Archives

Author: kuri
  • First snow at 555

    First snow at 555

    Across the Bay, yesterday was a snowpocalypse, closing all highways heading west from the city, grounding flights, and delaying trains. But here we only had a lot of rain pouring down on us all day. Until evening when the temperature dropped and the snow began. First a dusting and then quickly accumulating to a nice…

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  • Sayonara, Kaneya route.

    Sayonara, Kaneya route.

    Nitto Kotsu has announced one of the local bus routes in our area will be ending on March 31. The Kaneya line (marked in red) is finishing on March 31st. From April 1, you will no longer be able to take a bus all the way across the peninsula between the Tokyo Wan ferry terminal…

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  • Dondo-yaki for Setsubun

    Dondo-yaki for Setsubun

    February 3rd is Setsubun, the last day of winter in Japan. It’s commonly celebrated by throwing beans to scare away the ogres and demons, and by eating an overstuffed sushi roll while facing in the lucky direction for the coming year. 2024’s direction is East North East. But in Okugome village in Kimitsu, about a…

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  • JA Banking

    JA Banking

    I am joining the Oyama Senmaida “support staff.” In order to do that, I need an account at JA Bank. Support staff get paid for work, whether peeling potatoes for group lunches, assisting with experience programs, or cutting grass. But Oyama Senmaida only pays out to JA accounts. JA stands for Japan Agriculture and it…

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  • Origami Vision Boarding, part 3

    Origami Vision Boarding, part 3

    After matching actions to colors and creating a collage, it was time to paint. Some people in the workshop opted to work with other mediums, but I grabbed my big box of acrylic paint and had some fun. I actually painted two paintings. The first one (pictured above) felt wrong, so I abandoned it and…

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  • Origami Vision Boarding, Part 2

    Origami Vision Boarding, Part 2

    After defining my actions and assigning them colors (see part 1), I got to work on a collage using origami paper. I began by cutting some random shapes and moved them around on the page until they started to tell a story. I filled in the details as the story unfolded itself in my head.…

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  • 555 Then and Now

    555 Then and Now

    50 years ago, this area was pure satoyama – mixed use farm and forest land. I have been aware of the changes that happened well before we arrived. Tod & I were fascinated by some photos of the area in a book about the history of the old elementary school, and later combed through arial…

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  • Memorial

    Memorial

    Yesterday I went to my first Japanese memorial. Funerals in Japan are very formal and I have yet to attend the official part of them. When I do, I will need to brush up on my etiquette. Yesterday’s event was more casual, an affair put on by the NPO where Asada Daisuke worked for 16…

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  • Origami Vision Boarding

    Origami Vision Boarding

    I am participating in a two-week a Origami Vision Board class led by my friend, Liane Wakabayashi from Genesis Art, https://www.genesiscards.com/ I was already in the process of doing a vision board in my usual way using a feng shui grid when this class fell into my lap. Not wanting to start over from scratch,…

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  • Odd Things in the Barn

    Odd Things in the Barn

    We have decided to delay the full renovation of the barn – saving up more money to do it right. But the 120 year old structure needs some loving attention in the interim so I have started on a new plan. I will remove everything from the inside – all the junk, the treasures, and…

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