This is one of the questions Matthew and I, and probably every other gaijin here, frequently get asked. In our experience, it is never followed by "la dee dah, dee dee dah."

There are enough English schools in Kitakami that foreign teachers come and go with some regularity, so we're not unusual in that respect. But, most people are a little surprised to learn that we knew about and loved Tohoku before we moved here. They generally are pleased to learn that Matthew chose his job in part because the company's schools are located primarily in Tohoku. Tohoku is not "where it's happening" in Japan; I've seen it, and specifically Iwate Prefecture, described in various places on the internet as "backwater." We can relate to this as native New Mexicans. When you live near Washington, at most you'll get questions about whether you're in politics, but when you talk about living in New Mexico, reactions range from: "You're so lucky -- that's God's country" to "But there's nothing/nothing to do there!"

When people learn that we came here from Washington, we start getting the latter. "What do you think about Kitakami? Don't you think it's boring?" And the truth is, not really. The area is beautiful, there's a lot of ground to be covered, and we're the new kids in town -- it's all still interesting to us. I don't really understand why people here don't dine alfresco, but that's hardly a dealbreaker.

Conversation naturally turns from Matthew's employment as the reason for our move to my profession. The first time I told someone I was an American lawyer was a revelation:

Person: What do you do? Are you also a teacher?
SKD: I'm a lawyer in America, but I will probably be teaching here.
Person: Sugoi! (translation: Fantastic!)

This reaction is pretty common and rather delightful. The Japanese don't hate lawyers. The relative lack of litigiousness in their society is surely one factor; another is that lawyers are comparatively rare here. None of the Japanese I've encountered has mentioned even knowing a Japanese lawyer. I don't think the Japanese even have lawyer jokes. Which, now that I think about it, is a nice side benefit of being here.

It's official: Every Davis is a resident of Kitakami-shi, Iwate-ken, Japan. Yesterday, we took Moki and Aki's importation paperwork to the city office and registered them with the city. They're now rocking their Japanese dog tags, written in kanji, and feeling very pleased with themselves. Actually, they're sleeping because it's really honking hot in the house, which is what happens in the summer when you don't have central A/C.

Speaking of hot, it was hot enough yesterday (and probably today) that the city employees were dressed in their "Cool Biz" work clothes. The Japanese government began promoting "Cool Biz" in the summer of 2005 as a way to lower energy consumption through reduced use of air conditioning. Basically, when the temperature gets above 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), some offices encourage male workers who usually wear suits and ties to wear short-sleeved dress shirts with open collars. Everyone is encouraged to wear breathable, moisture-wicking fabric. Essentially, Japan is advocating environmental responsibility through government-sanctioned short-sleeving.

Merchant gift update: Since our last report, we've received another box of tissues and a box of laundry detergent from the cell phone company.

Things to soothe a soul on a gray, rainy, depressing day: an oolong highball, a friendly face, and a new dining venue.

Last weekend, while walking the dogs, Matthew and I noticed the telltale red lantern of a restaurant on the side of a building just slightly out of our normal everyday paths. Reading the menu, it appeared to be reasonable; hearing the laughter emanating from inside, it sounded like a good place to know. It also appeared to be teeny-tiny. We finally made it there tonight, and were greeted by the standard hearty shout of "Irasshaimase!" ("Welcome!") (Sidebar: this tradition can be unnerving the first few times you go into a restaurant in Japan because the first thing that crosses your mind is "Why is everyone in the joint yelling at me?"). Apparently consistent with our previous assessment, it was tiny -- only three tables, and about five seats at the bar, only one of which was unoccupied.

Seeing our disappointment, the proprietress directed us through a curtain to a traditional room in the back, meaning a room with low tables and zabutons (floor cushions for sitting). We took the table next to the kitchen serving window and set about making our dinner decisions -- katsu kare (breaded pork cutlet with curry) for Matthew, yakiniku teishoku (grilled meat set with rice, pickles, and miso soup) for me. A note on the menu directed patrons to ask "Father Hige" something after dinner. We regret to inform our readers that we did not comply with this directive.

Father Hige was the cook, who came out to chat with us personally. He and Matthew bonded over their moustaches before he took our order and disappeared. Matthew and I unwound over shochu (a distilled spirit) and the aforementioned oolong highball -- iced oolong tea mixed with shochu. Dinner itself was fast, hearty, and comforting.

As we were leaving, Matthew and Father Hige had a longish conversation in Japanese. Father Hige gave us a laminated delivery menu (yay!), complimented Matthew on his Japanese skills, and exhorted us to return. We assured him that we would, and wandered off into the night, full of good eats, good drinks, and the cheer resulting from being welcomed into someone's world.

Sometimes, it's just good to be alive.

Typhoon Number 4 headed out to sea last night, so instead of the heavy rain predicted all day, we got partly cloudy skies, moderate temperatures, and a cool breeze. A major earthquake rattled Niigata, but we didn't feel it here.

We took an evening walk with the dogs to watch the sunset.

Sometimes, it's just good to be alive.

