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 take some photos and enjoy the passing trains. Trains that aren't stopping don't even slow down, so this one may have been going as fast as 275 kph (171 mph).

(For anyone keeping score, this is the E3 Komachi end of an E3/E2 coupled set, heading north. E3 Komachi 6-car trains and E2 Hayate 10-car trains often run coupled together from Tokyo to Morioka, where they split; then Komachi runs west to Akita while Hayate continues north to Hachinohe.)

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) decided to make their home here year round.

You can see the broken wing on the one in front.

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 with well-kept grounds. It's on a strip of land about twenty feet wide, between a parking lot on the left and a house on the right.

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!

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 the record, the hammer didn't work. Faced with the choice between burritos without beans and going out into the rain to get a can opener ― well, it wasn't much of a choice, really. I got wet, and we had beans.

Okay, there isn't actually a llama here. But there are ducks, and they always make me think of the song.

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

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

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.

I've remarked before on how close we feel to nature here. In Kitakami, you're never far from a river or park or rice paddy or other place that is just humming with non-human life, such as these black-winged dragonflies that have been decorating the riverside park all summer.



And yet, even with all this life, there's something missing. There are birds and insects and spiders and fish and even snakes — but no wild animals. In Maryland, our neighborhood was full of squirrels, and we saw plenty of rabbits plus the occasional opossum, fox, or deer. Mice, rats, and raccoons could appear as well. Here, the only mammals we've seen in our neighborhood are domesticated cats and dogs.

Okay, I actually have seen two wild animals here. Once, on the other side of the river, I saw a rabbit. The second animal we saw was probably a raccoon dog, but we only caught a glimpse as it dashed across the road ahead of us on our way back from Miyagi — and that doesn't really count because weren't in a town. Two in five months doesn't seem like much.

There are plenty of wild animals in Japan, and you can find a lot of evidence if you head for the mountains to go hiking. There just aren't any in town, and that seems odd with all the nature that is in town.