Home again

I got back from Taiwan safely, and once I've had time to go through my journal notes and photos, I hope to update with more information. But as things are now, I'll just wish you all a happy new year!

Taiwan, here I come

I'm getting ready to walk out the door. I'm heading to Taipei this afternoon, and I'll be staying overnight in Taipei before heading towards the south of the island on Christmas morning. I'll be back in Japan on the 30th, hopefully with a lot of photos and stories. Ni-hao!

SNOW!!

It finally snowed! Woke up yesterday with a good 8-10 centimeters on the ground! (It's supposed to rain tomorrow so a lot of it will probably melt.) The first snow is always a good time for photos, so I got out the camera. Here's a few of the best from yesterday.



Little stainless steel birds on the guardrail.



The entrance to Nakjima Park, right next to the apartment.



Nakajima Park



Ducks in the Izari River.











As you can see, Japanese snowmen are only 2 snowballs, not three.

You're in the M***** F****** space olympics

Holy Moses in a go-kart, it's been a long time since I last wrote anything here.

Life continues to move along at a fairly breakneck pace, at least at work, though that should begin to calm down after this week. I had a few weeks of absurd schedules.

Jon, can you teach for 6 hours on Tuesday, 7 on Wednesday, 4.5 on Thursday and another 6 on Friday?

Um. I guess so. I don't want to, but what choice do I really have?

Actually, it turned out to be not that bad. Oh, don't get me wrong. It wasn't fun. I felt as mentally exhausted as on that Thursday as I can remember. Maybe once my last year of uni when I had two 20 plus page history papers due the same week, but other than that...

But, in fact, I survived that week and last week as well. This week is the last full week before winter vacation, and I'm heading off to Taiwan for a week, followed by a week of relaxing at home, hopefully hitting the slopes - if it ever snows. We've had a serious lack of snow this year, particularly here in Eniwa. We've had accumulation once, and it was actually in late October. That melted in a couple days, and we have only seen flurries since. The temperatures keep yo-yoing up and down, above and below freezing, meaning that even when snow comes, it's not long for this world. Pretty much all of the ski areas have had to postpone their openings, which I'm sure is killing the areas economically, something that really hurts in rural Hokkaido, where things have never recovered after the bubble economy went "POP". I want to do my part for the economy of Rusutsu and Kutchan/Niseko! Come on, snow! Do your thing!

But, yes, Taiwan. The day before Christmas, I'll be flying off to Taiwan, my first overseas trip in two and a half years, when I visited Mongolia. I'm not really sure what I'll be doing there, but that's just the way I roll. I don't really make plans, and so far, it's worked out pretty well for me. The reason for heading to Taiwan? Well, I guess it's because I'm trying to visit all the east Asian countries, and for a winter trip, Taiwan or southern China (People's Republic of) sound better than S. Korea or nothern PRC. I don't have a problem with cold weather, but it does make traveling a little more difficult. Once I've gone to Taiwan, that will leave the Korean peninsula and PRC. The northern part of the Korean peninsula is kind of difficult to get to (though not entirely impossible) and mainland China, well, that'll just have to wait until I have a longer vacation - it's a big place and I think I'd like at least 2 weeks there.

In unrelated news (sorry for the disjointed nature of this post - it's been a while since I've done this blog thingy. I think my branch of the tubes are a bit rusted) I'm just about finished with my first semester of online MA TESOL studying. I'm not sure what to say about it. I can say that it hasn't been a huge challenge, perhaps in part due to having been teaching for 6 years before I started the program. There's been a lot of, "Oh, that has a name? I've been using this for 3 years, and apparently it has a name. That's nice." Of course, there have been some new things and ideas that I can hopefully use in classes going forward. And hopefully this next semester will be slightly more interesting - no methods course next term. It's not that I don't like the methods stuff. It's just that, well, it's a little dry sometimes.

Well, that's all for now. Maybe I'll write again before I head off to Taiwan. More likely, I won't. But I will certainly have something to write after I get back from Taiwan. Until then, adios.

(PS - the title of the post has no connection to the blog. It's just a line from this song.)

I'm in the newspaper! Again!

For what is I think is the fourth time in 6 years, I'm in the newspaper. Click the photo for a newspaper article you probably can't read! I'll translate later, if requested, but it's about the Japanese folk music performance a couple of weekends ago that I participated in with my teacher and another one of his students. (Click the photo for the link)

Autumn colors

Just a couple of photos from the park right behind school. As you can see, it's definitely autumn. Which is normal. It is, after all, late October. We dipped down to around 3 degrees a couple nights ago. That's of course celcius. That's in the upper 30s for my American readers.



