Scenery, farms, and houses

I've thought of many different ways to do this post, but in the end, I decided to just show off the things that I see in my every day life: farms. Yamanashi, my home, has a sister "city" of Iowa! The biggest difference here, is that we're covered in mountains. The name, Yamanashi, literally translates to "mountain pear."
Just a quick story for you:
Since farms are so common in this area, it's also a part of the education here. Our 'tanpopo' kids... those are like special education children... grow vegetables as part of their program. One time this semester, they grew onions, and came to the office to give us all some! I was so excited, recieving freshly grown onions! Seveeral days later, walking home from school, I saw my local Go club owner working on his farm with his wife, picking potatoes. They decided to offer me some... I was expecting 2-3, but instead I recieved 18 potatoes! Freshly grown vegetables for all....
And now, some pictures!

This is a picture of the village down below, from the first bridge I cross to school every day.
These are more things along my path to school every day. In the next picture, the building on the left that says "囲碁” is my local Go club that I go to every Tuesday.


My nearest house neighbor. Really gorgeous house.
Along the pathway from the train station to the shopping mall.



Here is the nearby train station.
This is the path starting up the way of the mountain I have to climb from the station to my house.



This is where the mountain I climb every day gets really steep!
You can start to see how high up the mountain goes.
Nearby neighborhood, I walk through sometimes, going to the shopping mall.Neighborhood farm.
Farm across the street from home.Farm down/across the street from home.
This is a pretty shot. My apartment is in it, though I guess not so visible.
This is actually my kindergarten, but I felt like including it here, since they have such a gorgeous garden. They actually grow all sorts of vegetables there, and everyone at the school gets to eat them. Not only at the school, but also down the street from it, we actually have our own farm. Occasionally after I'm done teaching, I go to the farm to water the vegetables.


Farm by the station.
Near by river with the trainstation in the background.
This is Kofu city, it's my largest nearby city, and the nearest 'large city' for that matter.
Here are some eggplant growing at a local farm down the street from my school.
I figured I'd end with a dramatic picture of the town below. I only just recently found this path.. It goes by the near by middle school and down to the shopping center where I get all my things. So beautiful.

the small creatures and plants post part 1.

Alright this is for those of you that like bugs.. and plants... plants are included. If you didn't know, I work in a Japanese kindergarten, and one of the requirements for this job, is the ability to stand/keep as pets, bugs! Due to this fact, I have become incredibly obsessed with small creatures of all sorts... Below I have posted a bunch of my encounters.. Celes is also incredibly obsessed with plants and various fungus right now, so I have also posted some of these as well, enjoy!

We'll start this post with sex. These are two lady bugs.. I wonder if they're both ladies.. ee is it wrong to say these things about bug sex? Interesting ladybug fact: contrary to common belief, the patterns on the lady bug back have nothing to do with their gender, and not even really their species in most cases, they're just patterns.. like the difference in fur colors on cats and etc. actual size: about 1 CM
Rice growing in kindergarten yard. There are hundreds of little tadpoles swimming in the green rice container.
Pet lobsters at kindergarten. Aren't they cute? I pick them up every friday!
These next two pictures are of a Japanese beetle Larva from two different angles. My kindergarten LOVES larva. Japanese name: kabutomushi(Japanese beetle) youchuu(larva), カブトムシ幼虫. actual size: about 2 CM.

Cute fish.
I found this dead dragon fly on the ground.. it was so beautiful. Actual size: about 3 inches.

Baby singing crickets! Pets at the kindergarten as well. In Japanese: suzumushi, 鈴虫. Do singing crickets exist outside Japan? actual size: less than 1 CM.
Earwig! I've seen them larger and smaller than this guy. actual size: about 2 CM
These beetles are super common around here. Actual size: about an inch.
Celes likes her fungus. This is a gorgeous picture she took.

Colorful little guy, I was nowhere near close enough to him to see these patterns really well in person, but my camera skills are getting better. Actual size: a bit under 1 CM.
Roadside decapitated bug! I honestly wonder what happened.
This guy was huge. I see tons every day, but this is the only one I've seen this big... so pretty. Actual size: 2-3 inches.
Celes was wondering what they sprayed on the leaves.Celes likes flowers indeed.
Smaller version of the gigantic guy above. This is on the "spider bridge" that I walk across every day to get to school, I pass by at least several hundred of them every day. Actual size: little under an inch.

