Earthshaking news!

~Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in updates--blogger.com has been on the fritz for the past few days and I couldn't create any new posts. This morning I experienced my first earthquake! It was only a small tremor that lasted for five seconds, but it was an earth tremor nonetheless. The shaking woke me up, and in my sleepy haze I thought that I had imagined the whole thing. I was mildly surprised to learn that other people had felt the same shaking. Hopefully, this is the worst earthquake that I will experience in Japan, as I have no desire to be in the middle of a 'big one', like last year's quake that left thousands homeless.

~On Sunday, I attended a going-away celebration for a teacher at one of the other English schools, who is being transferred to Toyko. The party was held at a bar called 'Nameless', which caters mostly to gaijin (they even have menus in English! Joy!). Because the teacher's name is Sarah, the theme of the party was the letter "S". I wore my blue smiley-face shirt (re: blog post #1, 'T-minus 38 hours'), and Sarah went as a Sakura tree. Sakura is Japanese for cherry blossom, which are currently in full bloom all over the city. Over the weekend, I rode around a bit and took some pictures guaranteed to brighten your day:

Above: Overlooking a canal near the train station that is lined with cherry trees on both sides. As I was aiming my camera for this picture, an old Japanese woman talked to me about the cherry trees; she mentioned Washington D.C. (re: previous blog post), and became very excited when I told her that I had lived near D.C. and had seen the festival there. She asked me if I was a high school student, and was very surpised when I told her I was an 'Ego Sensei' (=English teacher; although saying that always makes me think, "Leggo my Eggo!").

Above: Cherry trees along a different canal. Although they are very beautiful trees, they sure do make a mess. Here is a closeup of the lower-left part of the picture:

Above: At this time of the year, as in Washington D.C., cherry blossom petals are everywhere. Oh, they're very picturesque when they're floating through the air in a soft breeze, but someone has to clean them off of the streets, roofs, sidewalks, etc. Every day I see old men with brooms and dustpans sweeping the petals away. Where do the petals go? Some gigantic sakrua-landfill? An incinerator? My guess is that they are baked into cherry-flavored cakes (yes, the petals are edible).


Above: What must be a very old cherry tree along the canal. See that pile of petals on the ground?

Above: A closeup of some cherry blossoms. I recommend clicking on the picture to get the full effect.

Above: Another picture of a tree-lined canal. Note that by planting cherry trees along the canals, half of the petals fall into the water and therefore dispose of themselves. Brilliant!

~Here's something a little different:

Above: This is the most mysterious building in Nagaoka. I ride by this building every day on my bicycle commute to work. As you can see, the 'N-1' is a very large building, and at night it is brightly lit (it makes a great navigational landmark). Supposedly, it's a pachinko parlor on the bottom floor, and the upper seven floors are parking.

I don't buy that...seven floors of parking for one floor of pachinko? This building is large enough to hold a substantial chunk of Nagaoka's population, and I've never seen it very busy. My theory is that it is the regional headquarters for a) the yakuza, b) a group of vigilante superheroes, or c) some kind of anti-North-Korean defense system. Perhaps the entire building is just a shell that folds back, revealing some kind of futuristic giant robot launch pad. Or maybe it's just more floors of pachinko. Either way, it does have a nice group of cherry trees in front of it.