So now I've seen three seasons here in Eniwa. I saw the very tail end of winter when I was in the process of getting oriented and meeting all the people at the top here at school. That was back in March, so not winter proper. Just the tail end, with a little snow left on the ground. I hear it gets rather cold and snowy. Can't be any worse that the Twin Cities or Appleton.

He'll be comin' round the mountain...

Here are a few photos from the MTB ride this past week. 100 miles around Mt. Chokai, half on road, half off. Half in the rain. Half not.



One of the check points. Tamasudare Falls, right before an 11-mile climb to the highest point.



And here it is, the highest point on the ride, 860 meters (a little over 2800 feet). It was at the end of 11 miles off road. Extremely grueling, but somehow rewarding.




Here is the scenery at the highest point. It's called Oshimizu. It's about 40 percent up Chokai.



One of the moments of sunshine, looking down from a bridge into a small valley somewhere in Yashima.



And at the second highest point, after a 6 mile on-road climb, a rainbow. Nice.

MTB

It's about a week until the big ride.

It's been 4 years since I was last able to participate, but I'm heading back to Akita next weekend to go for a long bike ride. 100 miles long. Around a big mountain (Chokai), about half off road, half on. I haven't been able to do as much mountain trail training as I would have liked, because the hills around here are either full of country clubs or self defense force training grounds, neither of which I'm allowed on. I did do 80km (approximately 50 miles) last weekend to Sapporo and back via a mountain road in good time, and felt ready for it again the next day, which I took as a pretty good sign that my legs are ready for it. I'm excited, and hopefully I'll be able to take some photos of the ride.

Here's the course, in case anyone cares.

 

The times are when the particular gates close, so it you aren't through that gate by then, it's the van back to the start line.

And here's a link to the elevation profile. Three climbs worth mentioning really. One that will be kind of a killer, but that's the challenge. Make that one, and you're most of the way there. Lots of downhill after that.

The ride is next Sunday, the 10th, which happens to be the anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, which was turned into a national holiday, Sports and Health Day. So, I'll go be sporty and healthy.

Musing on school

This is now officially week 4 of my wading into the world of graduate school, albeit in an online, part-time way. I'm working on a masters in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). It's a little strange to be doing things online, because the conversation is asynchronous. My classmates are spread out all over the world, with a fair share in Korea, one in the Republic of Georgia, a few of us in Japan, and the rest (a moajority) in the US. So, when I'm awake and posting on the Black Board (a university bulletin board and other function program), many others are asleep, so it takes a fair amount of retracking the conversation to figure out a response.

The other thing I have noticed is, well, it's really not challenging me very much yet. Admittedly, it's only week 4, but I haven't felt any struggle to keep up with the work or figure out any of the ideas. Sure, there have been moments when I'm reading, either a published work or a colleague's comment, when I've thaought to myself, "Oh, that's a good idea. That makes a lot of sense." I mean, I've had two "papers" (only 500 and 1000 words) so far that I basically just tossed off in a few minutes and got nothing but positive comments on.

But mostly, it's been putting into academic terms a lot of the things I already knew. It is good for me because it's reminding me that I need to work on my classroom management, though a lot of time, I feel like the ideas in the books are nice in theory, but in a classroom of 45 Japanese 20 year olds, of whom only a handful really want to study English, some of those ideas get lost in the shuffle.

But these first two courses aren't the ones that, looking at the degree requirements, interest me the most. Those will come a little later. "English in the World" is something that is of particular interest to me. And while it's kind of nice in some ways to be having an easy time, here's hoping for a little more challenge to come.

In other news, I've registered to go ride 160km (approximately 100 miles) around Mt. Chokai, down in Akita and Yamagata, next month. It'll be my first Chokai MTB ride in 4 years and I'm really looking forward to it. It'll be my first major ride on the new bike. Should be awesome, if tiring.

A cement company you can really believe in

Summer Vacation Photos! Finally!

Rather than post all thirty photos individually, here's a slide show of photos from my summer vacation, finally. Mostly, they're from Akita, with a few from Aomori and Hokkaido. And you can always check out my picasa albums here.

