Hi everyone,

I'm still not registered as an alien. The last time I tried I got there too late, I had to wait 45 minutes for a train. So far I haven't been able to get a timetable in English, I will try again next time I'm at the station. Sometimes doing simple things is very hard.

I went to an Aikido class on Saturday. It was really good to finally do some training. The sensei was very precise about how to do the techniques which was nice. He has really thick arms, it makes grabbing them seem kind of pointless. They grip really hard in this school (Saito school/Iwama style), a few times it felt like the bones in my arm were actually flexing.

After the class I went to a 100yen shop (same as the $2 shops in Australia). It looked like it was about 1km from the dojo on my dinky little tourist map, as it turned out the map was not to scale, and I ended up riding for about 2 hours in the noon day sun. Since Ibaraki is currently in the middle of a heatwave, it wasn't much fun. However I did get to practice my pidgin Japanese when I was asking passersby for directions, which was good. I can only understand about 1 word in 10, but usually it is the most important words so I have a reasonable idea of what is being said.

Today I talked to Dorothy (the mother of my host family) about how Japanese farms are subsidised by the government. I think Japan is a country where socialist ideals are implemented via capitalist means. There seems to be a deliberate effort to create jobs for everyone. I think farming is an example of this. Because the main impact of the subsidies is providing jobs on farms for a whole lot of people. Without the subsidies the multitudinous small farms would be bought up and combined so they could be more efficiently worked with machines, and there would be far fewer jobs in the agricultural sector. This happened in Britain a few hundred years back, creating a mass of impoverished homeless people.

There are a lot of people doing jobs that just wouldn't be done in Australia. There are always heaps of people in uniforms at stations, shopping centres, the airport. There seems to be a deliberate policy of over-staffing. I think it's a good policy, because it makes the place clean and well-run. And it provides a lot of jobs. The people in these jobs don't have the downtrodden look that people in similar jobs in Australia have. I'm sure they work hard, but they don't seem to be treated too badly.

I cut some more grass today. I'm really getting into this agriculture business, I had forgotten how much destruction is involved in producing food. I'm getting in touch with my inner redneck. I think next year I'll go on a chainsaw holiday in Tasmania.

I hope everyone is well. Take care,

James

Yes, there is a section devoted to advertising jingles in the music shop. Japanese commercials are pretty loud and obnoxious, it's hard to imagine people listening to them for pleasure. Although last week I was in a supermarket and I heard a song about fish that I quite liked...

This band's name didn't translate into English very well. I think.

This is the infamous crooked tower in Mito. Old people hate it because it is new and strange. There used to be a clock in Hornsby that had a similar effect on people, but when I left it was in the process of being demolished.

I found this funny for some reason.

Miso shiru soup.

The infamous Natto, soybeans and okra. It has a stringy, gooey consistency and smells kind of rancid. Foreigners generally hate it. It's Japan's answer to Vegemite: the locals love it, and no-one else does. I'm growing to like it, it's a good breakfast food.

Stone-roasted sweet potato, delicious.

Breakfast

This is Matsuda, he's from Himeji near Osaka which is in the middle of the country. He's cycling all around Japan which is a pretty serious endeavour, he's been to Hokkaido and now he's heading south. In this photo he's leaving our house for Chiba, it's about 120km, he said it would take him about three days.

A house near where I live. Sort of a modern look.

An old shed.

A place on a hillside in Mito, built on it's own rampart like a little fortress.

Downtown Mito. The photo was taken from the toilets of the Keisei shopping centre, the toilets with the best view in town.

The family is performing a Shinto ceremony called Jijinsai on the site of the new house.

Here is Shoogo, one of the children in my host family, putting rice into the machine that will remove the husks. The machine is coin operated, all the locals share it.

This is the moat of Mito castle. The castle was destroyed by American bombing in WWII, so the Japanese left part of the moat intact and built a civic building on the site.

A bank.

A building in downtown Mito.

The main street in Mito.

Another building.

A street sign.

More buildings.

Some kind of tower.

More buildings.

This is what I'm reading at the moment, a children's book of the story of Momotaro. Momotaro means peach boy, it's a story that everyone seems to know.

Going into my third week here

Good news, I've gone almost a whole day without hitting my head on a door frame. The day is not over yet, but the odds are good I'm going to have no new lumps today.

I'm now into my second week here at leaf plant farm. I've made a new friend, the Tanaka Powermate. We cut down plants together. Today I helped clean up a bamboo grove, I didn't know bamboo groves needed cleaning up but they do. Dead bamboo builds up and makes it hard to move around and harvest what you need.