1) Begin life together. Adopt and raise very cute Akita puppy.
2) Cheer for law-school-in-Washington-applying wife, even though acceptance would mean leaving family, new home, great job, and awesome friends.
3) Move to Washington, bringing Akita dog along. Mourn loss of very cute, but congenitally ill Akita dog. Also, mourn existence of law school. Adopt wise, hard-luck Akita dog because husband loves his photo. Adopt very cute female Akita puppy because wife thinks she belongs in the house and makes other dog happy.
4) Good gravy, is there still more law school? Endure long-distance relationship while wife works in Philadelphia. Once home, frequently take snacks and cocktails down to the basement and layout-building husband.
5) Celebrate end of law school, but make dinner and do all chores during wife's bar study. Perfect repertoire of brunch dishes during series of parties to commemorate end of husband's Japanese class sessions.
6) Apparently enjoy blissful year of marriage during which nothing of note occurred. Seriously. I got nothing.
7) Buy second house together. Discover that prior owners' home improvements are completely random and nothing about house makes sense. Survive monthlong Plague House episode, trading congestion, respiratory distress, pinkeye, and insomnia.
8) Spend thirty nearly consecutive hours in car together during impulsive cross-country road trip from Washington to Cerrillos on Christmas Eve/Day. Then make return trip while both spouses are sick -- one drives, one dispenses drugs on a regular schedule.
9) Go through life-changing events together, then vacation in Japan. Discuss whether vacation was in fact recon trip.
10) Go though life-changing event together. Cheer for teaching-job-in-Japan-applying husband, even though acceptance would mean leaving family, home, great job, and awesome friends. Move to Japan and bring Akita dogs along.

Ten years behind us, a lifetime to go.

Last week, our friend Puller stayed with us for a few days post-dog transport. Because she has an interest in oni, Japanese folklore creatures similar to demons or ogres, we decided to make a trip to Kitakami's Oni Museum. The Museum is located about eight kilometres (yes, we now measure in grams, litres, and kilometres) from our house, a distance necessitating either a) a really long walk; or b) placing our friend at the mercy of one of the sketchy bikes.

So off we went, on an overcast but warm afternoon, Puller on my bike and me on Matthew's. We crossed the river via New Kunenbashi -- no need to make some kind of hazing ritual out of crossing Kunenbashi on a sketchy bike. (Sidebar: "bashi" is the Japanese word for "bridge." I'm not writing "New Kunenbashi Bridge" because it's redundant and redundancy is annoying. Yes, I did it in a prior posting, but I'm not doing it again for the previously stated reason. Which is that it's redundant.) Hundreds of rice paddies and one unprovoked and fear-generating gear change later, we arrived at the museum and parked the bikes outside, under darkening skies. Rainy season has thusfar been a big old wash, so we weren't too concerned about it.

The Oni Museum is very cool. You start in a room set up as a darkened forest, in which a short audio-visual presentation occurs. (P: "What's he saying?" SKD: "Uh . . . something about demons. And mountains. And maybe evil.") Then, you enter the beautifully designed, red and gold halls, where you find the interactive exhibits, demon masks from Japan and other countries, and murals. As you might expect this far north, everything is presented in Japanese, save for a couple of English-language brochures the staff were able to scare up.

P: "What's this guy?"
SKD: (reading plaque) "He's a . . . something . . . Oni . . . and maybe he eats children. That's why kids throw beans at the Oni during the winter festivals -- to scare them away."
P: "Where's he from?"
SKD: "Iwate Prefecture . . . something . . . river . . . something . . . onsen (natural hot spring bath). So maybe he's like the Water Demon. Or the Work-Life Balance Demon, manifesting the dark side of human nature by day, kicking it in an onsen with an Asahi in hand by night."
P: "Oh, these ones are eating people. See, there's a leg on the table."
SKD: "Is there beer?"

After a time, we bade the Oni farewell and got ready for the long ride home. Alas, it wasn't to be. Rainy season had decided to put in a rather fierce appearance, and as we watched the cascades of rain pouring down from the sky, we realized we had two options.

Option 1: Ride home in the cold rain, risking a) pneumonia; b) great bodily harm due to sketchy bike wipeout; or c) drowning.
Option 2: Call for a cab, risking a long, inadvertent trip to Hokkaido as a result of my rudimentary Japanese skills.

We chose Option 2 and crossed our fingers. Much to our relief, a cab arrived, driven by the World's Most Awesome Cabbie. Unfazed by my request to bring the bikes with, he started putting them into the trunk, only to discover that they wouldn't fit. We tried removing the front tire of Matthew's bike, to no avail. Eventually, he just put it mostly in the trunk and began securing it.

SKD: What about the other bike?
Cabbie: We'll put it inside.
SKD: *beat* Are you serious?

As Puller can attest, having ridden home in the doily-covered backseat of the cab, holding the wet front half of Matthew's bike in her lap and wiping up the rusty water running off the chain, he was.