I'm a grad student...apparently

So, this week, I began working on an MA in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) online, through the New School, a university in NYC.

And today, I'm reading an assigned reading concerned with learner assessment (the title of the chapter is called "Changing Paradigms for Assessment" by one Anne Katz, who ever she may be. And I come across a block quote talking about the history of testing which reads as follows (emphasis mine):

Jephthat (Judges 12:5) ordered that all those who approached the Jordan fords unable to pronounce the word "shibboleth" should be killed. By doing so, he distinguished between his own men and those of the enemy, who could not say the sound "sh." Thus, those who came with the password pronounced as "sibboleth" failed a very effective, early, criterion-referenced achievement test and recieved immediate feedback. (From someone named Betrand's work in 1981, on page 18)

Now, this is either a candidate for comedic understatement of the year or it's an example of what so many people hate about academic writing. To call being killed for failing to pass a test - yeah, I can't argue the fact that it is immediate feedback. But that's such a sterilized way to put it.

Some more photos

Here are a few photos from the last few days, while my father has been here in Hokkaido.



Some hydrangeas on the path up towards Bifue Falls.



Bifue Falls



Bifue Falls and blue sky



More Bifue Falls



One more. It's a really beautiful waterfall.



The footbridge across the river on the path to Bifue Falls.



My father on the footbridge



The river, as seen from the footbridge.




The copper vats at Otaru Beer

A day of outdoor sculpturing

Went to Sapporo's Geijutsu no Mori (Art Forrest) and Ishiyama Park. We saw lots of outdoor art. And here are a few photos.




Everyone do the wave!



Oooohh! Shiny! And Curvy!



Stone arch in an old quarry turned park.



Interactive (cliimable) art is awesome!



And so are lizards! This counts as a wild animal in the big city.

My first Costco experience (Or the worst of American consumer culture comes to Japan)

This past weekend, I had my first experience going to Costco. There's one up in Sapporo, on the road that we take when we drive up from Eniwa to the city. It takes maybe 20 or 30 minutes, depending on traffic. I had never set foot in a Costco before this. I had been to a Sam's Club once, back in university when I made a trip with some teammates from the ultimate team as we were preparing for a spring break trip to a tournament in Georgia. We were going to be camping for a week, with 25 people, so large quantities of food stuffs were essential.

But that's been my only experience with these gargantuan members only mega-box stores.

So, on Saturday, my girlfriend wanted to go to Costco and become a member so she can go every now and again. I begrudgingly said yes, even though I wasn't really excited to go. I'm not really a big fan of the standard big-box stores. I'll go to them, if I have a definite shopping list.

But these uber-stores are completely unappealing, even if I have a defined shopping list. There's just something about them that gives me the impression that people are buying a lot of crap just because they can. Not because they really need it. I mean, who really needs to buy 5 pounds of potatos in a single go? Who needs 24 gigantic muffins at a time? For the fomer, restaurants. The latter, an office that has a communal kitchen with donuts and the like. But an individual, or even a family? Sorry. I can't see it.

So we enter into Costco, and up front, when my girlfriend asks me, I tell her that, no, I'm not excited about coming. In fact, I'm looking forward to this about as much as a root canal. But I'm willing to be a good trooper for an hour or so. And my things that are likely to be objectionable to the store make themselves apparent to me immediately. For starters, the shopping carts that are larger than a Mini Cooper. Seriously, who needs to put a set of tires in a shopping cart. And then there's the fact that you do not have the option of taking the stairs down from the roof parking to the floor. I'm the type of guy who prefers to take stair up or down anything that's less than 4 floors, often more. But you don't have that option here. It's either take the moving, sloped walkway or the elevator.

And then there's the fact that to even enter the sales floor, you or someone in your party must be a member of their (not very) exclusive club. I'm sorry, but how do I know whether or not I want to be a member if I don't get to have a look see before I commit \4000. Which is admittedly a moot point, as I had zero desire to become a member before I went, and now that I have been, I have even less desire.

There's also a lot of attempts to make the place and the workers more Americanized. The name tags are written in the Roman alphabet, with only the workers' given names. Assuredly, everyone who would go to Costo can read Japanese names written in their Romanized forms. But still, a bit odd. And there was the urinal, which was an American Standard brand, when Japan is perfectly capable of making, and in fact probably makes even better than the US. Japan leads the world in toilet technology, aftrer all. Have you seen our heated seat, bidet and spray weilding, mountain stream sound producing to mask your urination, toilets with high and low flow flushes?

