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      • American World
        09/30/07


        Tired of the izakaya scene in Kitakami? Maybe it's time to come to American World! Its combination of shopping, restaurants, and amusements seems to be very attractive to young people in Kitakami. I can't say it's all that American the bookstore has hardly any books in

      • Sunset Rice
        09/29/07


        The last golden rays of the sun, heralding the coming of nightfall, light the last golden ears of rice, heralding the coming of autumn.

      • Dressing for Winter
        09/29/07
        I'm in the market for a winter coat. I didn't bring the one I used in Washington because a) it was a mid-calf length wool coat, which would have been too heavy and bulky to pack or ship; and b) it was from about forty pounds ago. So now I'm faced with the short versus long coat conu

      • Demon Moths of Kitakami
        09/28/07
        Some of the successful spiders here outdoor ones, that is have grown quite large. And the largest ones are the ones that have built webs on street lights, which attract bugs by the swarm.

        Last week, while walking the dogs at night, we saw something quite large hanging from a web on a

      • The Joy of Convenience
        09/28/07
        Like in America, the end of the month means bill-paying time. So today, I took the bills and some cash over to the convenience store, grabbed a snack, and paid for it and the bills at the same time. That's right. We pay our bills at the convenience store, which is very common in Japan. For

      • Innovative Use of Color
        09/27/07


        Memo to Sunduell (Sundwell) Apartments: just because you have the paint doesn't mean you have to use it.

      • Whoosh!
        09/26/07


        The other day, we were at the station to see off some visitors. We decided to spring for the "platform pass" that would let us onto the shinkansen platform, so we could see them all the way to the train.

        After their train left, we stayed on the platform a while to t

      • The Bunny Moon
        09/25/07
        Autumn is in full swing here in Kitakami. Windy days, turning leaves, and frigid nights are now routine. For now, we're using our normal covers and sleeping in long underwear, but it won't be long until we have to add the heavier cover futon and switch out the fan for the portable heater

      • Fixed
        09/23/07
        After many months, it was brought to our attention that our blog looked like crap on Internet Explorer. I think it's fixed now.

        In general, we want and expect things to look right on every browser so if you see something that looks wrong, please tell us!

      • Kitakami Swans
        09/22/07


        Kitakami is at least a little famous for its swans. This is actually a recent development, or so we're told. I guess swans migrate through here, and about five or six years ago, a couple of swans somehow got broken wings. Since they could not fly, their whole family (six swans) d

      • Shrine
        09/22/07


        Wherever you go in Japan, it seems you are never far from a Shinto shrine. They are everywhere, tucked between houses in residential areas, on a hillside in the country, or in a narrow space between hotels in the heart of Tokyo. Every day on my way to work, I pass this medium-sized one

      • Yo, Ho, Ho!
        09/18/07


        Not too subtle, is it? I wonder if they respect intellectual property rights.

        Don't forget, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Shiver me timbers!

      • Prime Cooking Season
        09/17/07
        Autumn is coming to Kitakami. I know this because the Daily Yamazaki has been touting "Autumn's Good Flavor Fair."



        I couldn't tell you what the DY is contributing in terms of good flavor because the odor drove me out before I had a chance to fully contempl

      • The Right Tool for the Job
        09/16/07
        As they say, if your only tool is a chainsaw hammer, every problem starts to look like a summer camp nail.



        We decided to splurge and get some ingredients to make burritos ($9 for a pack of tortillas and a can of beans?!), but forgot that we didn't have a can opener. For

      • Llama Llama Duck
        09/15/07
        Okay, there isn't actually a llama here. But there are ducks, and they always make me think of the song.


      • Mad Kanji Skillz
        09/14/07
        Japanese is a hard language to learn, between the three writing systems used simultaneously and the fact that kanji can have multiple pronunciations and meanings depending on the context. Nevertheless, studying it is great fun. I've learned approximately fifty kanji by now, which is a drop of

      • Fastech 360
        09/12/07
        Why you should always have a camera ready
        Walking the dogs this morning, I got a special treat: the new shinkansen prototype came by on a test run. JR East doesn't publish the test schedule, but they do notify neighborhoods along the line of what days (and nights) they'll be running

      • High Water
        09/11/07
        Friday's typhoon brought lots of rain, not just here, but also upstream from here. So, the Waga river rose a lot.

        I took this picture on August 27, because I was impressed at how high the water level was. It was deep and fast. There are two tiers of tetrapods here. The lower lev

      • Working Girl
        09/10/07
        I'm finally working, teaching English as expected. Ahhh. Working is nice, even though teaching English is not much like lawyering. There are similarities: lots of preparation, maintaining attention to detail, determining the needs of each class, considering different approaches to meeting t

      • Typhoon!
        09/06/07
        No escaping it this time there's definitely some typhoon going on outside. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the storm is powering up the middle of Honshu, so we're in for a drenching. It started raining hard at around 6:30 this morning, and has continued throughout the day.

      • Waiting for Nattou
        09/06/07
        My Japanese teacher lives near a pretty fantastic grocery store that I've started doing my Thursday shopping at for one main reason: it carries Akita nattou. Upon learning that he liked nattou, one of Matthew's students told him that he needed to try the really tasty nattou from Akita Pr

      • Let's Biiru!
        09/06/07


        Just some gift beer we enjoyed last night. Yum! The brewery is in Morioka (about an hour train ride away).

      • Beautiful Day
        09/03/07


        A glass of wine, some late summer fruit, and a picnic overlooking the Waga river. Who could ask for anything more? Even the dogs seemed to enjoy the fantastic weather.

      • Autumn already?
        09/03/07


        We had some hot days in August, but summer here is short occasional splashes of yellow and orange are already appearing in the foliage.

      • La Vida de los Inmigrantes
        09/03/07
        Matthew and I just returned from a trip to the post office to send money to our bank in America. We kept our house in Silver Spring with its attendant mortgage, and I still have financial obligations related to my law license, so here we are: people who need to send money back to the home country.

      • Kintaro
        09/02/07


        Kintaro is a hero of Japanese legend, a little boy riding a bear and wielding an axe. It's also the official nickname of the JR Freight EH500 locomotive. This one is northbound pulling a train of container flatcars.

      • Paris in Japan
        09/01/07
        I've always liked the rather romantic descriptions of life in Paris that involve someone doing the dinner shopping every day, usually on the way home from work. More specifically, I like the image of riding home on one's bike, baguette under the arm. That's not too far off from how

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