|
| Visitors to the town of Usa (u-sa), Kochi, will be greeted by the sign which says "Welcome to USA". As the southmost prefecture in Shikoku Island, Kochi welcomes the visitors by its magnificent views of mountains and the beaches where the Pacific ocean washes off the shiny pebbles under the bright sunlight. | |
| People's diet here used to be very simple. The meal consists of rice, miso soup with slices of radish and carrot, roasted fish and that menu could be repeated for the whole year except the New Year's Day, the lantern festival and other special occasions. The photo shows the radish (Raphanus sativus, Brassicaceae) is dried on the railing under the Sun. There are the harvest of rice twice a year in Kochi and the greenhouses provide out-of-season vegetables in this warm weather. | |
| Fishing is an important industry in Kochi. The sea is full
of living animals and the water is clean. There were shadows of Temminck's surfperch (Ditrema
temminckii, Embiotocidae) and spiny boxfish (Lactoria diaphana,
Ostraciidae) in the water. This boxfish, which looks similar to the
poisonous(*) puffer (Takifugu rubripes, Tetraodontidae), is not
poisonous.
(*)The puffer poison (tetrodotoxin, TTX) binds to voltage dependent sodium channels and the blockage of the ion is deadly. | |
| The ports always are full of fishing boats and some of them
are painted in colors and indeed are quite beautiful. A fisherman was
mending his net in this quiet port. A few others were fishing from
the bulwark. There were seashells on the beach. Click Arabian cowry (Mauritia arabica asiatica, Cypraeidae) to see one of the most treasured seashell. This is a gastropod (apex) although it might be hard to recognize as such at first. | |
| As the Sun sets under the horizon, the silhouette of the trees and mountains frames the water and the reflection of the orange sunshine. |
⇒ Go to Usa, Kochi page
