One more bit about my last, recent days in Japan

These are those rape blossoms in earlier photos, that I said were in the salad

fields of these at this time of the year...the colors of the fields make my eyes tingle

One day with Naomi, we went to Nagoya, to KIKUYA I think it was called. Where Naomi found they had the most inexpensive whole wheat flour- which I wanted, but also kitchen appliances Naomi needed for her  "Organic Farmer's Kitchen" job.

It was pretty cool seeing the kitchen lesson room.

Very professional, there was a mirror over the bakers so everyone could see what they were doing

~but it also looked very detached between the bakers and the students.

"Professional" that's what it was.

Another day, with Sheon, we were out looking for Naomi's birthday presents.

She just looked so pretty. Both these daughters always look so pretty. I really am always in awe. I was taking these photos this afternoon, Sheon asked me why, it was the way she had tied her pony tail up with her own hair wrapped around it (how stylish!) and the glistening band, her shades...she just looked so PRETTY (I never looked so stylishly pretty!)

When I was visiting a friend in Nagano, with another friend, we took a walk. There was this resort right near by. In one area they had blueberry farms. I had to take a photo of this sign:

The friend I was walking with, he's VERY intelligent. Yes and his English is fatastic , but even he thought the sign was saying the blueberries were CLOSE! NOT that they had misspelled CLOSED (I movedthe sign to show him that behind the "close" was "open"!)

English is not easy. Neither is Japanese. But here below, Ischin. He's in his corner of the house, studying Japanese literature. On a little carpet I took to Japan from his Great Grandmom. (There's tatami mat otherwise, not good with wheels on the chair) Ischin writes on his computer from right to left, from the top to the bottom...his literature homework, and the book he's writing.

I missed taking a photo of his computer Japanese writing. I just thought it looked so cool.

I hadn't seen computers do that until I saw Ischin's writing (not that I can read any of it!)

And then there's our cat Sylvester, he makes himself comfortable in Ischin's lap every chance he gets!

Some of the beauty of this Spring in Japan

I went with Yaari to drive the car we were donating for Tohoku area, taking it first to Ina, Nagano.

On this night, getting gas for the drive, to Yoshie's easily I could use my credit card, and by myself do self service in Japanese! I really don't read Japanese, but just enough to get by on (25 years of practicing deciphering!) ...but I did it! It's still a relatively new thing- self service in Japan. And finally they are catching on- to putting convenience stores alongside the gas stations- finally.

It took Yaari and me about four hours to drive the back roads to Ina. We got there after midnight. When we woke up in the morning this is what we got to see, from her bedroom window:

It's very sad, but this friend, ever since the accidents, she hasn't been able to feel good. She told me...whenever she starts to feel happy, she remembers what people are going through in Fukushima, and she'll always feel sad. She doesn't sleep upstairs anymore. She stays downstairs, where her sons are. It's safer to be on the second floor, but she can't stay there, instead, for the sake of her boys, she's camped in her living room.

This is called the Japan Tibet because the mountains look like they do in Tibet.

This area draws tourists, for it's nature.

This was one magnificent house...liket a palace to me. I do believe it's someone's home.

and next door...This place actually had a sign that said it was a "something-something resort". It's not like "resorts" around the world. It's what companies call such places built for their prestigious employees to vacation at.

Across the street- tennis courts! Now THAT'S luxury. You hear about Japanese Salarymen working crazy amounts of time, it's true, but when they get to relax, some of them get to do it like this! (Not that all of the men WANT to be spending time with colleagues, but they're obligated to really).

In Ina, Nagano, Japan, the farmland can go wide and far- for Japan.

This sign looks like it might be saying it's a Cosmos flower field, ("カモス" sounds like "Cosmos" for the flowers, but rather Yaari and I found out it's a lavender field!)

Still we don't know what KAMOS means for this Garden!

If you look closely, you can see leafless short trees. I do believe those are fig trees.

  Below, this is typical of Japanese concreting streams and oceans...but then again, this time I thought about the building up to the right; if that stream were free to have worn down the hillside, for sure the buildings above would have fallen down into those waterways.