But for some reason, the urinals were American. As were the paper cups and lids at the concession stand, manned by an appropriately surly employee. Japanese sales staff are usually obnoxious in their chipperness. It's one of those things that makes foreigners think that Japanese people are super polite.* Having grown up in the States, where the phrase "Buy American" carries a certain weight, using American paper cups and lids, when Japan produces plenty of these items domestically, seemed a little strange. Admittedly, Japan's unemployment numbers are lower than in the States, but the numbers are still high by Japanese norms.

And then there was the store itself. Or should I say the warehouse. Because that's really what a Costco is. It's a warehouse that happens to be used as a store. Maybe for some, that's part of the appeal of these places. But for me, it's a complete turn off. I don't mind shopping in a warehouse when it's a goofy warehouse wholesale clearance kind of thing. But for buying my groceries? Nope. Not cool. And the fact that everything is in bulk. Again, for some folks, that's convenient. Buy food or ballpoint pens or what ever it is for the next decade. But it's not as though the prices of most of the items were that good. Sure, some of the prices were great. But a lot of the items we looked at, the things we eat every week, were no cheaper, and in some cases more expensive than at our local supermarket.

The one good thing I will say for Costco is this. They have chunky peanut butter. Which I love. It's not something that you can find in every grocery store in Japan. It's not as though it's impossible to find. But as often as not, there is no chunky. Only creamy. So we did buy a giant tub of Skippy chunky peanut butter. And a giant jar of pickles, and some feta cheese.

We spent about \3000 at Costco, which is probably about as little as anyone could expect to spend there. And if I can help it, I won't be going back very often. If the girlfriend wants to go, I'll drop her off and tell her to call me when she's done. I'll be somewhere else.

*They are, in certain settings. In other settings, Japanese people are incredibly rude.

(Bad) Trends in Japanese fashion

Now, I'm no fashion maven. I'm not going to be the next Giorgio Armani or Calvin Klein. I don't dress like a slob, but I'm by no means the most fashionable guy on the block. But there is a trend here in Japan that just needs to stop. Well, there's more than a single fashion trend that needs to end - ugg boots, EVERY SINGLE young woman between 18 and 20 wearing black tights under shorts or a skirt, guys with glam rock/host hair, J-mullets to name a few - but there is one that I've noticed a lot recently.

It's this.

These flower print overall type things. When the item of clothing in question is some solid color, often an earth tone, it's not that bad. But the flower print ones just remind me of something some grandma in Boca Raton might wear to try to not look like a grandma, but in doing so only emphasizes how grandmotherly she is.

Either that, or these overall type garment looks like pajamas.

So, anyway, that's the end of my fashion blogging. Probably forever. Or at least until the next obnoxiously omnipresent fashion trend hits the around 20 group.

学園祭

So today was the school festival. It was a good time, with lots of food, dancing (both Yosakoi - a Japanese dance, and hip-hop dancing), a fashion show courtesy of our sister school in Sapporo, a trivia quiz contest, and right before the bingo game, a torrential downpour which preempted the bingo game. Sorry that the vertical photos in the slideshow are so small, but all you need to do is click on the slidshow, and it'll take you to the online album so you can see the photos full sized.

My town

So, now that I've been here in Eniwa for about three months, I feel I've got a pretty good feel for the town, at least in some ways. Enough to paint a basic picture of where I live.

Eniwa, yet another Ainu derived name in Hokkaido*, is a town just outside of Sapporo, the largest city in Hokkaido. As such, much of Eniwa has a very suburban feel to it. We have our share of strip malls and planned communities. We also have 4 train stations in a city of fewer than 70,000 people. There is legitimate reason, as there are three distinct parts of the town. There's old Eniwa, which was originally known as Isari, which is between the old route of the national highway and the newer bypass version of the same highway. There's also Shimamatsu, which was a separate village once upon a time. Isari and Shimamatsu were always rather close, but that's normal for Japan. Towns and villages are not far from one another. The two villages merged into Eniwa in 1897. So, all of that is to say that the older parts of town are, well, at least a little bit old, by Hokkaido standards, at any rate.

