Things I’ve seen this fall

It has started to feel like winter so I think that I am far overdue on letting you see some of the sights from fall here in Japan. I hope you enjoy. Just click on any picture for a bigger view.

-The Green Tea Dreamer

Getting ready to perform at the town shrine’s festival

A well-earned snack after dancing up a storm.

These are the nets that the seaweed for your sushi rolls grows on…in the ocean of course.

Three hours of threshing by hand with a big wooden mallet and this us what you get.

The remains of the soy bean plants Satomi’s mother and I threshed

Mud skippers. Kind of cute, aren’t they?

This is the new-fangled way to spray the rice fields and kill those pesky bugs.

I don’t know what kind of flowers they are but they were pretty.

Things I Saw While Walking

Here is a gallery of pictures that I’ve taken on my walks recently. Somehow I managed to go from being in some of the best shape of my life (at least as far as capacity for hard work) to pathetically weak in the course of a few short months. As part of my body reclamation project I’ve been trying to walk an hour a day as often as possible. Monday thru Friday has been my normal routine so far. I don’t know if I’m getting stronger but my sweat glands are in pristine working order. That’s a good thing with the summer heat and humidity building every day.

Click on any photo to get to a slide show of larger pictures.

There’s wasabi growing in clear mountain water under the black mesh. One of my favorite lunches is brown rice, diced avocado and wasabi salad dressing from that farm. You would be surprised how scrumptious it is.

This shrine is about two feet from the road but still manages to feel serene. Water gurgles out from a spring at the bottom. An elderly lady changes the flowers every week. She has a walker and the road is a steep haul even for me but she takes care of the shrine faithfully. I applaud her devotion and sense of purpose.

She’s too stunning to be called a scare-crow.

A Japanese Koi Pond is stereotypical Japan in a very good way.

Off in the distance is Unzen. It is an active Volcano that erupted in 1991, killing 42 people. It doesn’t look so scary from a distance.

Things I Saw Yesterday

Things are perfect here…weather-wise. Everyday the world gets greener and the bug population seems to double. Right now I’m content. Soon the rainy season will most likely bring an end to that contentment but today all is good. I’m trying to make the most of the great weather but life feels like it is accelerating (in a good way) and I find that suddenly it is time for bed, I’m exhausted and I barely noticed all of the awesomeness around me. So, I took a 30 minute walk and here is what I saw. Click on the pictures to see a larger picture slideshow.