Driving in Japan (part 2)

Before I get into today’s post I would just like to mention that it started snowing from a sunny blue sky yesterday, and proceeded to dump two inches on us. So. Not. Fair. But where were we? Oh, yes. The police.

As you can see, even though it’s a bit different, it’s easily recognizable as a patrol car. Here’s another shot for a better view:

Pretty! Of course, there are a few differences. First of all, I’ve seen them slap that paint job on any vehicle they please and use it for patrol. Once I saw a black-and-white minivan. Another time it was a black-and-white compact car. It’s kind of funny, actually. Really, the most important thing to know about the patrols here involves the lights - if the car’s lights are off, the cop is off-duty and won’t do a darn thing about it even if you go speeding by at double the speed limit. (Although really, it’s not difficult to double a 30 klick limit.) If the car is on-duty they’ll drive around with their lights on (no siren) and that’s when you need to watch it. Greg likes to say that only idiots get speeding tickets around here, because that means you were speeding right next to a police car with its lights flashing. Who does that? Really, the traffic laws here are quite reasonable. For instance, it’s illegal to drive unbuckled.

Here’s your friendly neighborhood…swan…man? reminding you to BUCKLE UP! You can just see the buckle beginning to come down from the upper left corner of the sign. Remember, guys: Swanman wants you to drive safely.

It’s also  illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving. However, they know that sometimes you’ve just got to take that call, so there is a place prepared!

That’s right. They’ve created regular pull-offs on the side of the road where you can pause your car, make a call, and pull right back onto the road. (If you look, you can see that the first four kana under the little car say “moshi moshi,” which is the standard phone greeting in Japan! “Mo” is the little fishhook and equal sign, and “shi” is the plain fishhook.) Of course, they only have these on the highways - probably to stop people from just flipping on their hazard lights and stopping on the side of the road! Don’t laugh. That’s standard here. If you want to stop somewhere, all you have to do is park your car (as far to the side of the lane as you can) and flip on your hazard lights. Or, if your car is small enough, pull it up onto the sidewalk. This is most commonly seen on small streets with low traffic, but drivers have no problem navigating around cars sticking out into the street wherever they appear.

I’m not sure that I’m conveying the insanity of this very well. Seriously, people will just stop, flip on their lights, and wander into a store to pick up a few things while their car is out on the street. It’s nuts, and it’s made worse by streets that look like this:

Believe it or not, this is a full-fledged bi-directional two-lane road. The general rule of thumb is that roads can take one more car than you think they can. If a road looks like you could barely squeeze two cars down it, then it’s for two lanes of traffic and one lane of parking. If it looks like it can barely accomodate one miniature car (like above), then it’s two-lane, and if it looks like it couldn’t take anything wider than a bicycle, then it’s a one-lane road. Here’s another shining example:

As you can see, this looks like you could squeeze two cars down it, which means that this road is one that you could expect to see cars parked on. You know. If it wasn’t deserted.

To be fair, the only reason that these roads are so narrow is because they are old roads. When they build new roads, they are  very wide and very nice, with wide sidewalks and high curbs and crosswalks all over. It’s a great symbol of the Japan we find ourselves in - somewhere between cramped and crumbling side streets and sleek new asphalt, where you’ll see an old woman in a kimono walk across the street right in front of a luxury car decked out with neon lights and LEDs. It’s a really interesting experience that we get to have.

Next time: They’re just so nice!

Driving in Japan (part 1)

Of all the changes we had to adjust to when we made our move to Japan, one of the biggest was the driving. Obviously, we knew beforehand that we would have to get used to driving on the left -

but there’s more. (That’s kind of trippy though, right? About a month ago I saw a photo of a street in the states, with people driving on the right, and I second-guessed my lane choice for days. It’s weird.) For one thing, while stoplights may look the same as they do back in the States, not all traffic signs do. Hey, look! A stop sign!

Not to be mistaken for a ‘yield’ sign. The blue sign under it is a school crossing. Quick, what do you think this sign is?

