkyôgoku

A typical Japanese covered high street, right? Yes, there are lots of shops left and right, but this is Kyôto, a millennial capital and centre of cultural and religious tradition in Japan. So what happens when a modern high street encounters a centuries-old temple, bearing in mind that it would be very bad form to ask the priests to sell up?

Well you leave the temple alone and build around it. So, in between the big name drugstores, Animate, clothes shops and cafés lined with the street's signature bricks and tile floor, here's the entrance to Seishin-in, with traditional wooden doors and tile roofing. It is also just visible in the first picture - see if you can notice it.

Seigan-ji is easier to spot, further illustrating the contrast. Online maps show that this temple even has a cemetery in the middle of the next block, completely encircled by shopping streets and businesses.

It's a similar situation for Tenshô-ji, though, this far up the high street, the commercial tissue becomes less dense. These temples seem a bit larger and own more land. Still, we've gone from a towering, mineral, covered street in the top photo, to an open path with low buildings and plenty of vegetation, with no transition.

These scenes of coexistence fascinated me when I first visited Kyôto in 2016, with a hotel in this area, so it was great to see them again on my brief return to the city in 2023. More fascinating still is the fact that one of these "just off the high street" temples is not only very old, but hugely historically significant... and I'm yet to mention it!

Strasbourg's tramway's 30th anniversary!

On this day in 1994, Strasbourg inaugurated - or rather, resurrected - its tramway network. Like many cities in France, Strasbourg had a streetcar system until the late 1950s, when it was decided that cars would take over. 30 years of worsening congestion and pollution later, the town chose a tramway, which had made a successful return in the mid 1980s in Nantes and Grenoble, over an automatic metro to revitalise its transit service.

Unlike Nantes and Grenoble, Strasbourg looked to foreign streetcar manufacturers Socimi and ABB, who designed a fully low-floor tram with generous windows. The Eurotram was at first a 33-metre vehicle (original form seen above), which quickly proved insufficient. A lengthened version, with an extra motor module and carriage, appeared in the following years.

Personally, I quite like this tram for the massive windows, the very mechanical sounds as it runs, and the fact that the warning bell is a real bell (later models have an electronic bell which... just sounds worse). A downside I have noticed, though not for me specifically, is that it has a low ceiling.

After losing out in the 90s, national constructor Alstom won the next round of contracts for Strasbourg's trams in the 2000s. The Citadis model, fully low-floor and taller than the Eurotrams, entered service in 2005. More Citadis trams arrived in 2016, with a new design that I really like, and with special adaptations to allow it to run in Germany, as the network crossed the border to Kehl in 2017, a first for a French tram operator.

Today, the network consists of 6 lines, crisscrossing the city centre and heading out into the suburbs. A 7th line is in the planning stages, due to head North towards Bischheim and Schiltigheim. Despite refurbishment, the Eurotrams won't be around forever, and new trams are on order - more from Alstom.

Ichibata Dentetsu

The only train to Izumo Taisha is operated by private company Ichibata Dentetsu, or Bataden. Twas not always thus, as the JNR had a short 7 km branch line from Izumo-shi to Taisha until 1990. It was served by direct expresses from Nagoya and Kanazawa (11-hour day express Taisha) and night expresses from Ôsaka (Daisen).

But Bataden is no upstart, they've been around for a long time. They've been connecting Matsue Shinjiko-Onsen, Dentetsu Izumo-shi (neighbour to JR Izumo-shi) to Izumo Taisha-mae since the 1920s. On of their trains of the time was the DeHaNi 50, left in its refurbished DeHa 50 form. On the right is the 7000 Series, the company's newest model... and their first new train since the DeHaNi 50!

In the 90-year interim, Ichibata has relied on second-hand trains (yes, that's a thing in Japan), mostly from Tokyo-based Keiô. A rather nice retreat for these vehicles, from the crowded suburban lines around the capital, to scenic moseys around Lake Shinji... There are some special liveries and trains, such as Shimane-no-ki below, with some nice wooden decking inside, and single-seat semi-compartments! "Wait, is this First class?", I remember thinking to myself.

A year ago, I was taking off for Japan

No such five-week adventure this year, but I have the chance to relive the smell and taste of Japan courtesy of Yuki, Kazu, Asaka and Maiko who I met in Paris last month, and who gave me a lot to eat and drink! So, to mark the anniversary, I decided it was time to have nice things...

Kitsune udon with nori, ebi and yuzu senbei

The kitsune udon floored me. The smell of the soup base was enough to transport me, I couldn't get enough of that savoury scent.

Matcha KitKat, dried nattô and konbucha

I hadn't tried nattô in Japan, but I'd read it had a bit of a reputation. So I was a little apprehensive trying the nattô morsels, but a little less so when I read that dried nattô is actually milder than the real thing. And I like it! And so do colleagues I've shared it with!

The konbucha is... interesting. First, do not confuse with kombucha. I know, I know, it's very confusing. This konbucha is kelp tea, a tea made with algae, combined with plum and extra salt. It kind of tastes like the sea, only milder... It's pleasant in its own way, though I'd probably make the next one less strong.

And if you want to run through last year's voyage, I did a travel blog here, but I'll also go through some places here at a leisurely pace (I've already reviewed Kushimoto, Hikone Sawayama and Nagahama -to name what I can remember- from that trip here).

Pouancé

The small town of Pouancé is on a remarkable geographical "quadruple point", on the border of four départements! A peculiarity that dates back to the Middle Ages, when it was on the battlefront between France-affiliated Anjou and the still fiercely independent Duchy of Brittany. As such, Pouancé had a castle; its Breton counterpart was at Châteaubriant, and both towns were besieged at some point during the 15th century.

With a friend from Châteaubriant, we got to witness barriers being removed as what we guessed were maintenance or renovation works on the path around the castle were finished. The castle itself only opens during the summer, but at least we got to walk all around and get some good views of the castle, through the neighbouring park.

If you're driving into Pouancé from the West, this is how you know you've arrived:

Sangaku Saturday #13

Last week, we uncovered this configuration which is also a solution to our "three circles in a triangle" problem, just not the one we were hoping for.

This is something that happens in all isosceles triangles. Draw the inscribed circle, with centre B, and the circle with centre C, tangent to the extended base (ON) and the side [SN] at the same point as the first circle is. Then it can be proved that the circle with centre A, whose diameter completes the height [SO] as our problem demands, is tangent to the circle with centre C.

But that's not what I'm going to concentrate on. Despite this plot twist, we are actually very close to getting what we want. What the above configuration means is that, returning to the initial scaled situation with SO = h = 1 and ON = b, we get

Knowing a solution to a degree 3 equation is extremely powerful, as we can factor the polynomial and leave a degree 2 equation, which has simple formulas for solutions. So, to finish off, can you:

1: prove that

2: solve the equation 2x²-(s-b)x-1 = 0, and deduce the general formulas for p, q and r that fit the configuration we are aiming for;

3: test the formulas for an equilateral triangle, in which s = 2b.

This last question is the one the sangaku tablet claims to solve.