Blogs from Yamagata, Japan, Asia
December 7th 2008
Hey all. I realized a few days back that I needed to renew my driver's license.. I thought it'll be a nice day in Yamagata, until I saw that it started snowing.. few pictures of what it looked like the night before and what it looked like this morning.. I woke up around 6:30am.. had breakfast, and got ready.. It takes about one and a half hours to get to the "Yamagata Prefecture Traffic Safety Society", or what we call "Road and Transport Department" back home.. this is where I first got my Japanese driver's license, after passing the exams. No need to take up classes, since I already have a Malaysian driver's license.. just pass the exam and you get to drive in Japan.. Anyway.. along the way I noticed how slow everyone was driving.. ... read more
December 6th 2008
Hey all. At the moment, Liva is back in Latvia to finish her studies, and I'm currently pursuing my Master's Degree at Yamagata University. So, I guess there won't be much updates until Liva comes back in the summer. Anyway, most of our travels were done in the past, so I'll update this blog with previous travel stuff. Lots of pictures, so it'll take some time.... read more
October 27th 2008
We raced down to Nagoya from Hakodate on a local train and 2 Shinkansen to meet up with Chris and Soren, our friends from the Blue Mountains. They have been here on an exchange with the Blue Mountains' Sister City of Sanda. It was great to share stories and pictures of each of us in Japan. They had some great adventures and had worked hard. They were really ready to go home after 3 weeks. It was interesting to hear about Japanese traditional ways of protecting the environment and to see their photos. I really like the photos of person who made masks from natural forest forage: those who know Chris and Soren we recommend that you go hear their talk on their trip. We enjoyed going up the tallest building in Nagoya: 41 floors on ... read more
September 8th 2008
In Sendai we have this weekly newspaper called, Sendai Weekly. It's a lot like the Independent in Raleigh. It has ads for restaurants, concerts, coupons, and articles about things that are happening around or in Sendai. It's in Japanese but I have been going through it and practicing my Japanese and trying to learn new kanji and vocabulary. It is fall, or becoming fall, up in Tohoku, so most of the newspaper is about things that families can do together in the fall. This weeks Weekly was about Yamagata; which is the next prefecture over from Miyagi. There were ads for pear and grape picking, and for Imo-ni in Yamagata. Imo-ni is a Japanese potato stew that is famous in Yamagata and Miyagi Prefectures. "imo" means potato and the "ni" is a way to say in ... read more
July 21st 2008
I finally made it to Zao-san! Zao is one of the top national parks in Tohoku and I am so glad that I got there! Zao-san is a sleeping volcano that has a beautiful crater lake that is said to have 5 different colors. The Japanese characters mean "5 color lake" I believe. The easiest way to get there is by car because the buses that run from Sendai and Yamagata Station run on an odd schedule and only stay for an hour (in the case of the bus from Sendai. With a car you can stay or move on up the mountain as you please. My co-worker made a friend at the International Center and after we met yesterday we made plans to drive out to Zao-san. It takes about a hour and a half ... read more
November 26th 2007
So today was a fun eccentric day trip for the weekend. I got most of my house work done on Sunday so I searched through my LP to find a good day trip for today. As I was reading through Yamagata I found Tendo. According to the LP, Tendo makes 90% of all Japanese chess pieces, or Shoji. Since I had such fun at Ishinomaki I thought this Tendo and its shoji were just the place for a good day trip. Tendo is famous for having a 'ningen shoji', or human chess game in April I believe. I already looked to see if I could participate but no women allowed. My co and I are so going to be there though. I set out early this morning and made the 8:47am rapid train toward Yamagata and ... read more
October 22nd 2007
Yamadera or Risshaku-ji is absolutely amazing and anybody who is in Sendai or Yamagata needs to go there and do the extended hike up. It makes the trip up to Yamadera so much more worth it. Especially if your around for the changing of the leaves. At 10:50am my co and I caught a rapid express train out to Yamadera. It takes about 50 minutes and around 820yen on the Senzan Line. Though, you could just pay the least amount and get away with it because there never seems to be anybody getting tickets at Omoshiro-yama. Though I am not sure about Yamadera station either. My co had been to Yamadera before and knew of the perfect hike along the river if we got off at the stop before Yamadera; which was Omoshiro-yama. When leaving Omoshiro-yama ... read more
September 6th 2007
After six or so trips you’d think we would run out of things to say about Japan and if we kept going to the same places each time that might be true but Japan is a country of many contrasts and Tohuku (northern Honshu) proved to be different again to anywhere we had been before. They had had a very hot summer (as many oher areas of the world thse days seem to) and even though it was late summer when we were ther it was still reasonably hot and humid away from the mountains. In late summer, the rural and almost isolated parts of Japan where we traveled were green and lush with farmers tending the ripe rice fields and summer vegetable crops. The mountains were densely covered with forests with the occasional ski run ... read more
May 13th 2006
Yesterday I took a trip to an area called Yamagata, about a 2 hour train ride away. Located in the small village is Yamadera, a mountain monastery west of Fukushima. Yamadera has a collection of shrines and temples along the side of a mountain. There are stairs that lead you to the top of the mountain for some breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains and valley. The trees that grow along the sides of the mountain are huge. I was also able to see a few remaining cherry blossom trees since it is much cooler in this part of Japan, where in Tokyo and more Southern regions, the blossom season is finished. We were the only tourists at the mountain- the rest of the visitors were schoolgirls and Japanese residents who had made the pilgrimage to ... read more
August 20th 2002
Yamagata is a friendly city that is working to improve its appeal to travellers. Yamagata has at least 1 hotspring in each of its 44 municipalities.... read more