Cool shot of a different spider, same species as the above one.
Cool Gecko creature! We were looking at spiders, and I saw this guy. actual size: about 4-5 inches.
Next two shots are of the same spider, different angles.. pretty cool looking guy, and I like his pose in the next shot! actual size: little under an inch.
Similar to the other guy above.. but seems a bit different... not sure if they're different genders or just different spiders. Actual size: little under an inch.
Fungus! Celes loves fungus!
FROG! Japanese tree frog. Celes and I caught two of them. Or rather Celes caught two because I couldn't catch one lol. We tried to feed them rolly polly bugs(otherwise known as pill bugs or potato bugs, or in Japanese, dango mushi, ダンゴムシ） But sisnce they wouldn't eat, we decided to put them back. Actual size: about an inch and a half.
Grasshopper! I think? actual size: about 1 inch.
Really beautiful snail shot.. rainy days tend to draw them out and all. actual size: about 2 inches.
The next two are the same spider, front side and back. actual size: little less than 1 CM.

This one was taken by Celes... beautiful moth.
Accredited again to Celes.. pretty mushrooms that I wanted to share.

a few pictures and little update

So I finally got a new camera! I've been taking pictures, but I'm saving some right now for a certain post. Here are a few to tide you over in the meantime! Aside from the visits shown, my friend Tyler from college also came to visit one day!



This is the gorgeous view from the second floor of my school... that's the school playground, and part of the school.

I went to hang out at a coworker's house with her friends, lots of fun times just hanging out!

Just a random picture I wanted to show folk. This is a typical Japanese house in this neighborhood. You can see the house in the top left of the picture. The house is high above ground, and tiny parking garage is built beneath the house. There's even a yard above the garage!

So in Japan, they like to sculpt nature. You've probably heard of Bonsai and all. These are flat trees.
Taken last night with my friend Annclair from Belgium, and some of her friends we went to hang out with, fun times!

OK, I dunno how exciting this is for most of you, but for me, it's super happy. I fail at cooking, but I decided I want to eat healthier. So my solution: eat fresh foods instead! So this was what I made for dinner tonight, no cooking involved, yay.

As promised! A comment on America, Japan, and if I can fit in the rest of the world

I'm back again!

No pictures yet, but soon.

Anyways, I wanted to post about something random I've noticed these past few days that I really wanted to share.

So, these days I watch a lot of tv. I know, I know, yell at me if you like, but it's amazing for comprehension practice! Anyways Japanese tv is a lot better than American tv, so it's ok really. Actually I seriously mean this now.

I've heard a lot of comments in my life about the racism in Japan, and all sorts of issues that people like to complain about.... but honestly, I don't really see it that way. There's no doubt that racist people exist.. but there's tons of non racist people too! On top of that, watch tv in Japan!

There's a giant mixture of celebrities of all sorts here. Plenty of Japanese folk, but foreigners from all over the world, from Korea, to France, to Nigeria, and of course America. Japan also LOVES to put half Japanese people all over television and in magazines.. if you're part Japanese, and part something else, then you're all set if you want to be a star here, no joke. There's also a large array of language learning programs at practically any moment of the day!

Aside from race, gender is also a part of this. I literally can't count the amount of trans gender celebrity figures there are in Japan, and lately I keep seeing more. It's also trendy these days for guys to be incredibly feminine.. from cross dressing, to wearing makeup, stylized hair.. it's just part of the norm here these days. I was talking to a very manly co worker today who was talking to me all about this today, it was quite amusing. As for women... well women are about 100 times more feminine here than they are in America, and probably 80% of the rest of the world, too. But the beautiful thing is... that's not a bad thing! It's OK to be a woman, and it doesn't mean that you're weak!

Random note from my life: I remember just a few years ago thinking about how much I hated girly girls. I think I still can't stand the idea of American girly girls.. they're in a different field in my eyes. The idea of gender queerness used to appeal to me a bit.. not making a distinction.. in some ways it's cool. But like race.. it is different, isn't it? Does that have to be a bad thing? Then maybe a year or so ago, I started thinking about the history of clothes, of how things may have begun to take shape. Pants make sense if you're doing labor work and such.... but in today's world, with all the office jobs and stuff, why is everyone striving to wear pants? Sometimes pants are cool.. but skirts/dresses are both better looking and more comfortable in my opinion.. and it feels unfair to me that women have to want to strive to be more like men if they want to be successful. That's just stupid in my opinion.. alright there was my random comment lol.

BACK TO TV! Granted, this is all pretty idealistic what I'm talking about.. but isn't that cool? People watch tv all the time.. I've just really seriously begun to appreciate the fact that it's there, and that people watch it. Because people *do* watch tv! It's influential, and I just find it so amazing that they want these kind of messages spread! Think about television in America now, think about the movie industry in America now, how many non American stars can you name? How much effort have you seen anywhere in America to PROMOTE any of these ideas?

If I have readers from outside of America right now that are annoyed with my American centered post right now, I'm sorry, but I'm sure you understand what I mean, because in your own countries, I'm sure you know about as much American
star industry as your own. This just makes me think, why is it that the rest of the world is OK with foreigners? Why is the only star industry generally accepted all over the world is so racist? So sexist? So... limited.

I'll post more random things soon!