If you guessed highway sign, you’re wrong. (If you guessed speed limit sign, then congratulations! You’re good at this game.) Let’s not forget, though, that Japan runs on the metric system, so that’s 40…kilometers…per hour. That works out to about 25 miles per hour. 40 kph is a very, very common speed limit around here. You’re not going to see much above 50 (about 30 mph) unless you take the expressway, where you can pay the toll for the privilege of traveling 70 kph - or nearly 45 miles per hour.  Yes. So, even though Japan is a small country geographically speaking, driving anywhere takes much longer than the distance would suggest because of the low speed limits. Hmmm, what next? Oh, yes: gas.

Those prices are yen per liter. Lets translate; that’s 101 yen to the liter for regular unleaded, 111 yen to the liter for premium unleaded, and 87 yen to the liter for diesel. (These prices are actually a steep drop from what they were about two months ago, when you were looking at 169 yen to the liter for regular unleaded - about $6.50 - $7 a gallon.) That means that right now gas is a steal at about $3.85 a gallon! Still, with tiny, fuel-efficient cars being the norm, huge amounts of people walking or taking public transportation, and those low, low speed limits, sky-high gas prices don’t cripple the Japanese economy the way that $7 a gallon gas would gut the US. As a side note, all of the gas stations I’ve ever seen here are full service - we made the attendant dash out to her pump when we paused our car to take the picture. (I felt badly about that. It was pretty cold out.)

I leave you today with a peculiar phenomenon captured on camera:

KFC…Japanese style. But what is that?! Let’s zoom in, here:

Look! It’s a creepy Colonel Sanders! It’s both freaky and disturbing, in one convenient sculptural homage to the man who made arterial plaque a household name. Oh, my.

Well, that’s all for now. Next time: police cars, driving laws, what qualifies as a ’street,’  and more!

Happy Hats and Snow!

After a week of unseasonably warm weather which melted a lot of snow and gave us all hope that spring might show her face almost a month early, winter has blasted back in to finish things up.

It seemed like the perfect time to whip out a knit I promised Max months ago.

We were out at a restaurant after their bedtime (so the kids were already a bit cranky) when this Chilean woman came in. She set up a little table by the door and spread out a rainbow of colorful hats, scarves and sweaters. Bright, bold primaries in stripes and patterns, beautifully knit from (not wool, but) llama and then brought over to Japan, where apparently she can turn quite a profit.

I took Max over to the table both to distract him and to have a better look myself; he was entranced. He sat on my lap and stared at the colors, and begged me to buy him a hat. I actually thought about it, but we didn’t have enough cash on us. I told him we didn’t have enough money, and he said we should go get money from Daddy, who (obviously) could just take some out of his pocket and buy the hat. When I told him we couldn’t buy it, Max cried. He cried, and cried, and cried, and would not be consoled until I promised that I would make him a triangle hat in lots of colors with my yarn. I ordered the yarn the next week. Unfortunately, between ordering the yarn and when it arrived, other projects had come up, so it’s taken a long time for me to make Max’s hat. He’s got it now, though, and both of my boys are pleased.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why the boys’ snowsuits read ‘White Patrol’ and ‘Happy Snow,’ it’s because I bought them at a Japanese store. The BX didn’t have any (why? Why wouldn’t you stock snowsuits at a base that gets 12 to 15 feet of snow a year?) but my friends told me I could find some at “The Bunny Store.”

Not particularly creative, but then, it’s not intended to be. (There’s a huge bunny sign out by the street, as well.) It has a real name, and those who read Japanese better than I refer to it by that name, but for ease of recognition most Americans just call it the Bunny Store. It’s a children’s clothing store, and they have some of the most adorable little outfits in there that you have ever seen. Sadly my boys have moved out of the ‘adorable little clothing’ sizes and most of what’s available for them is ‘little man’ clothing, but I keep meaning to buy them a few shirts there.

At any rate, I plan to make the patterns for the boys’ hats available a little later, so if you like them keep an eye out for that!

Snow and Sweets - Long and with Pictures!

Living where we do, a long portion of the year our yard is covered in snow. Still, we haven’t taken advantage of it as we should. Between Max’s (now mostly overcome) snow phobia, our thin Texas-adjusted skin, and the related lack of heavy snow gear, we’ve spent most of the winter boggling out the window as massive piles of snow accumulated before our very eyes. On Tuesday, I decided that that wouldn’t do at all. With the help of a snow shovel and twenty minutes of hard labor, I was able to clear the snow away from the door enough for us to get out onto the porch. Of course, once you get started…you remember why you thought it was fun as a kid.