I had always thought it was just a money making thing, to concrete EVERY (well almost "every" it seems!) stream and river, and even ocean side.

  And for the tourists, a short walk from Yoshie's was a hotel that has...rabbits housed....

ostriches to see~

and feed...maybe.
They are rather scary, and supposedly their eggs taste terrible. But these are used for their meat~ so we are told.

And ponies...

I felt SO sorry for those dear little guys, I had no 100 yen coins on me to pay for carrots for them (and there were farmers near by watching us!) ...how cruel! Placing these carrots like this in front of those poor bored ponies!!!

In the middle of "nowhere" it's really unique seeing these graveyards. Where whole family's cremated remains keep being added in.

That was a very quick trip to Ina. Yaari and I returned to Nishio before 24 hours had passed.

  A few days later, I would go with new teacher Anita, to meet one student. Her yard is so magnificent, I had to take pictures.

By her front door...old tiles used creatively:

Me and Anita~

The epitome of the perfect garden!

Even inside~

And one night, where Ischin works, at YOTTEKO: with dear old friends Miriko and Harumi here:

And then again on my last night in Japan, again at Ischin's work, with Naomi, and Kahori and Taka (who came back to Japan a few nights earlier) It's another amazing beautiful place, and I'm wishing I could show better photos, but cameras don't do justice

anyway!

Oh these Japanese know how to pose!!!

Below is a photo of Taka's mother. His father took it. She died 23 years ago. There's going to be a special memorial soon. 23 years is another important number for such a ceremony. Taka doesn't know what's with the random numbers.

"How is Japan?" people ask me...

  Asking me how Japan is, is like asking L.A. people how California is if San Francisco went through these world changing accidents.

  People, for the most part, understand the situation is grave.

  I thought that people know, that that wasn't "the big one" yet. Basically there are one or two other faults that are overdue to quake.

  Those were two natural accidents and one man made horrendous accident that will have fallout forever. Literally. The man made accident is the whole world's fault. Governments around the world have allowed the development of nuclear power plants in spite of the understanding that the toxic waste can not ever not be toxic, nor gotten rid of. Unless you could send it to another planet. But then it would be there.

  In Santa Cruz, one whole week after the accidents, it was on different news broadcasts. Here in Japan, those first days there were NO OTHER programs. No commercials. Just continuous news and continuous video footage on every channel.

  But it was edited right away. It had struck me too, not seeing people washed away. I had wondered how everyone had gotten away. But footage HAD been shown of people washing away. It had been quickly removed. It was too disturbing for the people to see.

  Still there were people who didn't know what had happened. My oldest son, in our town 400 miles south, didn't find out for two days. He doesn't get a newspaper and mainly just turns on the TV to watch soccer. Two days afterwards, when he went to work, he found out.

I want to ask my Japanese friends here:

What do YOU think?

What do you FEEL?

It's so hard to put into words.

People have asked if we knew in California when it happened. Oh yes. We heard almost instantly.

 Japanese mostly don't realize how much others from around the world care and have appreciated, and think so highly of them in Japan.

  I have one foreigner friend who immediately picked up and left Nagoya. Where people still will say a month afterwards, that is perfectly safe. (About 400 miles south as is our town, Nishio).

  Another guy left Tokyo after a week of family begging him to. Left Tokyo for Osaka, and then to return home to Boston.

  One friend in Saitama, just north of Tokyo. Sounded exasperated in one mail on FB. He said "I'm comfortable and warm, we're not going anywhere". But he's on edge...I was talking on the phone with him on the 7th? when that other quake began. He told me on the phone "it's an earthquake...it's big...I've got to go..." Hung up, and I felt dizzy as if it were happening where we were as well. It wasn't) He called me back soon. How can you not be anxious?

  In a way, I thought of this as being like cancer. Having cancer. You know there's a chance you will die. Or you are going to die. So you have time to put things in order. We have time to think about this. Think about what to do.

  My girls could go south to their father's. I spoke with their dad some days ago. He says this is why he moved south. It has been prophesied that this would happen.

