Exploring Nagaoka

~Greetings fellow mortals! Today's dispatch from Japan is about my place of residence, the city of Nagaoka. As I've said before, Nagaoka is not a beautiful city, but it is in a beautiful location, with a wide river in the middle and large mountain ranges in the distance. Having nothing better to do on Monday, I rode my bicycle to the south of Nagaoka, where I'd never been before. I didn't find much (unless you count 20+ car dealerships as "much"), but I did take some pictures for you:

^ There are many canals in Nagaoka that go under roads and even entire buildings. This canal was out in the rural area of Nagaoka, beneath a bridge that gave me some relief from the hot, humid weather. I felt an urge to just jump into the canal and swim around, but that will have to wait for another day.

^ Rice fields in southern Nagaoka, with a single large mountain rising out of the horizon. From what my students tell me, people in Japan eat rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so rice fields like this are everywhere. Niigata is known for producing the finest rice in Japan; I'd review it myself, but I can't read the packaging at the supermarket, so I honestly don't know if the rice that I eat is real Niigata rice. I'll work on it and get back to you with a full report on Niigata rice.

Here are some pictures from all around Nagaoka:

^ "Mountains in the Mist". Japan has entered its rainy season and we've been getting poured on every day for the past week or so, hence the cloudy weather. As I'm fond of saying, "Mata ame desu!" (pr: 'ma-ta ah-may des' = It's raining again!). The large concrete structure in the lower part of the picture is part of the Joetsu Shinkanesen line.
^ The Chōsei Bridge, one of several bridges that crosses the Shinano River that divides Nagaoka. This bridge was constructed in 1938 but is still in good shape, thanks to frequent maintenance. The shape of the bridge is supposed to look like a dragon's spiky back. This bridge is famous because the massive annual fireworks display is held above it...and because it was one of the few structures to survive the air raid during World War II.

^ This palace is where the Baron of Nagaoka lives. Ok, it's actually just a wedding chapel, but picturesque nonetheless.

^ The Nagaoka Red Cross Hospital. One of the words I learned in my Japanese class last Sunday was "Byōin" (byo-in, 病 院 ), which is Japanese for hospital. A very useful word to know, in my opinion, especially if you can also ask, "Byōin wa doko desu ka?" (where is the hospital?). One interesting feature of the hospital is that the red cross at the top lights up at night and it visible from most of the city (much like the N-1 building, which is almost as large as the hospital).

^ A colorful sunset over the mountains west of Nagaoka. I'm intrigued by the tower on top of the mountain in the center of the picture, which I see on every clear morning from my apartment building. I've asked around a bit, and no one knows what the building is. Or maybe they do know, and they're just not saying...

Here's some Japanglish I found while shopping a few weeks ago:

^ This was on the side of a plastic bag sold for 105 yen. I'll leave you to form your own opinion/conclusion/confusion.

That's it for today. Please comment if you have something to say! ~Oyasumi!