Together (and of course when I say ‘together’ I mean, ‘I, working quickly to undo the damage that two enthusiastic preschoolers with shovels did to my efforts’) the boys and I carved and packed a set of stairs to the top of the three-and-a-half foot mound of snow the roof has dumped just outside the door. Once we got to the top,

We packed and filled a nice little platform and carved some stairs back down. It turns out we have a Big Wheel under all that snow! I completely forgot it was there. Oh well, it will just have to lie entombed until the snow melts.

Then I noticed some water running down from the middle of a gutter - it was warmish that day, so all the snow left on the roof was melting - and went to go see whether it was leaking. (It’s not. Just sagging.) Of course, once I got off the porch Charlie made a break for it, too. I coaxed Max down into the deeper snow, and he forgot to be worried about the fact that it was ‘touching him’ as soon as we started making this.

He’s, um - got character. It’s not so bad once you think about the fact that I made this with my boots and a shovel (I didn’t have my gloves on). Max doesn’t care, though. He’s just so happy that we have our very own snowman at last and he helped to make him! We had to go in shortly afterward, because Charlie went and soaked his top half in the freezing water coming down from the gutter, and his bottom half in the puddle it made.

So that was a fun day. Now, that’s the post I would have written on Tuesday if I hadn’t been so lazy. Here’s the one I wanted to write for today. (It’s Thursday here.)

We went shopping out in town yesterday - not something we often do (leaving aside restaurants and the Daiso). Now there are lots of things that it makes more sense to buy on base. Gas, for instance, is about 1/2 to 1/3 of the price on base that it is off base. Shoes are another thing I buy in the BX, for the simple reason that my feet are much larger than any shoes I’ve yet found out in town. When it comes to produce, though, off-base is the way to go. While there’s more than one reason for that, the biggest is that all fruit sold at our commissary comes either from the States or the farms in this area. Any fruit from local farms is sent to the regional processing and distribution center…500 miles away…before being sent back to our store. This renders it both older and more expensive. Now, I usually buy most of our fruits and vegetables at the commissary (frozen produce! convenient and affordable; also non-local items like bananas and oranges are comparable) but occasionally I’ll take a trip to the Yokomachi or the Universe when we want something fresher.

So, this week, Japanese strawberries began appearing in the commissary, about $6 for six or seven large (pale) strawberries. Since strawberries are, I think, Max’s favorite thing on earth, I decided to duck over to the Yokomachi on the off-chance that they had some there for less.

Aren’t they gorgeous? Seriously, I’ve never seen such gorgeous ripe strawberries in a grocery store - especially out of season. These are not the giant faded pink ones left when the stand has been picked over; they’re smaller, sweeter, and perfectly red. (For the record, I did not see any sad white or rotting strawberries in their strawberry display. Not even the giant ones, which they also had there. Seriously. Once I realized I didn’t see any, I looked.) They only cost about 300 yen. So to sum up: many more strawberries, much nicer, half the price.

Gorgeous. We’ll be heading back once Max polishes these off. So, perhaps tomorrow! Any time we stop at the Yokomachi I pick up one other thing, (Well, aside from the Tim Tams. They’re the only store in town that carries them.) a bowl of fresh pineapple. Since whole pineapples run in the range of $7 apiece, I’m more than happy to pay 300 yen for a good-sized bowl of fresh pineapple chunks.

They come with the most awesome ‘utensil,’ too. It’s rather like a three-inch toothpick with a fish, crab, or other bit of seafood looking cute on the top. The long part is shaped like a blade, which allows you to cut up your fruit into smaller pieces if you like. (I’m actually washing these and stashing them away, I love them so much.)

This concludes our catch-up blog, ‘my week in pictures.’

If at First You Don’t Succeed,

…You must have done it wrong.

The kids were surprisingly willing to get back in the car Wednesday. I was pretty cheery, too - we left much earlier than we had on Tuesday, moving quickly along a route that was much more familiar the second time. We made it to the last intersection, I turned confidently to the left…and realized that, once again, the directions failed to match up with reality.

