what do you see?

Sorry about the lack of news, we've had some quiet weekends recently due to disrupted schedules (training and suchlike). We went to a "family restaurant" (called BLDY for some unknown reason) last Sunday evening - very cheap food and a trying-to-look-American theme, which (like many decor styles here) doesn't quite work although it's hard to pinpoint why...they have an open bar there for only Y580 (despite the "family" name!).

We bumped into someone I knew who was out with a couple of his friends, and ended up joining their table for the evening, somehow managing to communicate with a mixture of high-school learned English (them) and BBC Beginner's Japanese (us).

PS - the popularity of Martha Stewart continues to amaze us...

Finally got a stereo last Monday - ending a 2 month period with almost no music...

Weather still warm, rainy, very rainy, and wet.

Sunday 9th: walked to Shimousa Nakayama - the neighbouring town to us, and discovered a huge temple area, better than anywhere we'd seen so far! There's a very large temple, lots of smaller temples and shrines, a 5-storey pagoda (built in the 17th C. apparently) and a large stone buddha from the 18th C. We spent a long time walking around the area, discovered a pea-green pond full of turtles which swam over as soon as we looked at them. Saw lots of incense burning, peach trees, families on Sunday afternoon outings to visit the ancestors...we were able to go in one of the temples alone which was cool. Later on we bought lunch and some drinks and then spent about 3 hours sitting in a small park in the town (it was too hot to do anything else - about 31C/88F and humid). This is probably the best kept secret in the area (which is known for being suburban and not at all historical!).

Monday 10th: Still very hot and sunny. Got the train out Eastwards, onto the Boso peninsula, and down the East side almost to the bottom, on the Pacific coast. We eventually found a tiny, old-fashioned town which no-one seems to have heard of, with a nice beach and cliffs (after an abortive attempt to visit Katsuura, which is the place recommended in the tourist leaflets, but onlyy consists of lots of concrete hotels, a big leisure centreand a dirty beach next to a large motorway intersection!).

We sat on the beach for a while, went in the ocean a little bit (quite clear water, and lots of surf) and attempted to eat some food - but were stopped by several huge birds of prey (apparently tonbi, or kites) which immediately started circling ominously overhead...one of them even swooped down to attack Christine when she was holding a cookie - she threw herself flat on the ground and said she felt it's wing brush past! No-one else seemed particularly concerned about them, but we eventually had to eat our food in the safety of a temple grounds nearby! The town was very quaint, with hardly anyone around except some very old people. The local store was manned by a man of perhaps 90, who used an abacus to add up our stuff! We walked from the town through a series of tunnels in the (worryingly soft) cliffs, passing a secluded cove full of fishing boats, leathery skinned fishermen, and caves in which they were gutting and descaling the fish. Such a weird but interesting area!

Well, rainy season has officially started here at last! The weather turned very wet (typical rainy season weather of very fine rain almost hanging in the air), and a lot colder yesterday, only about 18C/high 60s F. Today is slightly warmer, and drizzly still.

Anyway that's all for now...pay day tomorrow, at last. And we've both had our final observations (well for about 4 months) which went OK.

it's been a while...last weekend we went to Mt. Takao - It's a small (2000foot/540m) mountain less than an hour by train from Shinnjuku, but very pleasant to walk up through the redwood forest. saw some kind of partridge/grouse, butterflies, a snake and the hugest bee ever - it looked about 2 inches long...anyway, the walk up to the top took about an hour with only a few other people around. When we got to the top of course, there were a couple of hundred people - families picknicking at special tables - plus some vending machines etc...the views were pretty good towards Tokyo and in the direction of Mt. Fuji, but again it was far too hazy to see very much.

We went down by a different route, via a large temple founded in the 8th century that is apparently dedicated to Tengu the long-nosed goblin. Lots of incense in the air and the usual food offerings and statues dressed up with caps and cloaks...



it's been between 28 and 29 degrees C (82-84F) all week, and it looks like it will be about 30C (86F) today. it's also been quite dry, except for the evening a couple of days ago when we decided to leave our futon hanging out all day...and there was what can only be described as a tropical downpour...

anyway, they've planted loads of marigolds on the field opposite our apartment for no apparent reason. And the bizarreness continues, with a group of 5 kindergarten teachers being spotted wheeling some kind of over-sized shopping trolley containing about 15 toddlers past our house, singing nursery rhymes...


better get to work, more soon hopefully!