The World is Black and White 

A color photograph of a black and white world.


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Straight Lines 

On some of the roads here — especially those that seem to run at odd angles — the street points directly at a mountain peak. The result can be quite striking when you go down one of them on a clear day.





I'm not sure of the reason for this. My guess is that these are some of the oldest roads around (one I know for sure is quite old), and the mountain peaks were used as guides for the construction of straight roads.
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Moki Expresses an Opinion 



Opinions expressed in this photo are solely those of Moki, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Let's Sharing management.
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The Real Deal 

At dinner the other night, a local friend brought a small piece of wasabi and a grater along. The grater surface is sharkskin.



He showed us how to grate the wasabi by gently rubbing the root in circles on the grater, then let the rest of us try. We ate it on sashimi of octopus, squid, and salmon. Oishikatta desu!
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Onsen in the Snow 

For all the complaining we've been doing about the cold (and now that our friend Christina has been visiting for almost a week, there's been half again as much commentary), it does have its benefits. For example, visiting onsen is much, much more awesome in the snow. You're wicked cold when you first enter the building, and then again when you change to wash, but sitting in the bath heats you to the core. Then you're warmed through, and ready to go out in the snow again.

Even better is sitting in a rotenburo, or outdoor bath. The water is nice and hot, the air refreshing and cold. Falling snow sublimates on the surface of the bath, melting a little more slowly on your skin. If you're lucky, you can see a beautiful, white mountain from your seat, maybe crowned with the glittering lights of the traditional Japanese inn (ryokan). The cold is an integral part of the experience ¡½ so much that you don't mind the slushy roads that take you there, then lead you home.
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Haircut Chronicles 

Right before I left Washington, I paid one last visit to my fantastic stylist. My hair never looked so good until I started going to Vera (although I had much better stories about the abusive French stylist I saw prior to her), so it was with much sadness and apprehension that I got my last trim. After all, I was leaving her care for a nation composed almost entirely of people with thick, shiny, stick-straight hair. What was a curly-haired girl going to do? Two years is a little long to go without a haircut, even for me (which was a point of contention with the abusive French stylist).

Perms are very popular in Japan, so someone suggested that I find a stylist who cuts permed hair. Fortunately, I was able to find something better. As it turns out, my Japanese teacher's stylist is a Japanese woman with naturally curly hair, which is pretty unusual. Clearly, she was the stylist for me. So, I pushed past the nerves, scheduled an appointment over the phone (Woo-hoo! I made an appointment over the phone!), and got my first haircut in Japan today.

I highly recommend the Japanese haircut. There's lots of head massage action involved, and very close attention to the look of the cut, down to the individual hairs. Also, there's lots of head massage action. It looks and moves like a good cut, though I won't know for sure until I try to do something with it tomorrow. Yay for the J-haircut!
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Christmas Cake 

Sponge cakes with strawberries, whipped cream, and placards
Cheesecakes with gold dust for holiday snackers
Chocolate yule logs with Santas and sleighs
These are a few of the cakey displays . . .


Here in Japan, no Christmas is complete without a Christmas cake. Christmas cake is traditionally sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries. It has morphed into far more extravagant things, like cheesecakes or chocolate cakes covered in ganache (melted chocolate mixed with cream, and sometimes liqueur). You can also get them decorated with white chocolate Mickey-head plaques or holiday wishes from Kitty-chan.

Grocery stores, conbini, and patisseries have had these glossy brochures out for about three weeks now, advertising their scrumptious holiday wares.


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Shambling Tree Monster 



I have no idea what those "targets" are there for, but they sure make this tree look like some kind of monster from Doctor Who.
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Winter Wonderland(?) 

Based on the earlier-than-normal snowfall, it seems that we're in for a long, cold Tohoku winter. At home, we're living under the kotatsu, small space heater at our sides. We wear long underwear to bed and burrow deep within our doubled duck-down kakebuton. The dogs seem to appreciate the heated electric carpet we obtained from a departing expatriate. That's how you know it's really honking cold: the Akita inu, who should be adequately coated for the winter, are digging on the heated carpet. We know it's cold because we can see our breath inside the house when we wake up in the mornings. Yeeks.

The change from Fahrenheit to Celsius exacerbates the feeling of coldness. When I started the car yesterday, the temperature gauge flashed at me: 1.0C, 1.0C, 1.0C. Later, it flashed at me again: 0.5C, 0.5C, 0.5C. These are temperatures slightly above 32 degrees Fahrenheit, which we've clearly experienced, but seeing them expressed in single or fractional digits makes them seem significantly colder. Soon, we'll be in negative temperatures; I wonder if the car will find those flashworthy.

Still, we and other locals continue to travel on our bikes. Yesterday, I saw a guy riding home in the snow, carrying three big daikon in the basket on the front of his bike. There's certainly a different kind of "normal" here than we're used to...
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Thankful 

What we're thankful for:
  • Friends and family who said, "Go and have fun!"
  • Friends and family who added, "And don't forget to come back."
  • The "moving crew" of friends and family who helped get everything in storage.
  • The neighbor who drove Stefanie to the airport when her taxi didn't show up.
  • Small neighborhood restaurants like Funabatei where you can go for really good eats and friendly people who make you feel welcome.
  • That Matthew chose to work for James English School instead of Nova.
  • Hot coffee in cans from vending machines.
  • Sunsets.
  • Happy, healthy dogs enjoying our adventure with us.
  • A kotatsu.
  • Inexpensive organic rice from an English student who is a rice farmer.
  • Our new friends here who patiently show us the ropes, tolerate our mistakes, and give us vegetables.
  • Nattou.
  • Getting back that childlike feeling that the world is full of new and exciting things.
  • We've got each other, and that's a lot. (For love, we'll give it a shot!)

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