Keepsake of a Prince: Tenjin-jima Marine Biological Garden for the Yokosuka City Museum 天神島臨海自然教育園

 

The shores of Tokyo Bay are more or less concreted. Since Tokyo became the center of Japanese politics in 1600, people has continuosly engaged in massive civil engineering projects such as reclamation and changing the course of rivers. Now the look we have for the Bay is as such. Even though, there remains few spots where we can experience the remnants of original ecosystem. The previous Tone River and Arakawa River poured in the Bay from the east. The east shores of Tokyo Bay were a low land delta of these rivers. The remaining natural shores of the Bay for Chiba Prefecture are tidal flats of shallow sea. The west shores of the Bay, i.e. Kanagawa side, were the continuation of such flats until around Kan‘nai business district of Yokohama where in the 19th century many ships from overseas arrived. When Japan ended national isolation in 1854 and decided to have the Port of Yokohama in 1859, the first thing people thought was how to supply flesh water for longhaul ships. Yokohama at that time was a tiny village floating in a muddy swamp. Well water was/is salty. And so, there was the construction of the first modern water supply system in Japan for Yokohama, blah blah blah (; my post for January 12, 2018).

Concreted Port of Yokohama

The current Yokohama Chinatown is more or less the end of tidalflats. To the south from Yokohama Yamate (neighboring town to the Chinatown) to the tip of Miura Peninsula, the shores were created by plate techtonics. When the Philippine Plate crawled underneath the Eurasian Plate about 20 -15 million years ago, the earth‘s energy pushed up the deep sea sedimentary mass above water which is the origin of Miura Peninsula. Especially the south of the Miura Peninsula is coastal terraces where small but steep hills are tumbling down to the Tokyo and Sagami Bays, i.e. deep and rocky. That‘s the reason why the US 7th Fleet with an aircraft career uses the Port of Yokosuka. As its geological feature gives nice condition for humans to build ports, Miura Peninsula has lots of harbors, and so concreted. Even though, there are several natural seashores where we can enjoy the sea. One of such place is Tenjin-jima Marine Biological Garden 天神島臨海自然教育園 for the Yokosuka City Museum. It has a curious forest.

This is also Yokohama, 
in Nojima Island of Kanazawa Hakkei
 (; my post for September 2, 2022)
which is the south end of Yokohama.
Geologically,
this place shows one feature of coastal terrace.

The easiest access to the Garden is by car. It has an ample car park. You command your Car Navigation System to Tenjin-jima Marine Biological Garden, Yokosuka, and all set. I guess during summer, this parking MUST be very congested ... Using public transformation is another fun to go there. For this method, please go to the terminal station Zushi-Hayama of Keikyu Zushi Line. Leave the station from the South Exit and you immmeidately notice there is a Convini 7/11 over there and a bus stop in front of it. From there, please take Keikyu Bus Zu-71 逗-71 that brings us to Sajima Marina Entrance, the terminal stop. It‘s about 40 minutes bus ride, passing the gate of Imperial Summer House in Hayama, 葉山御用邸. I you remember our bus ride from the foot of Mt. Ogusu (; my post for April 24, 2024), this is the way we took from the opposite direction. Now we see Sagami Bay on our right from the bus. This time, the commuter service turn right before reaching the bus stop we used from Mt. Ogusu. The bus goes into Sajima housing area and reach the top of the hill, then descend down to Sajima Fishing Port. The final stop of this service, Sajima Marina Entrance, is next to the Fishing Port.

This is the bus which brings us to Sajima Marina Entrance,

and the terminal stop of Sajima Marina Entrance.

Get off at the terminal stop, and you‘ll find a cafe Portland‘s on your left. Take the road to the cafe‘s direction and turn left to a road in front of Portland‘s. Along the road, on your left is a Japanese restaurant Hikonoya, and on your right is a Italian restaurant AzzurrA Mare SAJIMA. I tell you both are at the high-end. There’s a reason for it. Passing AzzurrA Mare, there is a small bridge named Tenjin Bridge, and beyond of it on our right, there is an elegant white house with a large garden. It was a summer house of Prince Takeda … Explaining this princely house is a bit complicated … The Prince was a descendant of the 102nd Emperor Gohanazono (1419-1471). Emperor Meiji, Great-Great Grandfather of the current Emperor, had only one prince who came of age, i.e. Emperor Taisho, the Great Grandfather of the present Emperor. Japanese government at that time was afraid of the end of Imperial Family. Er, well, Meiji Emperor had 15 kids with 5 ladies (none the Empress). Among them 4 princesses survived and became adult enough to be a bride. So Meiji people did not have to worry if they were more female friendly. This way of thinking still continues for the current succession issues of Emperor in Japan … Anyway, the government at that time dug up the old documents to find a guy who had some blood relation to the Imperial family. They found and let him marry the 6th Princess of Emperor Meiji. In this way, the new Imperial family man became Prince Takeda and a younger brother of Emperor Taisho for the just-in-case scenario. Such thing did not happen, and the son of Emperor Taisho became Emperor Showa who met General McArther in 1945 after the defeat of the Pacific War. Prince Takeda returned to be a common man under the occupation by the US commander. Until that 1945 the graceful white house beyond Tenjin Bridge was the summer house of Prince and Princess Takeda. The princely family thought they should have such place near Hayama where their elder brother, Emperor Taisho, loved. Also, they secluded the place beyond the Tenjin Bridge as their private garden. That’s why now we had Tenjin-jima Marine Biological Garden, escaping concreat except the foundation of princely house. Next week, let‘s enter this nature reserve.