Today I went in to town to try to get registered as an alien. I'm looking forwards to it, being an alien is almost as cool as being a ninja. Plus, if you pay extra you can get yourself neutered and microchipped. I went to the wrong office at first and talked to a woman who only spoke Japanese, which was pretty challenging given that I don't know the word for "alien registration" or anything related to it. However, communication took place and I was directed to the department of immigration across town, which was closed. This registration business is a major hassle.

In the morning I helped with the community recycling. There is a spot where everyone drops off their recyclable rubbish. Community members take turns sorting it and doing some processing (removing labels, etc). It seems like it's mostly old people that do it. I'm not certain what happens to you if it's your turn and you don't show up, it all seemed pretty informal.

On Saturday I met a guy called James. He is a Filipino. It turns out he was in Basilan (in the Philippines) when those Australians got kidnapped a few years ago. He would have been taken too but he hid in the grass and they missed him. He says in the Philippines they are used to gunfire and conflict, there has been a lot of it in the last 20 years.

Here are some photos. This is where I'm staying. My host family consists of the parents Dorothy (Masako) and Hiroshi, the children Shoogo, Yumina and Natsumi, and the grandmother who I know only as Obachan. She didn't like me at first but she warmed to me after I cleaned up the backyard and now we get along well.

This is the pile of rubble where the house used to be, in front of the shed. It's been cleared away now and they are preparing to build a new house. Unfortunately the council hit them with a new zoning regulation, and their block is going to get smaller so that the road is big enough for a fire truck to fit down.

This is the neighbour's house.

Another satisfied customer of the Dodgy Brothers' Tomato Staking Service. No job too dodgy!

A Shinto shrine. We visited it so that Dorothy could pray for the spirit of her father.

A statue of Mito Koumon. Mito is a big city quite near to the farm. Mito Koumon is a grandson of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the first of the Tokugawa shoguns. Mito Koumon is greatly revered in these parts. His greatest achievement was writing one of the first books on Japanese history. Mito was a strategically placed city and important in the defence of the Shogunate against the enemies of the Tokugawa family.

A road near Kairakuen park.

Kobuntei cottage, built by a later Tokugawa in the mid 19th century. It's in Kairakuen park which is apparently one of the three most beautiful parks in Japan. The cottage was mainly built to hold concerts which were banned from the castle ("frugality legislation").

I think these were the original plans for the cottage.

This tree is apparently several hundred years old.

An old mine on the edge of Kairakuen park.

A view of Mito from Kairakuen park.

Sports day at Natsumi's school. Reminded me of my high school days. The girl in the foreground at the left is Hitomi, a uni student from Saitama who stayed at the farm for a week. Hi Hitomi!

The kids are about to start a race pushing those balls across the field, looping round the witches hats in the middle. The events were mostly either running or these kind of activities, there were none of the athletics events we have in Australia.

A tug of war. I'm in this photo, bonus points if you can actually spot me.

Narita

Here are some photos of Narita. Narita is the town closest to the airport, I really liked it, the streets were narrow and windy giving it the feel of a place with a lot of history. I don't think any of the buildings were very old but many of them were built in a traditional style . I wish I could have spent more time sightseeing here.

The station master at Narita Airport station (an important person for gaijin tourists):

The view from my hotel room:

The view from the train of the countryside between the airport and Narita:

The vending machines near the hotel had some fairly strange beverages:

I took this phoo because not only has the phone box never been vandalised, no-one stole or vandalised the phone book either:

In case you were wondering where the Nazis live in Narita, this map will help you find them:

One of the many local drinking establishments:

This is downtown Narita:

I saw man familiar franchises here, which I was somewhat surprised by:

Narita town hall:

Near the JR station (there are two stations, owned by competing firms, JR and Keisei):

Near the centre of town:

With the next picture I was trying to convey how crowded the buildings are. These two buildings are on the edge of a cliff. there's a small valley and more buildings on the other side.

One of those windy roads that I liked so much, in on of the older parts of town filled with houses:

One of the houses:

Inside a cemetary that is right next to the JR station:

Here are some friends I made, Sarah (on the left) and Kazuo. I went with Sarah to an arts cafe, half of it is a cafe (a vey casual one, more like being in someone's apartment) and the other half is an arts and crafts store. We sang karaoke, I did some Bon Jovi song. We went with Kazuo to a sushi kaiten resturant, one of the places where you get sushi on a conveyer belt.