Shimamatsu and the former Isari (central Eniwa) account for two of the stations, with a third serving the Megumino district. This is a much more newly developed area of town, and it bridges the area between Shimamatsu and central Eniwa. Megumino is the home of my school, as well as being a very typical bedroom community, serving as a suburban commuter community for Sapporo. There is very little in the Megumino district other than residential areas. The area immediately around the station has a few shops and restaurants, but not much to speak of. The fourth and final station serves the major Sapporo Brewery here in town. Sapporo** is, of course, one of Japan's big 4 beer brewers, and one of it's 5 breweries in Japan is located here in Eniwa. You can go on tours and stop at the restaurant for grilled lamb, a Hokkaido specialty.

There are also quite a few major factories in town, including the above mentioned Sapporo Beer brewery. There are a couple of bread companies, a kimchi factory, and other more mecahnical oriented factories, mostly on the south side of town. Japan didn't follow the same pattern as the States, in that the suburbs aren't exclusively bedroom communities. In fact, the corridor running south from Sapporo all the way down to Tomakomai (on the southern coast of Hokkaido) is fairly industrial.

The city is flanked on the west by a small volcanic mountain range, centered around Lake Shikotsu, the caldera lake about 30km from my place here in town. To the east is farm land, lots of farm land. In the distance to the east is another small outcrop of mountains - large hills really. Here in town proper, everything is quite flat. Which makes it somewhat different from the other two places I have lived here in Japan. The Isari River runs from the mountains in the west into the Chitose River, and, after joining other rivers, finally empties into the sea.



Eniwa, besides being the home to a major brewery, a kimchi processing plant and assundry heavier industries, is also the home to three post secondary learning institutions of various stripes. Of course, Hokkaido High Technology/Eco Communication College, where I teach, offers many different vocational training courses. Besides my school, there is also a school that trains future pysical therapists and rehabilitaion specialists. And then there is Hokkaido Bunkyo University, which offers both two and four year degrees. While none of the schools are incredibly large - they are all smaller than my high school*** - it does mean that there is a noticable population of young adults here in Eniwa. Or at least they are noticable where I live, which is just outside of Megumino, and near a lot of apartments, which house many students from the various institutions.

The other noticable population group in Eniwa is the Jieitai, or Self Defence Force (SDF) members. The SDF is more or less the Japanese army. Japan is not allowed, constitutionally, to maintain an actual army. One of the lasting legacies of WWII is Japan's constitutionally enshrined pacifism. The constitution, drafted in large part by the occupying Americans but now embraced by the majority of Japanese people, renounces the right to declare war. It also prohibits Japan from fielding an army. Even the SDF is considered by a few to be unconstitutional. An emphasis on few. The SDF serves in support and humanitarian roles, strictly non-combat. It was a big deal when, a few years ago, the diet (parliament) approved the idea of mutual self-defence. That is, the right to discharge their weapons to act in defense of an ally. This is because Japanese SDF troops were serving in a technical/rebuilding function in Iraq. Before the diet approved the mutual self-defense, if US or UK troops - Japanese allies - were being attacked, SDF units were not allowed to defend the allied units. Only if Japanese units came under fire were they allowed to return fire.

Which is all only tangentially related to the point that Eniwa has a lot of SDF members here in town. He happen to have two bases of some description within the city limits. Two of my neighbors count among the ranks of the SDF. Combined with the air SDF base in Chitose, the city immediately south of here, we always have military vehicles of various shapes and sizes driving down the highway.

The one other segment of the population I feel is worth mentioning is the car guys. Now, having lived in Aurora, Illinois for a good decade, I am well acquainted with car guys. I don't mean simple motorheads. I mean the low-rider crowd. The ones who deck out their cars with all kinds of goofy shit. Certanly, the cars with their hydraulics are amusing and entertaining in the local Labor Day parade, but I'm just not much of a car guy. Hell, I haven't ever washed my current car. Seriously. In 4 plus years, a sponge has never touched my car. Neither have the water jets of the carwash. My bicycle gets much better care.

But here in Eniwa, as back in Aurora, there are plenty of folks who was their cars nearly every week, I have to assume. It's not so much with the old Lincoln Continental or Chevy Impala style cars here. Rather, there are two categories of car that get majorly accessorized: the sports cars and the mini-vans. That's right, the mini-vans. The sports cars are perfectly understandable. It's the mini-vans that are slightly mind boggling. By no means, is it Eniwa alone that has this phenomenon. It's a Japan thing. Eniwa has more than it's fair share of decked out mini-vans and cars with the obnoxiously loud fart-cannon tailpipes. And lots of neon trim.