Portland‘s Cafe

Take the direction of the arrow.

Hikonoya

AzzurrA Mare SAJIMA

Tenjin Bridge. It‘s small.
Over there on the right is a former Imperial Summer House.
It is now a private property of a commoner.
Oh, by the way,
the place for Prince Takeda‘s principal residence is
 now Takanawa Prince Hotel in Tokyo.

Tenjin-jima Marine Biological Garden 天神島臨海自然教育園

3-7-3 Sajima, Yokosuka, 240-0103
〒240-0103　 神奈川県横須賀市佐島3丁目7-3

Phone: 046-856-0717
Fax: 046-856-0717

Open 9：00 - 17：00 (April-September), 10月〜3月　9：00 - 16：30 (October-March)
Closed: Every Monday (or if Monday is National Holiday, Tuesday) and December 29 -January 3
Admission Free

You can send an enquiry to m-bes@city.yokosuka.kanagawa.jp

Beyond Boring Daily Life: Making bamboo instruments with artists

 

Bamboo is a useful plant to make musical instruments. Its structure is a series of pipes separated by nodes. Breaking the walls of nodes will make one compartment of the pipe longer. Naturally, it becomes the material for designing wind instruments. The most famous example would be Japanese shakuhachi flute. Also, bamboo is easy to work with knife. We can cut and carve it to make not only winds, but percussion and even the bodies of strings.

A bamboo xylophone created by artists
for Forest Labo this year.

Ditto. A different version

Creating instruments for pros requires skills, of course, and it’s not within the scope of my blog. Instead, I tell you today my adventure to create an instrument for a complete novice like me. My teacher was artists from the Forest Labo. It’s a kind of percussion with guiro. Let me tell you how to. First, create a main body from bamboo. For any craft with bamboo trunks, we start by removing wax oil covering them by (1) drying it for about a month after felling, (2) then, boil it or scorch the surface with a handheld burner. The procedure removes water and oil from the trunk and makes the material more durable. The dirt on the surface of bamboo can be removed simultaneously when we wipe with dry towels the coming up oil over the material. After the treatment, dry the material completely. It takes about a month in Yokohama during autumn and winter. Here are the bamboo Forest Labo people prepared for us.

It’s roughly 25cm or so long, and 5cm inner diameter. To decorate it later, it would be better to cut both sides of a node diagonally, keeping the wall inside. I think simple straight cut of bamboo trunk could be OK as well, but the sound will be different. Next, make 4 holes at the point 2cm from the center, or if you use a node one hole for each sideof a node. The position of holes are like

We can choose the points of the holes for 3, 6, 9, and 12 o’clock if we like. But again I guess the sound will be different. Anyway, these points are what the sculptors for Forest Lab chose. After you drill the holes at these points, make straight slits from the mouth of the pipe to the hole with a craft saw. I guess these gaps for a pipe of two compartments will make a more complicated sound compared with a sound from an unprocessed bamboo trunk.

Inside

We next make guiro. Mark 9 lines on a bamboo surface with a pen and make shallow cuts on the lines with a rasp. Depending on the length of the bamboo, number of cuts would be larger or smaller.

Marked

Start making guiro

Done!

For a final touch, we decorate the instrument with colorful strings of jute. First stick a double-sided tape around the node of the bamboo. Peel the surface side of the tape and paste 4 decoration strings on the tape. The main body of the instrument is completed. It’s easy.

Taping the bamboo

Decoration

Done

Then, we make a drumstick. Cut a joint mat of foam flooring in the form of below photo, and fasten a wood square stick, 26cm long and 1cm wide of its side, with relatively strong wire. We have to make it sure they are attached firmly. Next, cover the other side of the stick with a plastic tube cut for about 1.5cm long. This tube must fit tightly to the stick. It could be tricky to accomplish this procedure. After casing the other end, wrap the point with a double-sided tape, then wind a jute string tightly around. Securing both ends of the string with instant glue, and a drumstick for this bamboo instrument is done.

