Ubuyama

Today I woke up at 7:00, donned my blue firefighter uniform, stepped into my shiny black rainboots, and drilled until noon with all of the men of the Ubuyama Fire Brigade. As the token foreigner in the force, it is usually my job to hold my regiment’s flag, and present it whenever the command “kiritsu!” … Continue reading »

This picture is how I have been feeling for the past two weeks. The weather has been improving and the buds on the sakura trees are about to bust open, but I am in a cloudy mood. There are beams of light piercing through the ominous layers, but they are in the background and overwhelmed … Continue reading »

The Japanese educational system is so frusterating sometimes. It seems that the head honchos on one side and the grunts on the other are working with very different agendas, completely seperated while working on the very same projects. They call the shots based on inferences, deductions, hypothesis, research, and other forms of information processing yet … Continue reading »

Taken at Ubuyama Bokujo. What you can’t see (to the bottom right, beyond the frame) is a big treaded set of tracks that told of multiple snow donuts on the tractor. Snow. Yuuto kun atop a mini-mountain of snow. Tried boarding down here, but it wasn’t steep enough.

Snow is dumping down on my village right now, and the roads have been covered in a blanket of snow three inches thick. Thank goodness that I am driving the Yakuba’s Nissan Wingroad with AWD and snowtires, or else I would have to break out the chains (although it sucks driving a car with no … Continue reading »

An earthquake just hit me right now. It was small and only rattled the house for about 10 seconds, and if I was asleep I would have never known. I will take it as a good omen (hahaha, we shall see!). Less than 2 days until I leave Japan… California, warm weather, and possibly more … Continue reading »

Yesterday I went to visit the windmill at Ubuyama Bokujo (Farm) after work. The windmill stands alone, humming and whining in the wind, and becons people from all over Japan to drive up our country roads into my slice of BFE. When I tell people that I live in Ubuyama, I am always surprised to … Continue reading »

I just wrote this for my village’s newspaper. It will be interested to see what people think of it when I come back from Christmas break. Americans are generally very impressed at the Japanese traditional arts and their complex sense of aesthetics (or they pretend to be in order to appear “cultured”). Many people marvel … Continue reading »

Yoroku? Nashi! Musuko wakakata? Nashi! Yabakatta? So, Amerika! (American coffee the bandits explain, is ridiculously weak. Like a stolen piece of junk, it does not do anything for one). Aitsu jibun o nani-sama da to omotte yagarun da? Taka ga eda hagi da ze. (Who the fuck does he think he is? He’s nothing more … Continue reading »