Four Hundred Days Til Re-entry

Sunday photobloging - 1 What's it like?

One question I often get asked is, "what's Japan like?" I often get a bit depressed by this question. Say what you mean! Tell me what you want to know! I suppose what people mean is, "what is it like near where you live?" I can begin to answer this one.

The place where I live is arranged in three rings: In the middle is the lake. Next is the farming bit where I live. Round the outside are the mountains, like the one in the picture. The one in the picture is Ibuki, the nearest place for snowboarding / skiing. Though it might look quite rural we are on the main routes from Tokyo to Osaka and Kyoto so the bumpkin quotient is relatively low. Head two hours due North and it is like being trapped in the 1950s. The only solace to be found is in the form of a vending machine that sells bottles of whiskey. I shit you not.

The brown stubbly stuff at the bottom of the picture is brown stubble. In a few weeks this will be a paddy-field that will go through the following colour changes - Brown, Muddy brown, Wet muddy brown with green shoots, Green, Golden brown and finally Stubbly brown in the autumn. It will probably be white in the winter a couple of times, too.


You will notice that the snow is almost gone from the top. There is still snow in the northern parts of the country but I have been promising myself to save some money this year and the possible purchase of a bass has precluded that the snow season is over for me. My board is still propped in the entrance hall, twinkling it's bindings at me. I haven't quite managed to put it back in it's bag to hibernate over the summer. I assume theree will be tears, recriminations, frosty silences. Especially in the light of certain instrument purchases.

So unlike the british scenery, which is more or less green, the view from any particular point varies rapidly given the time of year. I have been promising myself I would get it on paper for about two years now, so this is the start of it. Further down the line there will be pictures of old women driving tractors and old men sitting around drinking cans of coffee. I kind of have a moral duty to do something with the new digital camera I bought last summer.

posted by Between daisies @ 12:22