I turned around - no mean feat on the back roads, let me tell you - and did what I should have done (and would have done, had I not gotten horribly, horribly, horribly lost) the day before. I stopped at the Sunkus and asked for directions. (Oh. Right. A Sunkus is a convenience store.) The problem with this is twofold: one, the quality of local English declines sharply the farther you get from base, and two, my Japanese skills are pretty much limited to courtesies, purchases, and menu orders. Ooh! Also numbers. Anyway, my vocabulary is not well suited to getting directions.

Fortunately, I had with me the three things that I’ve always maintained would smooth out an English/Japanese conversation: my pocket dictionary, a pen, and a piece of paper. The expression on the cashier’s face when she realized that I needed directions was pretty funny, and it was even funnier when she ran to the back and returned with two more women. The three of them attempted to give me directions (and I can only assume they were able to guess from my mangled Japanese where I wanted to go because it was so close… ‘Children’s Land and Botanical Gardens’ was not in my dictionary) but we ended up drawing a little map complete with tiny stoplights. As they drew each intersection they told me which way I should go in a chorus - “Raito, raito,” then “Lefuto, lefuto,” (and bless them for knowing that English). I thanked them profusely and left.

Getting there was so easy.

It’s a bit of a low-key place, but it’s free (you only pay for rides and food) and it was nearly deserted. The weather was gorgeous! We saw the monkeys (next to a squirrel exhibit and a pen with two goats in it) before passing what the display claimed was a genuine totem pole, bestowed upon them by their sister city in the Pacific Northwest. So that was odd. We followed the path up and down some serious hills to see a few more animals before heading back up for a snack and some rides.

Four carousel rides in two days! My kids are so spoiled. They spent some time splashing around in a trio of cone-shaped fountains with a little Japanese boy while his mother and I chatted a bit in choppy little bursts. I was surprised to discover that I comprehended a lot of what she said to her son - I guess I understand more words than I can just pull out and use, which is pretty cool.

After that (and a couple of train rides - I’ve used the word spoiled already, right?) we went over to see something that had caught my eye.

Yeah. That’s something, isn’t it? There was a little sign in English near the statues, but I didn’t find it very illuminating. My best guess from what I read is that the gardens were the site of an ancient Japanese settlement where they excavated clay figures (shaped like that) which they memorialized in representation of the ancient reverence that they have for family. Awww.

While we were there we were overtaken by a squealing mob of Japanese five-year olds on a school trip picnic. Their teacher had a plastic grocery bag crammed full of maple ‘helicopters’ that she was passing out to kids by the handful. She gave some to Max and Charlie, too (although she called them ‘propeller’ …and they probably spell it ‘puropera’) and Max ran around noisily with the kids while Charlie decided he was having none of that foolishness and stuck close by.

Keiko (the teacher) had the best English of anyone I’d talked to that day. I guess she teaches it in her class, since she had all of the kids that came over to stare at me introduce themselves in English. Once they sort of lost interest in me she and I talked in a bumpy mix of English and Japanese that actually worked pretty well.

When the kindergarten left, it was time for us to go as well. I lured my boys back to the car with a box of Koala no March (OH so good. I’ve almost completely quit American candy since moving here. What’s the point? I only buy it when I can’t get the Japanese candy - Japanese candy kicks butt) and made it back home easily with my happy but exhausted children.

There’s something to be said for ‘try, try again.’

Be Bold, Be Brave, Be Daring!

On Tuesday I attempted something I had not previously done - I let the warm, familiar, Americanized borders of our little town and struck out across country into Japan…alone. The plan was simple: I was going to drive with the boys to a neighboring city that I’ve visited several times as a passenger, and try to find the Children’s Park and Botanical Gardens - which we have never been to.

