Blogs from Nagano, Japan, Asia - page 12

I had such an enjoyable day today. There was a little festival being held at the local library and museum, so my supervisor took me there in the morning so I could help out. They had set up lots of games, quizzes, treasure hunts and arts and crafts for the kids to do (it is still the summer holidays for another week). I helped out on a little arts stall making craft cookies and sweets to stick on a little model of the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel. The kids were so cute, mainly quite young ones. For lunch I got my first taste of tacoyaki - who knew quite how delicious fried octopus balls were! I think it is a festival speciality from Osaka. In the afternoon they had a children's entertainer who did ... read more

The weekend came as a very welcome break. The first few days were so packed with sorting stuff - bank accounts, alien registration (just call me ET), introductions etc. The villagers of Takagi and my board of education had been so welcoming, but I really needed some time to chill out. Thank God for the Ringon festival! One of the other local JET teachers picked me up on Saturday afternoon and a group of us, a mixture of new teachers, people who had been there for two or three years and some of the privately hired teachers in the area, joined together for Iida City's Ringon (Apple) festival. The city (which is actually more like a town - quite spread out), was buzzing. There were dance displays by local community groups and school children, drumming displays, ... read more

My new house is really quite splendid and I still can’t quite believe how lucky I am! They dropped me off about 4pm after a short 5 minute drive from Takagi up a steep and winding mountain road. Tomida is quite rural with lots of rice fields, a few houses and one small shop. My house looks small from the outside but feels very spacious. Two fair size rooms, with traditional tatami mat floors and paper screens for walls, form the living room and bedroom. There is a lovely wet room with show and bath, small wash room with sink, washing machine and dryer and a separate toilet with a HEATED seat! For winter month botty toasting. The previous teacher here, Paul, has warned me the house gets very cold in winter. There is air-con in ... read more

Destination: Lake Nojiri, Nagano Prefecture (Distance from Tokyo: 256km, approximately 160 miles) Map → http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/nagano/togakusi_kurohime.html　 Date: September, 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gosh! Another big earthquake hit this country last month. That was crazy, even though people are used to having frequent quakes here. On top of that, the nuclear power plant in Fukushima has got in a serious situation which is definitely not a frequent thing. Radioactivity is falling out and has scattered all over the nation. Japan is now under the umbrella of fatal radiation everywhere. Maybe people should run away from the contaminated Japanese soil as early as possible and as far as possible. Can you believe that?? If you want to believe, fine. You are totally safe. But if you don’t ... read more

Destination: Kurumayama Plateau, Nagano Prefecture (Distance from Tokyo: 195km, approximately 122 miles) Map → http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/nagano/sirakabako_yatugatake.html 　 Date: August, 2007 --------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- Most of us, I believe, want to keep dreaming of a good dream and don’t want to wake up halfway through to the end of a fantasy story. Maybe you wanna hire Leonardo DiCaprio to make your dream more enjoyable. But the power of nature just wakes you up every morning and your escape from the reality is over. The dream time of my wife and her friends was also over next morning after the brilliant stars were gone. But lucky enough for them, they were still able to put themselves in a dreamy world in Nagano. Kurumayama Plateau welcomed the ladies with t... read more