Well, I'm back in Japan.  I just couldn't stay away.  My website hasn't grown the way I had envisioned originally.  I'll blame it all on the stress of senior year in college.  Now that I'm away from all those pressures, and backed by a nice new computer, I'll work on documenting Japan once more... this time through the eyes of a culturally sensative paricipant in the Japan Exchange and Teaching program.

I'll be adding features and updates pretty regularly.  I hope to be able to keep everyone up to date with my life in Japan.

MY PREFECTURE: IBARAKI: the castle of thorns -- Capital: Mito -- Population: 2,972,000 -- Area: 6,094 sq. km. -- Prefectural Flower: Rose -- Prefectural Tree: Ume tree (plum) -- Prefectural Bird: Skylark -- Main Events: Itako Iris Festival, Tsuchiura Fireworks, Kashima-Jingu Festival -- Products: Natto, Melon, Lotus rhizome, Kasama pottery Statues of O-jizo, the Buddhist saint of children and travelers, near my apartment.

My life is now based in Ibaraki Prefecture, and more specifically Taiyo-mura.  This little seaside farming community of roughly 12,000 is my home for the next 1-3 years (however long I wish to extend my tenure with the JET program).  The town is nestled in between the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean and the placid Lake Kitaura (kind of redundant since 'ura' means lake in Japanese).  Taiyo-mura is located in Kashima-gun, the district of southeasternmost Ibaraki.  Kashima, which means 'deer island', is famous for its shrine, complete with sacred deer, and its strong professional soccer team, the 'Antlers'. While Kashima domiantes much of the area, Mito, the Prefectural capital, is about 50 minutes north by train or car.  The population of Taiyo-mura is pretty spread out among fields of rice, sweet potato, melon, tobacco, and all sorts of other produce.  The maitake, a kind of mushroom, are particularly reknowned in Taiyo-mura.  The melons, especially those from Asahi-mura just a little north of here, are also pretty famous. I'm working at the Taiyo Village Board of Education and Taiyo Junior High School.  I'm fortunate to be working with very nice people.  Everyone seems to have boundless energy for helping me with any and all problems, and everyone is very patient with my Japanese langauge abilities.   I team-teach in each of the school's 12 English classes once a week.  That means that in the course of a week I help instruct all 417 of the school's first, second, and third-year students. I'm living in a nice apartment.  Sure, the building may be old, but the apartment is spacious and has a lot of windows to let in light and aid in ventilation.  I have three rooms with tatami-mat floors, a kitchen, a toilet room, and a shower/bath.  From the balcony, you can see the ocean, and on a clear day the mountains of western Ibaraki are visible, including Mt. Tsukuba with it's lovely cleft peak.  My little tiny car helps me get everywhere. It isn't exactly the finest car ever made, but it gets me from here to there. It has the cute little engine noises of Japanese yellow-plate (miniature) cars. And I sometimes feel like a circus clown, climbing into my little car. It's name is 'Bagwan', which, according to my friend Swati, means 'High exalted one' in Gujarati.

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