All went surprisingly well at first. We made it to the city! I successfully followed increasingly obscure directions (”Cross a narrow bridge and turn right at the intersection with a Sunkus. The road will split and wind uphill, by a river. You will come to a T-intersection with a lot of signs…”) until the very last one. I tried…and I tried…and I tried, but I could not find it. (This is because the last direction turned out to be completely and inexplicably wrong.) It was frustrating to be so close but be so utterly unable to find something that should be so visible. I mean, the place has a roller coaster. I cast down one road and then another, finding down the first increasingly rural Japan (where I saw things like this…that’s not my picture, but it’s accurate. Yes, they really dress like that. Yes, this is a real farm - fairly typical of what I’ve seen, too - they do so much of their farming by hand. It’s very peculiar compared to - say - Kansas. They’re drying rice in that picture, by the way), down another a toll road leading away from the city, and down the third another path to the downtown area I had just left. It was on this road that I lost track of the way I had come and became horribly, horribly, horribly lost.

We had at this point been in the car for over two hours. The boys were crying - I was almost crying - and I had no idea how to get back to where I had been, how to get back home, or how to reach any of the landmarks I recognized in the city. Off of the roads that Americans frequent, the street signs are almost entirely in kanji which, you know…I can’t read. It was very stressful. I just drove, looking for something I recognized, trying to move towards larger streets in the hopes that I’d be able to find my way out.

It was at this point that I happened to pass something I recognized - although it didn’t help me orient myself at all. It was a mall that we visited on the tour when we first arrived. We hadn’t been back since, but I remembered that it have a pretty sizable arcade and play area inside, and a pet store across the street - and I decided to take the opportunity to salvage something of the day for the boys at least. They were predictably impressed by the pet store and the mall. We saw (extremely expensive) puppies, some fish, and some birds (they sold chickens O_o) at the pet store, then walked over to the mall. When we’d gone before, we hadn’t gone into the arcade because we were short on time, low on energy, and pretty bewildered by the foreign culture. Even though I was stressed and exhausted, I felt so much calmer and more confident navigating the mall this time that it was actually pretty soothing.

As it turns out, the arcade there is a great place to take two small children to make them think that was the whole point of two hours’ driving. Aside from the loud, flashing arcade games of which there were plenty, they had an area for smaller children encircled by tracks for a little train, complete with railroad crossing that closed, flashing lights and dinging if the train was going around. There was an enclosed room filled with fans and big balloons, they had a full-sized carousel (aka ‘Merry Goraund’), miniature Pokemon bumper cars, a little corner filled with foam mats and blocks, and coin-operated ‘rides’ like you see at the front of Walmart. Although, while you might see Thomas the Tank Engine or a bus in Walmart, you’re not terribly likely to see Anpanman there. There was even a real roller coaster on the upper level, but obviously I didn’t take my boys on it. We spent most of our time in the bus - not even putting any money in, just sitting or (in the case of Max and Charlie) taking turns at the steering wheel. Of course, the first time that little train went around right behind us, Max sat bolt upright and insisted that we get to the train immediately. We rode the train around once (it was a short ride but a cheap one) and then it was back to the bus until Max saw the carousel going around. With his recent horse obsession that was no big surprise. It was the boys’ first time on a carousel and they did pretty well! I even think Charlie enjoyed it, and he was pretty dubious at first.

All in all, they had a blast. I wrangled them onto the bumper cars and we took another turn on the carousel before we left, picking up some vending-machine ice cream on the way out. (It’s a phenomenon that’s growing on me. Some of them are actually sold in cones of soft-serve, frozen solid and encased in little plastic cone protectors.) Back in the car, the tired and happy kids fell asleep, and it only took about twenty minutes of nervous driving for me to find a big blue sign with the way home in tall white letters.

Once I got home, of course, I checked directions to the gardens on several sites and discovered the glaring error in the last line of the ones I had followed. Looking at the right way to get there, I could see in my head exactly which way I should have gone. Frustrated, I decided that I was going to try again the next day…and I will write about that tomorrow.

There is Beauty All Around

We went to the beach yesterday.

It was definitely Not a Swimming Beach. We went with some friends, and the people who came in our group were the only ones there. I was concerned at first that it wasn’t even a public beach, as we got there by ducking between the headstone shop and a barn then driving along a pair of tire ruts through tall grass before pulling out onto the beach. Yes, we parked on the sand. Several people got stuck. Adventure! Don’t worry; I was assured that it was a public beach, just not much frequented (for obvious reasons). Actually, there are only one or two beaches on this part of the coast that are safe for swimming - they’ve put in breakers and barriers to calm the waters before they get to shore there - because everywhere else?

there are fantastic waves, and riptides, and undertows. Yeah - that is right along the beach. See the little seashell in the lower right-hand corner? It was breathtakingly gorgeous, though.

