-
Nagasa Light Up
大山千枚田の「棚田のあかり」毎年素敵ですよね。 今年は、私たち長狭エリアの住民も一緒に楽しめたらいいなと思って…家の周りや店先、玄関先に、それぞれ好きな灯りを飾ってみませんか? クリスマスライトでも、ランタンでも、提灯でも、なんでもOK！特に決まりはなし。参加費もなし。申込みもなし。ただ、この時期、みんなで光を灯して、訪れる人も、私たち住民も、みんなが温かい気持ちになれたらいいなって。 「私もやる!」って思ったら、好きなタイミングで灯してください。 こういう輪が広がったら、長狭エリア全体がもっと素敵な場所になるでしょう♪ This is a community project to brighten the area during the winter season. Oyama Senmaida’s popular “Tanada Akari” opens on October 25th Let’s light up our homes and businesses in the area to welcome visitors and give ourselves some beauty, too. Anyone can participate. Light up in any way that…
-
Perfect 36?
Happy anniversary to us, again. With a typhoon blowing in, we didn’t make elaborate plans but we had a three-day weekend to fill. We chose quiet, mundane adventures near home. Saturday The day’s cold rain made me want an onsen bath. We headed down to Tateyama for a soak at Satomi no Yu with a…
-
Camera Roll
Time for another photo dump of my Instagram Stories. Here are some scenes of daily life from the past month, in reverse chronological order. It’s been a good month of early autumn weather, making color, teaching art, and noticing the small joys of each day. Also, cats. The praying mantis ran up my arm like…
-
The Cool Change
It has been a brutally hot, record-breaking summer again. Our home weather station recorded a high of 38.2°C (101°F) on August 30th and a “feels like” high of 53.9°C (129°F) on August 18th. But yesterday the heat broke and we saw our first sub-20°C (68°F) overnight temperature since mid-June. Now we’ll be in a slowly…
-
Camera Roll
Summer has flown by in a haze of herniated disc pain and heat exhaustion, both of which are finally subsiding. Despite being housebound for most of two months, I captured some of the beauty in my world. Let me share it with you via all the Instagram Stories I’ve posted.
-
Kozuka Art Festival 2025
I feared my offering would be a failure. I had concerns about getting to the venue safely. I was worried that my poor Japanese would be a burden for everyone. I was intimidated by comparing myself to the other artists. I was sure that I’d be a punk misfit in a mix of hippies. Only…
-
Summer Attractions
Summer in Japan is full of festivals and events. I feel like a sweaty social butterfly. Kamogawa Citizen’s Fireworks Although we’ve lived in Kamogawa for a decade, this is the first time we’ve taken in the beach fireworks. They were quite spectacular – lots of multicolored rainbow explosions reflecting on the water and waves. We…
-
難しいけど
Japanese is hard. I struggle through conversations with awkward pauses, misplaced modifiers, and incorrect verb tenses, not to mention my garbled pronunciation. “I’b leaning moor. Good spek…homework maikey. Existence toward Javanese.” That’s how I sound. The ideas are there but meaning is open to interpretation. Wide open. I am lucky to have people around me…
-
Sayonara, Aloha
Aloha Gardens Tateyama is a local fixture; almost everyone in the Awa area has been at least once with family or on a school trip. After a decade living here, we finally made time to visit. Just in time… Opened in 1970 as “Nambo Paradise”, the botanical garden features a long stretch of hothouses, a…
-
Forest fire?
Yesterday afternoon, I thought I heard the crunch-crunch of a cat eating a mouse downstairs. But nobody had a mouse. The cracking sound was coming from outside. Maybe Kawasaki-san was doing some brushcutting? I opened the door for a better listen. No…this sounded more organic. A fire popping and cracking. Bamboo burning. I trotted down…
Archives