Another interesting facet of life here is that there is no proper police station in town. We only have what are known as police boxes here in town. A police box is basically a tiny little building with a few officers assigned to it. One of the police boxes is about the size of a large American bedroom, while the other one I have seen is closer in size to a double wide. I'm not sure if that speaks to the lack of funding for police in the area, or, more likely, the relative lack of need for a major police presence here in Eniwa. The nearest police station proper is down in Chitose.

Supposedly, Eniwa is noted for it's flowers, which I have to take on faith, as I know very little about flowers and honestly have very little interest in them. But that seems to be one of the selling points of the town. Particularly Megumino. The michi-no-eki (kind of a Japanese travel oasis along a major highway) is called Flower Road. And there are many maps indicating the best places for different flowers.

One thing I do know and can attest to is that Eniwa has many parks, which is never a bad thing. My route to and from shool takes me through a long narrow park that runs most of the breadth of Megumino and has a man-made stream running through it. My apartment fronts onto another nice park, this one along the Isari River. There is also Eniwa Park on the far side of town, and Furusato Park, near Eniwa Station. All of which makes Eniwa, while a bit quiet, at the very least pleasant.

Well, that's a rough idea of what this town is about and what it's like. While it's a bit long winded and rambly, I hope that gives those who are planning on visiting at some point an idea of what to expect, and for those unlikely to visit a mental image of where I am spending my time, hopefully for a few years at the very least. Moving, while exciting, is exhausting.

*It means Pointy Moutain. The name originally applied to the nearby mountain. It later was appropriated as the name of the village (later city) as well.

**The company, not the city. Though the former is named for the latter.

***Admittedly, my high school had 2500 students when I attended.

More photos!

Here are some more photos. Haven't had any time to write due to a generally busy schedule.



Went back to Lake Shikotsu a couple weekends ago, this time to go to a gully that looked pretty cool, by the photos. It was very anti-climactic, as you aren't actually allowed into the gully due to fear of falling rocks. So I just have this picture of some ferns in the woods leading up to the gully.



I love this shop, on the shores of Lake Shikotsu. It's so old school Japanese.





This past weekend we went to Otaru and Sapporo. Otaru has a nice art deco style train station. Hard to see in this photo.



My giant hand! At the railroad museum in Otaru.



And the same shot of Chiemi.



"The hand that scolds the wheel." If that's not a saying, it should be. I have no idea what it would mean. But that's ok.



The old train that shuttles patrons to the museum around (all of 300 or so meters. But still.)



Inside one of the trains.



Sapporo fountain at night.



Sapporo's TV tower, with above fountain in the foreground.

And that's all for now!

Here's me playing the Tsugaru shamisen with my teacher (The older man with the blue kimono) and another (advanced) student.

My school's TV adverts

I saw these for the first time today.

They are the TV spots that we run (apparently).

The first one is for the Hokkaido High Technology College.





They are saying things like, "knowledge" "skill" "ability" - and then the last guy says "Stretch/Grow. Hokkaido High Technology College."

The second one (which is much cuter) is the one for the Hokkaido Eco Communication College.



The bird/dog is saying "Eco! Eco!" Then the voice over people ask, "Dog?" "Bird?" "What?" "It's call is "Eco" so isn't it an Eco?" "Elephant?" "Sheep?" "Huh!?" "They're Ecos!" And the song lyrics are "Animal vocational school, Hokkaido Eco!"

So, that's the PR my school is doing on the picture box.

Another, unrelated comment about work. Not only do I work at a school that is the home of an emu, mara, several big pigs and the like, but it is also the home to the fastest woman EVER in Japan. Seriously.  We have a track and field club. And by club, I mean, international, Olympic qualifying athlete track and field club. And the Japanese record holder in the women's 100m run is a member (and graduate of the school). We also have an world class hurdler and a world class Paralympian, who I happened to talk to on the telephone last week, helping set up some accommodations in Miami for an international Paralympic event.

Where I live

Just a few photos of the area immediately around my apartment.



The building on the right, kind of a pale green, that's our building. The trees across the street are in Nakajima Park. It's not all trees. Just the part across from our place. There's a running path, jungle gym, tennis courts, an athletic ground.



The green belt running along the Isari River, along with a train and Mt. Eniwa in the background.



The Isari River, a mere 100 meters or so from our place.



Perhaps the strangest cigarette ad I've ever seen.