Honestly, this (Japan, not just the beach) is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. It’s easy to see why their native religion is one that venerates nature. Between the ocean, the mountains, and the forests, a simple jaunt into the countryside borders on a spiritual experience. Back to the beach, though -

This is when we arrived. Note the hesitant postures - what is this stuff? - and the presence of shoes, socks, and toys. This next photo was taken less than an hour afterward.

Dirty, barefoot, and with a distinct whiff of ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ buckets!’ That was the last picture I took of them before I put the camera back in the car so I could play. You should have seen them when we left! Charlie tried to taste the sand. Max tried to fill his watering can with the rising tide. They both almost got sucked out to sea when I brought them to the water’s edge to get their feet wet in the ocean. (Although that was the reason I was holding their hands, it’s still kind of frightening.) We made a sand ‘mountain’ and decorated it with seashells - there were literally piles of huge, unbroken seashells swept up against the dunes - crazy! We made a driftwood bonfire, had hot dogs and roasted marshmallows. We saw the moon reflected on the ocean. It. Was. Awesome.

I collected a little box full of seashells and other small treasures, too:

A chunk or two of driftwood, some small, smooth stones; I found a chunk of something we suspect might be a sponge (upper right hand corner). Many small shells, lots of larger ones, and a bit of the dark sand that found its way home with us. I also picked up pieces of broken shells that had been worn smooth. Mom, this beats Cocoa Beach all hollow.

At any rate, Greg will be gone soon and it was the best way imaginable to say goodbye.

Happy 4th of July

In honor of the day, I present to you:

TEN THINGS I MISS ABOUT LIVING IN THE STATES

1. Seeing my family.
2. Yarnivore
3. Being able to use my debit card anywhere. I would, at this point, take being able to use it at 25% of the places I shop.
4. 24-hour Walmarts
5. Being able to read and understand street signs.
6. Buffalo Wild Wings
7. 70 mph speed limits
8. Papa John’s Pizza. Oooh, and delivery!
9. Not having to go to the Post Office to get my mail. Also, occasionally using the services of UPS, FedEx, etc.
10. Current TV programming.

Happy Birthday, America!

Long Weekends are Long on Fun

How’s that for a cheesy title? Still: this weekend we went and had some serious fun. In particular, on Monday we went out into Japan - the farthest from base I’ve been yet - to a little town where the people we asked weren’t sure they had an ATM. Why, you may ask?

Why, for an amateur Drifting Day, of course! (Don’t worry, Mom - Greg didn’t take our car out. Although he could have, for 5,000 yen!) Nothing says a good time like a dozen souped-up hobby cars on a go-cart track. Apparently drifting really is big in Japan, and it’s not just a construct of Hollywood marketing. And I have to tell you, watching it is really, really cool. I’ve never seen cars move like that. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty rough on the cars:

Seen here is one car in the process of losing its bumper. The driver just pulled off the track, took it off, and went right back to drifting. He wasn’t the only one to lose bits of his car, either (some lost hoods, front bumpers, stuff like that) but I think that was the only time something fell off and dragged while the car was on the track! We had a friend drifting that day, and he broke his fuel pump and had to be pushed off. (He quickly replaced it so he could drift some more.) Everyone was changing their tires something like twice an hour, too - one of the key elements of drifting is the burnout - and every time a car was disabled they had to clear the track and get it off before the drifting could resume.

Interestingly, they also cleared the track at lunchtime to comply with a peculiar noise ordinance: apparently there’s a local Onsen that doesn’t want to hear the noise during lunch when people come there to relax. We would have stopped anyway - stormclouds rolled in at about that time (and I mean that literally - the wind started blowing and we watched thick white fog roll over the top of the pine forest, sink down and spread across the ground) and it started raining, hard. We ran for the cars and went into town for lunch. After the rain died down, they started drifting again.

It’s really difficult to convey drifting through still photographs, but we sure took enough of them trying. They’re having another drift day in July, and we’ll probably head down to see it again. It was really a fun and interesting experience!

Oh, and I’m really sorry that the links are so hard to pick out - I haven’t finished tweaking the new blog scheme yet. Lots to do, lots to do! Also, several packages from several online orders across several weeks all converged on our PO Box today, and so tomorrow if I have time to take some pictures I will have a lot of fun things to show off. See you!

Losing Track of Time

I’ve been putting off posting for a few reasons, the main one being that I’m currently pouring most of my energies into a complete revamp and redesign of Inner Child Crochet - and I’m continually convinced that I’ll have the preview for the new format finished ‘by the end of today.’ I would have it done, too, but though I finished the body of my code two weeks ago, I’ve spent nearly every day since then attempting to pound Internet Explorer into submission. (If you browse with IE, please, for the love of web standards and my sanity, switch to something more compliant.) I decided that it was time for a new theme - I created the autumn theme in an homage to the season that I missed the most - something a little less overbearing. I’ve also got more experience designing than I did when I created the site - over a year more - and I’m well able now to create something more fluid, elegant and functional than the site I built a year ago. With luck and hard work, I will have a preview page to satisfy your curiosity within the next week.

In other news, we had another earthquake on Tuesday. It was in the middle of the afternoon, this time: the boys were sleeping and I was in the kitchen, cooking. The ground started to shake and tremble, the dishes in the cupboards behind me began rattling quietly, and after a moment I looked up to see if a truck was passing by - but I knew that it wasn’t. It was too hard for that, and there was a subtle sensation of slipping sideways that not even the big earth-movers can produce. After another moment I turned off my mixer, wondering briefly if I should move to a doorway and whether the boys would wake up, but in the end I just stood there by my bowl of frosting and watched the world outside my window as though I would be able to see a harder quake coming. After a while - ten seconds? Thirty? A minute? I don’t know - the shaking stopped, though tiny shudders continued for a few minutes more.

I went back to mixing, strangely disturbed. Maybe this seems commonplace to those of you who live (or have lived) in earthquake-prone areas, but it’s not to me. I grew up in the Midwest. Tornadoes? Nooo problem. But earthquakes? What? The part that unsettled me most, I think, is that there was an earthquake and I just stopped, waited, and went about my business. (I probably didn’t have to stop, either, but I’m new to this.) If there’s a tornado, first of all you usually know it’s coming. You gather your family, your flashlights and your radio and go to a safe place - or, if there’s less chance it’ll hit you, you go somewhere with access to a safe place. If they’re farther away, you might go out to the Sonic for a Cherry Limeade (gee, I miss those) and hang out with your friends until the clouds start to thicken and then head home so you can sit on your sofa and watch tv, getting annoyed when they interrupt CSI with those pesky weather updates. With very few exceptions, it’s Not a Big Deal.

Two earthquakes in as many weeks has started me thinking that this may be a somewhat regular occurrence. But if Japan has a dangerous side, it also has beauty:

The cherry trees are in bloom, and I was stunned by how many of the bare branches we’d seen this winter suddenly pushed out blossoms. (Click on the pics to see better!)

Anyone more than marginally familiar with Japan and Japanese culture will have heard of sakura, but the full extent (and, in fact, the beauty) of the phenomenon cannot I think be easily grasped without seeing it.

There are cherry trees everywhere. Parks are planted full of them. In places, they line the streets on both sides. People have planted them in their tiny yards, public buildings are surrounded by them, and it’s difficult to drive for more than a minute or two without passing a tree full of blossoms.

I took the boys up to a fairly unfrequented hill yesterday: it was planted all over with cherry trees. We walked underneath them - the blossoms are beginning to fall now and when the wind blew we were sprinkled with fragrant petals. The smell of cherry blossoms is sweet and delicate: with so many together every breath we took was scented with the beautiful fragrance. Max and Charlie were delighted with the flowers, and patient with me as I stopped again and again to take pictures in a futile attempt to capture the moment.

The best part? Everyone we talk to concedes that the cherry blossoms here are “pretty okay.” For really good cherry blossom viewing, there’s a city about two hours away that our friends enthusiastically recommend. We didn’t go this year - their blossoms have already fallen - but I think we’ll take the trip next year.

I could take a thousand pictures in a thousand different ways and still not truly capture the sheer magnitude and beauty of these cherry trees.