Securely fastened joint mat

Plastic tubes for another end

In order to secure the tube,
we slightly sharpen the stick with a rasp.

Secured tube is now covered with a double-sided tape.

The end wrapped with jute string.
The string is applied super-glue.

As a sort of afterthought, we can make a stand for this (maybe) percussion with the remaining foam flooring like this. Each part is simply glued.

My stand

To make sounds, we can use either side of the stick. With the mat, we hit the mouths of the instrument and make dry sounds. With the string-wrapped mallet, we hit the body of the instrument, which creates more echoing sound inside the pipe. The drumstick can be a stick for guiro. After making it, I felt joy. I hit and scratched the instrument until I reached the bus stop with another adult passengers waiting for the bus to come … They saw me in a puzzling face. “What is she doing?" Being an adult is boring.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166
FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Kakishibu Dyeing III: Simple is the way

 

Now we start actually dyeing a fabric with Kakishibu. It’s very easy. There is not much elaborated procedure as long as we simply dye cloth without making pattern.

1. First, wash the fabric with detergent to remove any chemical coating. For Kakishibu dyeing, it does not matter if the material is the protein-based, i.e. wool, silk, et al, or not, i.e. cotton, linen, et al. For the standard natural dyeing, we have to make it sure if the fabric contains protein. For cotton and linen, as they are vegetable base, before dyeing we have to dip the material in soy milk. In contrast, Kakishibu can put color for any natural fabric. It’s enough to remove the layer of chemical that can block Kakishibu.

2. Make sure the fabric is damp.

3. Concoct Kakishibu solution for dyeing. “How to” depends on the thickness of Kakishibu concentrate we purchase. For our case in Niiharu, 150-200ml Kakishibu was diluted by 200ml of water, i.e. 1 to 1, for 34g of pure cotton to be dyed. Don’t forget to use a stainless or plastic bowl, unless you plan to dye the container simultaneously.

The bottle we bought via internet.

Diluting the concentration.

4. Soak the damp fabric in Kakishibu liquid and rub the liquid into the fabric for about 10 minutes.

The cotton was put into the liquid.

Working on it.
Please use good rubber gloves in this process.

5. Squeeze the liquid and dry the fabric completely.

Drying

You can repeat the process #1-5 as much as you like while the solution remains in the bowl. The more you rub the liquid, the more the color deeper. I did the process 3 times, and here is what I obtained.

At this stage, the texture of a fabric is “stiff.” When you plan to have rough feel from the Kakishibu-dyed fabric, you should stop here. Or you can proceed to mordant. Mordant liquid will make your hardened fabric return to soft. When you use alum as mordant, the color of the fabric becomes brighter. In contrast, with iron-mordant the color turns dark grey. The standard for mordant process requires 10 minutes or so of bathing the dyed fabric in mordant. Here is what I get from my hand-made iron mordant.

Iron bathing let the color of the fabric this dark. After 10 minutes, squeeze the fabric and wash it with water. Squeeze the liquid well and dry it completely.

I simply expected the color of my mini-tote remained such grey of immediately after-drying. Nah. When the bag was dried entirely, it becomes like this.

I am very happy to meet this sudden blueish grey. Such unexpected encounter should be the charm of Kakishibu dyeing. I found the entire process uncomplicated. I think I’ll try dyeing another fabric with Kakishibu especially for some outdoor cloth. No wonder our ancestors used the liquid so often for many materials to make them sturdy. Simple is the best!

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166
FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Kakishibu Dyeing II: how to make iron mordant for natural dyeing

 

Let me tell you how to make iron mordant for Kakishibu dyeing. This mordant can be used for any natural dyeing for making the dyed color in darker shade. Knowing the process may be useful for natural dyeing beginners.

<Necessary items to make iron mordant for natural dyeing>

1. Steel wool: For this, I was stupid. At the beginning I thought stainless steel is steel so that we can use it for making mordant. Of course, Nah. We need good-ol steel wool. I waited for about a week with stainless steel wool to be stained and was naturally disappointed. Stained? I explain it below.

2. A glass jar with a lid

3. H2O 

4. White vinegar; the cheapest would do the perfect job. The required acidity is 4-5%.

Steel wool. No-no to stainless!

Now here is how to. It’s simple if you can avoid the obvious mistake of using stainless steel!

1. Wet the steel wool in a jar thoroughly. At this stage, no need to fill the jar of steel wool by water. Leave the jar as such without lid. The objective of this process is to rust the entire wool. The damp steel wool should react with O2 in the air. No-rid could accelerate the chemical reaction between iron and O2. But it can dry the wool quickly before becoming rusty. Keep moisturizing the steel is the key. Please be attentive.

