what do you see?

Well it's been hot here! Yesterday up to 30C, today 31C! The hottest place in Japan, which is ridiculous. But it's not humid, it's breezy, and the temperature drops off quickly in the evening and night, so it's not nearly as bad as Tokyo. We're getting to like Kitami now, and starting to discover nicer parts of it, some bars, restaurants, shops etc.

Hi from Hokkaido! It's our second morning here now, in our small but fairly pleasant weekly apartment. We had a really good time in Nara, which is a lot smaller and less hectic than Kyoto. The deer park was a rare chance to actually sit outside on some nice grass within a Japanese city. Then our 9 hour bus ride overnight back to Tokyo...not so bad. The bus was very comfortable (a far cry from National Express!). We killed a few hours sitting around, getting coffee and stuff and then took the plane up here!


Kitami City is very spread out, and a little bleak. But, you can see mountains all around, there are lots of flowers, more shops and stuff than we expected (even Mister Donuts!) and people are friendly (not too much staring and comments yet...). Our stuff arrived yesterday afternoon, so we've got our place mostly setup now. We can't get too settled in as we're only here for 5 weeks, and then moving twice again!


We're on dialup internet access for a while now, so not so many updates, and we won't be online as much. Plus there are problems with our email access, not at our end, but with the provider! But please email anyway!

This is our second evening in Kyoto. The ryokan has internet access, so I'm taking the opportunity to blog...this ryokan is certainly interesting, run by a slightly crazy obaasan....when we arrived we were told someone else had asked to stay an extra night, so we had to stay in a different room - extremely tiny (3 tatami mats if that means anything), for one person really, so when our 2 futons were down they filled all the floor space! The place seemed nice enough though, so we decided to stay, and managed to get a little money off the rate she offered us. on condition we could move to the proper room the next day...we have now moved, and the room is excellent, so no problems, except she tried to fleece us on our change when we paid (first time in Japan!). So, she's a bit dodgy, and also very disorganised, but the inn is OK, good location, free hot and cold drinks etc., plus she keeps giving us bananas to make it up!

OK, this is the last blog from Hikari Heights! We're almost packed up now, so it's time to box up the computer for it's journey....so long for now!

Well we got through Nova! It's weird (and nice) to not be working on a Saturday! Usually the worst day of the week, very busy and noisy...so we're in the middle of packing and tidying up at the moment, before we go out later to meet up with a friend.

You may have noticed a new link (above right) called "more media" - this is a page under construction where I'll put extra stuff like sound clips, video clips, links to interesting sites about Japan and maybe some extra pics that we don't have on the pictures site. Keep checking for updates!

Last day at NOVA today!!!!

Here's a bit more detail about our plans for next week:

Monday - finish packing, stuff is shipped out in the afternoon
Tuesday - finish tidying up and cleaning, meet landlord to return key and demand deposit back. Go to Yokohama or somewhere for one night.
Wednesday - catch shinkansen to Kyoto. Stay in ryokan (Japanese inn)
Thursday - Kyoto again. Stay in ryokan
Friday - go to Nara (nearby small city). Stay in pension (Japanese B&B)
Saturday - Nara, catch overnight bus back to Tokyo in evening (saves on a hotel!)
Sunday - arrive Tokyo very early, slope around until flight to Hokkaido. Go to "weekly mansion".
Monday - stuff arrives in Hokkaido too.

So just to let you all know properly, we're moving to Hokkaido (the northern island of Japan) very soon. Our last day at Nova is this Friday (16th). We move out of our apartment on Tuesday 20th and we fly to Hokkaido on Sunday 25th. In between we'll be going on a little trip to Kyoto and Nara (old cities in the West of Japan). So we'll be out of touch for a while although I'll try to do some blogging if there's a convenient internet cafe or something. Call us on our mobiles if you need us!

The area we're moving to is very rural, with some beautiful countryside. See this link for a few pics. There's not a lot of info out there about our new city, but I managed to find this:

Kitami City
Kitami is famous as an old mint producing city. Early in the Showa era, more than 70% of the world's mint was produced here. Remains from these days are seen in the city. One is a memorial honoring minister Piason, the first minister in Hokkaido. You can learn about long-ago relations between Hokkaido and the U.S. There are many shops for herbs and aromatherapy. Today's Kitami is represented by solar energy. The city gets more sunshine than anywhere else in Japan. Many research projects and international conferences have taken place here, making this city a leader in this field. The famous solar-car race will be coming again soon. When it happens, be there to glimpse the future. In October, Kitami holds a chrysanthemum festival, one of biggest and oldest of such festivals in Hokkaido. If you love flowers or gardening, it's well worth a look. One of the highlights is 1,000 chrysanthemum spread like a carpet. To understand Japanese thinking, you must come into contact with the chrysanthemum.

We got woken up at around 1am this morning by an earthquake (there was a smaller one on Saturday during work too)...nothing happened for us except a picture falling ofthe TV (it's our measure of a larger-sized quake!). Now winter's over, more quakes seem to happen, it doesn't make any sense but it always seems to be that way!

FROM JAPANTODAY.COM:

TOKYO -Three people in Tokyo were injured early Monday morning in an earthquake that shook areas centering on Tokyo, Ibaraki and Saitama prefectures with an estimated magnitude of 5.1 on the Richter scale, the Japan Meteorological Agency and the Tokyo Fire Department said.

The quake, which struck at around 12:57 a.m., registered 4 on the Japanese intensity scale of 7 in Tokyo's Koto Ward, the cities of Iwai and Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture, and the towns of Miyashiro and Shiraoka in Saitama Prefecture. No tsunami warnings were issued.

In Tokyo, a 12-year-old junior high school student fell off his bed and broke his right arm, and two other people were injured, the fire department said.

An earthquake with an intensity of 4 is strong enough to awaken most sleeping people but insufficient to cause structural damage to buildings, according to the meteorological agency.

The quake was also felt in Chiba, Gunma, Kawagawa, Miyagi, Fukushima, Niigata, Shizuoka, Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures.

Government seismologists traced the epicenter to about 60 kilometers underground in northwestern Chiba. (Kyodo News)

Sometimes I realise that there are things I see every day that I now take for granted, but that are actually a bit strange. Like female cleaners in mens's toilets (and vice versa apparently), or trains containing businessmen, schoolgirls in sailor outfits, construction workers, middle-aged women in kimonos, older women with shopping bags bent almost double from a life-time of carrying baskets on their backs, and the occasional sumo-wrestler. Or trains that arrive on time every-time!



Picked up a free newspaper today, which was running a picture of Tony Blair on it's front page ("Happy Birthday Tony")! Why?! Inside was the strange mish-mash of stories that are around at the moment: SARS, North Korea, the Pana Wave Laboratory cult driving around Japan in white vans, Tama-chan the seal with a fish hook in it's head and the newly elected member of a local assembly "The Great Saske" - an ex-pro-wrestler who insists on wearing a multi-coloured mask at all times...

The weather's starting to warm-up subtly now, the first hints of the rainy-season/summer humidity are showing. But, in a few weeks we'll be away in Hokkaido where the air stays fresh. There's a lot to do at the moment, sorting out moving our stuff up there...language barrier doesn't help!

We went to Kamakura (3rd time) yesterday, saw lots of temples of course, but failed again to go to the Amish coffee shop. Again mysteriously closed! Freshness Burger was reliable as ever though.