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Yumbo!
We did it! 15 participants from all over Japan joined the Yumbo course that I helped to organise with Chio Yamada from Hosei Sansho and Isono-san from Nihon Kenki. Everyone got their skill certifications and can legally operate small construction machines: excavators, bulldozers, and tractor shovels under 3 tons. The first day was 7 hours…
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38 minutes, 14 tunnels
The mountains in Kimitsu and Kamogawa are drilled through to form backroads and main thoroughfares. We took a drive yesterday and I snapped the light at the end of every tunnel we passed through. These first seven are on the same Chiba forest road and all of a similar style with narrow, straight walls and…
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Election Day (in Japan)
Japan’s democratic process is quite different to the one that drags on in the US. Today is a parliamentary election, called by Prime Minister Ishiba when he dissolved the House of Representatives just eight days after he took office. The run up to the election has been 26 days. Campaigning is a lot more civil…
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Long Drive
Don’t travel on a holiday weekend. Traffic is awful. We knew that, yet chose to drive from Chiba to Niigata. I am glad we did. It was a marathon on the way up. We left at 6 am and I drove the first four hours through various slowdowns and jams until we got past the…
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Naumann Zou
I checked off a bucket list item yesterday by visiting the Lake Nojiri Naumann Elephant Museum. Years ago, Tod and I learned there had been elephants roaming Japan in the Ice Age. We said we’d go see their stomping grounds someday. The museum is nicely put together, with multilingual audio guides and lots of details…
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Signs of Autumn
The two-meter tall ginger is in full bloom outside the kitchen window. Its scent is intoxicating. Hummingbird hawk-moths visit at dawn and dusk to enjoy the nectar. After a long break for summer, Beryl is enjoying her favorite cozy beanbag in the barn. She’s also crawling under the bed covers to sit on me in…
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Tanada Go-nin Otoko
Kabuki debut! It’s been years since I’ve been on a stage for any sort of performance and this one was special – a Kabuki skit in Japanese, and I was in drag. Since I was in makeup at 9:30 and in costume from 11 am for our 2 pm performance, I made sure to add…
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Martial Traditions
Today we went to Mishima Jinja in Kimitsu to watch the festival there. It’s a special demonstration of traditional martial arts based on swords and farm implements. Five hundred years ago, the area didn’t have a daimyo overlord to provide protection from warring neighbors, so the peasants had to defend themselves as best they could.…
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Now, Autumn
Hooray, the weather has changed! For the first time since June 22, the overnight low was under 20C. I slept with all the windows open last night and enjoyed the light chill of 18.2 degrees and low humidity. For the next ten days, daytime highs are forecast to be 30 or under. A welcome change…
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Yumbo!
One of my goals for 2024 is to get my excavator certification. It’s not a typical goal for a middle-aged lady, but read on for the why. Thanks to a lucky chain of events, I am helping to organise an English-friendly certification course in Kamogawa in November. We are currently hustling to get enough students…
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