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.