2. When the entire steel wool becomes rusty, add water. I simply added H2O in the jar until the wool is completely soaked.

3. Add white vinegar. The ratio of water and vinegar is 1 to 1. But no need to be exact. I poured vinegar in eyeballed amount. My jar looked like

4. Close the jar with a lid and leave it in the shade for at least 24 hours. Leave the jar longer, the mordant becomes stronger. As I was in a mess with my PC Topy 5, I left it for more than two weeks, and the jar became

The darker the color, the quality of the mordant is better. I achieved it without intention. Phew, thank God. This blackish liquid is hand-made iron mordant. To use it, strain the liquid with paper coffee filter, and use it at the concentration of your choice. The more iron concentrated for the mordant, the darker the stabilized color of dyed fabric. I dunked my Kakishibu dyed linen bag in the mordant without adding water for about 15 minutes. In the stainless (Yes!) bowl, the color of the bag looked like

How it turned to the end product is a surprise. More to it, in addition to how to Kakishibu dyeing, is for next week. 😉

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166 

FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Kakishibu dyeing I

 

I told you to wear rubber gloves and an overall when you work with Kakishibu (; my post for September 14, 2025). The reason covering ourselves is, the strong tannic acid can remain as a stain when it lands on a fabric. i.e. Kakishibu is very strong natural dye. Just search internet for word “Kakishibu.” You’ll find numerous artists who work with the liquid for their creation of natural dyeing. This week, I begin telling you about my adventure with persimmon tannin for natural dye. Oh, one thing before starting. Kakishibu dyeing can be completed in just one day if you like. But when you take time to dry the dyed fabric before proceeding to the next step, the color can progress into something with depth. The acid reacts with O2. + UV light stimulates the response, which develops the color more. The sunlight makes wonder for Kakishibu dyeing. You can go slow and enjoy how coloring turns as time goes by. As I’m having a hubbub with my PC Topy 5, my dyeing has taken more than one month while I leave the fabric on the clothesline for days. It may be just my imagination, but it seemed to me the color evolved into subtle expression. Actually, the fabric dyed by Kakishibu will be aged for years. It would be one of the attractions the material provides.

The color of my bag when it is dyed
with Kakishibu for the first time.

My Kakishibu-dyed mini-bag,
after about a month of dyeing.
The color, I think, was stabilized in this way.

Let’s start groundwork. Here are the necessary items we need to arrange before dyeing:

1. A bowl made of stainless steel, plastics, or wood. Never made of iron, as before.

2. Kakishibu, available from Amazon et al, or handmade of 3+ years of work.

3. H2O.

4. Fabric to be dyed.

5. Mordant liquid: Alum for the final product with light earth color, or aqueous solution of iron for darker color, more to it below. Rubber gloves, and a work jacket or the like.

A bottle of store-bought Kakishibu.

Unlike the standard natural dyeing, Kakishibu does not

1. Choose fabric. Normally, we need protein-based yarn as wool, or we have to soak vegetable-based fabric, as cotton and linen, in soy milk or the like in order to make the material coated with protein. Kakishibu doesn’t care about such things. We can apply Kakishibu liquid to wood, washi paper and leather as well. Kakishibu applied material becomes “harder” and “more durable.” That’s the reason why samurai warriors applied it to their armor.

2. Require cooking with heat. It is often the case we cook a fabric in boiled staining solution for natural dyeing. No need with Kakishibu. 

So, Kakishibu dyeing is technically easy. It even does not ask mordant. If you like, you can leave the dyed fabric as such without applying mordant. On the other hand, with mordant the change in color becomes slow. Especially for fabric mordant makes the final product softer. (Wood panel applied with Kakishibu does not change its hardness with mordant, I tell you.)

Two colors.
Iron mordant is applied to dark-grey part.

Having said that, applying mordant turns the color of dyed fabric into different hues. When we use alum, the color becomes lighter. With iron, the color of the fabric is blackish gray. If we repeat “dye fabric, then apply mordant” several times, it can make the color in deeper tone. Such protean results are also the attraction of Kakishibu dyeing. For alum mordant, we just use alum powder for kitchen. We dissolve a couple of tablespoonful powder completely in 500ml of hot water, then add 2L of cold water. The alum mordant is ready. Dunk the Kakishibu-dyed and dried fabric for 10 minutes or so in a mordant. Voila, its color turns lighter. For iron mordant, it takes a bit more process to make, but no cooking. Let me explain it next week.

A dyed bag with different hue using alum and iron for mordant.
A person who made it uses die board to make this pattern.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166 

FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp