Mt. Fuji

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My luck with volcano visibility here in Japan hasn’t been good. First I climbed Asahi-dake in Hokkaido (tallest mountain on Hokkaido) without seeing anything through the clouds and rain. Now I’ve made it to the top of Mt. Fuji without seeing the famous view from the top (let alone much of anything along the way).

But the trip was still an adventure, including a 38-hour day with no sleep, law-breaking, beers for breakfast and a day at an amusement park directly after descending from the mountain. Needless to say, I needed a good night’s sleep when I finally returned to Nagano.

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Featured Food – Onigiri

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Today’s featured food is a staple of fast-food life here. But this ain’t no greasy hamburger. For only ¥100, you get a tasty, healthy snack. Onigiri is a rice ball, usually filled with one ingredient and wrapped in seaweed. All convenience stores offer a large selection, ranging from ¥100 to ¥150 (one U.S. dollar is currently about ¥117). My favorite is the one with smoked salmon in the middle. The convenience store (“conbini”) versions are cleverly wrapped to prevent the seaweed from touching the rice until you unwrap it. This keeps the seaweed crisp and fresh.

I’ll be eating the one in the picture as soon as I post this.

Bad Hair Night

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I had a dream last night of a hair cut gone bad. Somehow, I ended up with longer hair than when I started, and was a dead ringer for Dale Bozzio. I think it must be anxiety about going back to a salon here, where prices are high and communication is difficult. My last cut was decent, though, and on the bright side the scalp massage went on forever.

Modern Wheels

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My faithful granny bike (given to me by the outgoing teacher) has been relegated to shopping duty only. I bought a used mountain bike this past week from a friend who is leaving the country. The frame is a bit small for me, but I can live with it. The bike was a bargain at ¥10,000 (about $85). This is my first bike with suspension. After all the bouncing and shaking on the old bucket of bolts, I now feel like I’m riding on air.

Mountains and Hospitals

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Had a day of mountain biking in Hakuba on Saturday with Ben and Peter that ended with Peter in the hospital.

Hakuba is a small village at the base of the Japanese Alps, where ski jumping events were held during the 1998 Winter Olympics. It’s about 45 minutes from Nagano by car. There is some spectacular mountain scenery—it’s easy to see why the area was nicknamed the Japanese Alps. At one ski area, you can pay to take gondolas up a mountain with bikes, then ride down the trails.

Late in the afternoon, Peter took a bad jump and landed on his head, leaving him in a state of shock. He had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital in a town about 20 miles away. He wasn’t coherent until about three hours after the accident. There were no broken bones and a CAT scan showed no serious damage. But he’s staying at the hospital overnight for observation.

Trying to deal with language barriers in medical emergencies isn’t much fun, but everyone was very patient and helpful.

Dam Issues

Campaign poster for Nagano Governor Yasuo TanakaA special election is scheduled for Sept. 1 in Nagano Prefecture (Nagano city is the seat of the regional government). Voters will elect a governor, and the likely winner will be the man who resigned just last month. The election is drawing interest from all over Japan, and is seen as a harbinger of the battle between reformers and the entrenched political establishment in this country.

The picture here is of Yasuo Tanaka, the reform governor who resigned last month after a no-confidence vote by the prefectural assembly. One of the main points of conflict between the governor and the assembly was whether a new dam should be built near Nagano city. The dam seems to have been one of the many pork-barrel construction projects for which Japan is infamous, and Tanaka angered many entrenched interests by blocking construction of the dam.

Tanaka was a famous writer in Japan before entering politics, and is something of a maverick. He is expected to be re-elected next week, thus gaining more leverage against his opponents in the assembly.

As the campaign draws to a close, the candidates and their supporters rely on bullhorns to help get their messages out. I’m woken up each morning by political speeches which sound like they’re coming from a loudspeaker right outside my window. In the evenings, during the after-work rush, I often have to speak louder in my classes to be heard above the noise.

Update (Sept. 04) — Tanaka won the election by a large margin.

Cooling Off

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I’ve been getting exercise recently at a nice, 50-meter outdoor pool. It’s about a 15-minute bicycle ride from my apartment, and is rarely busy in the late mornings when I go. It’s usually a collection of young and old men. The old guys swim a couple laps, then get out to smoke a cigarette or two before jumping back in.