  Or they could go to California. Thanks to Zen, we have gotten to make a home there too.

  We have escape routes, whereas so very many others don't.

  I was at a Starbucks, last week and noticed a jar for money and said "Oh they have TIP jars now?!" (because Japanese don't have the custom of tipping- I thought "wow! they're changing") But that was a donation jar. That's how far away from Fukushima it's felt. But we are living our lives almost normally.

  One student-friend said "Everything's fine!"

  But then, one old friend spoke about how- when on Facebook or Twitter live news was getting around- and it was incredibly severe news, but somehow it ended up "magically" disappearing...

  The government is controlling what people get to see and read. Maybe that's one thing that has kept the Japanese so orderly?

 A few people really understand that finding another source of energy is necessary. But it doesn't seem the government believes they can push that.

  Even one friend who's home I visited, who DOES understand we need to change electrical usage habits, when I went to sit on the toilet in her home- which is NOT centrally heated, and it was a freezing night...I knew the toilet seat cover might be shockingly cold to sit on, I barely touched it, it was heavenly warmed. It's a serious luxury to have a warmed toilet seat to sit on in an otherwise mostly freezing home. It's something people are going to have a hard time letting go of.

  While visiting this friend, we stayed over night. When I woke up in the morning...the first book my eyes were led to on her book shelf was this one:

From an event which happened on 8/8/88 (eights are very special numbers in Japan). It's been going on a long time in Japan, among certain groups of people: antinuclear work.

In the meantime,

in the spirit of "normalcy"

...and on the way to living more simplly, which is one way to get better...

...What I have had to be doing the past three weeks in Japan, has been to work on my

school-house. My school has lost almost all of it's students. The last two teachers couldn't care for the school well enough, or keep, or get, new students. It has been four years since Zen, Taka and I went to California for Zen to go to High School and pursue is basketball career.

  My manager had given notice eight months earlier that she would finish her work for the N.A.C.. So I organized a thank you party for her...she had been an incredible help, and friend, for almost ten years! I made this photo album for her before the Thank you party we had celebrating her. 

  But, yes, we are able to keep the school running because long time friend, Anita, is returning to Japan to help take care of it while I'm still in California.

  It will be 25 years this Fall since my school began.

  And 25 years of accumulating school materials is a whole dusty lot.

  I've kept busy these weeks also organizing; getting ready for Anita's coming on the 17th; ridding my office and classroom of any unnecessary things, and dust, this whole month.

  First off though, was this one spot in my office, this shelf space, I noticed...

over there beneath the light, the shelf appeared to be sinking down. The weight of the metal shelves and books was finally taking a toll.

But no...maybe it had been that earthquake? Underneath: three broken support bars!

I ended up taking out all the books and shelves, and Ischin picked up this wooden sheet.

And I bought new shelves. (Thank goodness the landlord's outdoor storage had just enough space to put the metal shelves, which had come with this rental house)

I put together the white shelves I bought, and the woody shelf happened to be upstairs and JUST fit into that corner of the space. Perfectly.

This is looking from the classroom back into the office where I did that shelf work to the left.

  Back inside the office...files~

  Beneath that reworked shelf space located above the files, are many envelopes of copies for lessons. I had much more than this amount of papers to file away

  We also file into these binders; though I've had these papers waiting to be filed for more than a year!

  In those drawers, also...are of cards and such, which are really organized well enough...

...but this drawer of color pencils, markers and crayons needed cleaning up.

  I DID it, and then found a whole 'nother box......and even then one MORE drawer of more markers to clean out.

  There was the drawer of ink pads and stamps. I was rather dreading having to sort through and clean these, ut I got some good music on my computer, spread out, and did it one morning.

  Also these texts have accumulated. I've sifted out about fifty books at least~books I never used, didn't like...and will freecycle them, or am giving away ones I don't want.

  Please do look at these game playing pieces! I love these guys! And the students do too~ many oldies from when my kids were little.

See, I love my school!!!  And I will finally stop here.