First week back

After the winter holiday, this week has been a very pleasant easing back into country life with all its attendant trivialities and experiences. I taught two classes at the elementary school. Two of my obnoxious kids did very well in sixth grade and all of my fifth graders out-shown themselves in "what's this?" and the Hokey Pokey, which shocked me to death as I thought they might be too grown-up for it. But I love them and they love me and if I say joyously, "Let's do this!" they jump to their feet and give me the benefit of the doubt for at least five minutes, which was all that was left at the end of class.

Last weekend, I punished myself by biking up some mountains. One day, I went towards Umaji village, that hidden Shangri La in the mountains behind Yasuda. I hear funny stories about Umaji and the CIR only comes out every couple of months to mix with us peons who live below him (Ben, you're a very nice guy, if you ever happen to read this), but I've never been there. I don't particularly feel the need to go there, but at first it seemed like a good goal. Fourteen kilometers straight up! Let's DO IT! But after four kilometers straight up, I said "screw it" and published those pictures from the shrine and roadway.

The next day, however, I went up a mountain in Kitagawamura to the Monet Garden. The Monet Garden is a pretty little affair that is supposed to be reflective of various paintings by Claude Monet during his water-lilies stage. The various paths wind around the mountain up to a lovely little viewpoint from which one can survey the mouth of the Nahari/Kitagawamura river meeting the sea and the towns of Tano and Nahari stretched out on either side of it. Unless you go up in the afternoon like I did, so all you can see is a lot of sunshine in your eyes. Still it was very lovely.

The view from above. That's the river in the middle. On the right side is Tano and on the left side is Nahari.
That over-exposed space in the upper half is the ocean with the sun shining directly on it, giving me a glare-headache.

Please, please, don't tread on the daaaay-sies...

Beside most of the scenes are facsimilies of various of Monet's paintings. I think
in general, they tried to recreate the scenes you find in the artwork. In winter,
the effect is somewhat lost, but the general sense of austere winterly beauty works.

That's the dam and the road behind it is the one I ride on every weekend - it is my favorite ride
because of the trees on one side and the river on the other, but it kind of doesn't go anywhere.