It's a beautiful, sunny summer day here. The four of us just returned from a long Sunday morning walk to Interz for our weekly fix. Interz is a groovy little independent coffee shop where they roast your coffee while you wait. The owners, a husband and wife, greeted us and the dogs enthusiastically, and offered us the outside table while we waited (and drank fantastic iced coffee . . . mmm). The dogs, hot from the walk, lay in the shade and watched the street as people drove or walked by, staring at them. As we were settling up for the coffee, the owners chatted with us and pet the dogs, until Aki wandered away to lie down on the sidewalk. Another visitor to the shop also came outside to meet the dogs, giving Moki lots of pets and a big hug. Moki was in heaven, all swept-back ears and outstretched head, blissed-out look on his fuzzy black face.

We left for home with an invitation to bring the dogs back for a visit on our next coffee run, a bag of freshly roasted Kenya AA, and a pair of tired, happy Akita dogs. Life is good.

If there's one thing Matthew and I love, it's a good road trip. Road tripping in Japan is no exception. Driving on the opposite side of the road did not take as much adjustment as I anticipated, although much like I did last year, Matthew might beg to differ.

Prior to leaving, we sought advice on the best way to get from Kitakami to Narita Airport, located northeast of Tokyo. We were advised that taking expressways all the way would be best -- and would require that we go through Tokyo. The navigation system in the Cube ("Navi") agreed. So, being a mapless people with no further intelligence, we headed down the beautiful Tohoku Expressway toward Tokyo.

Navigating the Tokyo expressway system had sort of a latter-day "Cannonball Run" feel to it, between Navi's pinging and spoken directions, Matthew's translation of said directions, and proffering of snacks. The expressways themselves were narrow, fast-moving, mostly high-walled roads that were surprisingly easy to drive. Well, easy to drive as long as I focused on staying in my lane, and not on the tankers and tour buses passing me (properly) on the right. Or on the bridges. Especially the ones rising up into high, steep, banked curves. Then I felt like I needed to barf. Or have a beer. Or have a beer after I barfed. Overall, though, driving through Tokyo was easier than driving through, say, Nashville. We got onto the Higashi-Kanto Expressway and to Narita Airport without incident.

At the airport, we met up with our friends and tremendously generous hosts, the Ikezawas, and we settled in to wait. And wait we did. Puller appeared about an hour and twenty minutes after the flight landed, followed by Animal Quarantine Service (AQS) staff pushing carts carrying two...giant...crates. Giant crates meant one thing: FUZZY DOGS!

The AQS people were very efficient and helpful, and we were able to get through the paperwork and out of the airport in relatively short order. For Aki and Moki, this meant freedom from their shipping crates (which we will probably never be able to get them to enter again) and the opportunity to walk around the parking lot before returning to the Ikezawas' house for a relaxing evening and good night's sleep before the next day's trip. It also meant their first trip in the Cube, through the narrowest streets I had driven to date, after dark. It was like navigating streets in Georgetown, but even narrower, and on a different side of the road from the one I drove on for the previous eighteen years.

After a lovely visit with the Ikezawas, including the dogs' first walk in Japan, we piled into the Cube and headed north. We chose an alternate route home, up the coast of Ibaraki Prefecture (surfers -- woo!) to the Joban Expressway, and back to the Tohoku Expressway. Because the Joban Expressway runs sort of east-west across Honshu, we were crossing mountain ranges, rather than running alongside them as we did on the Tohoku Expressway. I believe "Joban" means "tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge road" in Japanese, but I could be wrong.

Once we were back on the Tohoku Expressway, the familiarity of the road made us giddy. We knew where we were, and we were on our way home with the rest of our family -- sun shining down on us, descending into the valley overlooking the town of Ichinoseki as we crossed into Iwate Prefecture, and Talking Heads singing "Once in a Lifetime" on the CD player.

Here are Moki and Aki at home, taking a well-deserved rest in the washitsu (Japanese-style room) after a long, long journey.

Thanks to a thunderstorm, Washington was a perfectly acceptable 73 degrees on Friday, well below the 85 degree no-fly threshold. Puller and the dogs arrived yesterday afternoon with only minor incident. We and the dogs stayed in Chiba last night and arrived back in Kitakami early this evening. Photos and longer post about our journey tomorrow!

Assuming the weather cooperates, our fuzzy dogs will join us in Japan tomorrow. Yay! I have been studiously avoiding any reports of Washington weather because I don't want to know how likely it is that they and Puller, who's accompanying them over, will get grounded. United won't fly them if it's above 85 degrees at the point of origin. *fingers crossed*

So, we've rented a car (a Nissan Cube -- it's so cuboid!) for the occasion. We plan to hit the Tohoku Expressway bright and early tomorrow morning, en route to Narita via Tokyo. I took a practice (well, sort of) drive this afternoon and had the pleasure of listening to the "Max Wavescape" program on FM-Iwate. It totally sounded like one of the fake radio stations from the "Grand Theft Auto" games, with the hyperactive interviews, hip-hop/dance tunes, and the whole "YOU'RE listening to FM-Iwate. Here's the new song, 'Peace of Mind', by Sakura." Except in Japanese.