I totally paused

   When nobody tells you the rules, you just have to figure them out by watching what other people are doing. This can lead to some interesting results.

   I'm talking about traffic rules. As a foreigner in Japan, I'm allowed to wait a year until I take the Japanese driver's test, which is supposedly a bit more rigorous than the American version. I've heard it involves an obstacle course. But so far, I haven't done any studying for the test. I've just been relying on common sense and imitating what other peope do on the road. This is what I've gathered so far.

   No left turns on red. (That's like no right on red in America). 

   Unless it's late at night. Then red lights are more of a guideline. You should slow down, assess the situation, and then blow right through the intersection.

   Even during the day, as long as you're still going pretty fast as the light turns red, it's ok to blast right on through, and the car behind you can follow your lead, too. Also, if you want to make a right turn (that's across traffic) and you're the first person waiting at that red light, it's ok to get a little of a head start before the light actually turns so you can make it across the intersection before oncoming traffic has started moving. 

   If you're on a two lane road, you should definitely change lanes any time someone ahead of you so much as taps on the breaks. 

   In all seriousness though, Japanese people are fairly courteous drivers, at least compared to New Yorkers. They're usually pretty happy to let you pull in front of them, and trucks especially are willing to slow down and let you make that right turn across their lane so that the big line of people waiting behind you doesn't turn into an angry mob. When you let someone cut in front of you, they'll usually blink their lights at you to say thanks. And if you can actually physically see the person, they usually give you a little bow of their head.

   But don't even think about going the speed limit on one of those tiny winding country roads. A big line of cars will pile up behind you, and you'll have to find a place to pull over and let them zoom past before they actually ram into your bumper.

Sylvie

Dances with cucumbers

   Every day at school lunch we have three dishes. One is usually a bowl of rice. The other is usually soup. The third plate generally holds a slice of fish and a salad, or, less often, a piece of meat and a salad. I say "salad" because that's what they call it here, but it never contains lettuce or even raw vegetables. It's always a pile of boiled vegetables doused in salad dressing, or, less often, mayonnaise.

   The one thing this so-called salad invariably contains is sliced cucumber.

   Cucumbers with  corn and kale. Cucumbers with daikon and sesame seeds. Cucumbers with diced pumpkin. Cucumbers with radishes and carrots. There are endless variations. Apparently everything pairs well with cucumber.

   I went to a nearby castle recently. The other castles I've visited have all been carved out and turned into carpeted, fluorescent-lit museums on the inside. But this one still had its original interior. Unfortunately, all the pictures I took inside came out looking totally lame, so I'll just have to describe it to you.

   The castle had a huge rock foundation, but the rest of it was completely wooden. Huge, dark wooden beams criss crossed the ceilings, and the floor consisted of long, wide slabs of wood. The stairs were ridiculously steep, more like a ladder than an actual staircase. I had to bend my knee way past ninety degrees to get up to the next step.
   The wood was very old but well-cared for. None of the visitors were allowed to wear shoes in the house, so the floors were smooth and shiny. We went on a beautiful, sunny day, and the wood seemed to absorb the sunlight and reflect it back in warm glow. It was pretty hot outside, but it was cool and dark inside.
   One of the scary things, aside from the Cirith Ungol-like stairs, was the fact that you could see light winking up at you between floor boards. The stairs and floors also creaked like crazy, so if any ninjas wanted to sneak in and assassinate a warlord, they'd have to be pretty good.

   Castles and shrines in Japan are traditionally built entirely of wood (and stone). They don't use nails or screws. Instead, they cut the wood so that it fits together perfectly, using other pieces of wood as wedges or locks to hold it all in place. They have a special title for the type of carpenter who knows how to build and repair these all-wood buildings: "Miya-daiku." Castles like the one I visited are repaired, not rebuilt, but some temples and shrines are torn down every fifty or so years and completely rebuilt. One reason for this, presumably, is to keep the craft alive and people with that highly-specialized skill in business.
   It's really cool to examine the ceiling, the railings, and the staircases and see how all the wood was built to fit together.

behind an abandoned coin laundry

   If you play video games, you'll understand why I am uploading pictures of rusty barrels. I keep happening across these in Japan - something that never ever happened to me in America.

at the top of a hiking trail near a shrine

   In video games, barrels are strategically strewn about warehouses, parking lots, the basements of corporate research laboratories, or the alleys in an urban sprawl - you know, the type of places where you typically encounter barrels in real life.  The red ones always contain something flammable, so when you shoot them (usually takes three shots with a pistol, or a quick click with your automatic rifle) they explode and kill lots of enemies, and maybe you, too, if you are standing too close.

at least this looks like a warehouse where maybe they actually need barrels to store stuff

   But their only purpose in Japan seems to be to convince me that at any moment I might have to drop everything and go thwart an evil, corporate conspiracy or stop aliens from enslaving the human race. 

no red ones. maybe they're just there so i can stack them and jump up to the second story

Man-made

   The other day I returned to the dam I visited once before, to see if I would be able to walk across it. It turned out that the dam had a road running on top of it, and not only was I able to walk over the dam, but I was even able to take an elevator down inside it.

   With the rainy season more than a month passed, most of the rivers in my prefecture are running low. Still, it was hard for me to imagine the river so full as to account for the dark stains on the lower portion of the dam. I could see that the banks of the river had less and younger plantlife up to the same level as those stains on the dam, though, so I guess the river must run pretty high sometimes. 

   The view from on top the dam. 

   The view on the other side. 

   I had only expected to walk across the dam, but I discovered a building on top, with an elevator inside, and some visitor-friendly explanations about the history and construction of the dam. I discovered that the dam is about 1300 feet high. I was nervous about taking the elevator, so I waited around until some other people came out of it, to assure myself that it probably wouldn't break and trap me inside.

 

   This was the building with access to the elevator. Aside from the complete lack of people around, the most unsettling part about it was the retro elevator music streaming out of that loudspeaker attached to the door. If I had been holding a portal gun with a potato battery attached to it, I would have felt more equipped to enter.

   I took the elevator down about half way. From the hallway, which had some creepy artwork of children's handprints, I could see through this door to the gate controls.

   This picture makes it look more airy and well-lit than it actually was. It was very damp and musty. That door at the far end led to a stair case leading out of the dam, but at the moment it was off limits. There was also a terrace, but I didn't get a very good picture from it.

   The coolest part about the dam were the stairs and ladders giving access to every part of it. Of course, they were all off limits to me. But it would have been really cool to climb it.


ps I went to a lot of effort not to make the title of this post a pun on "dam." I hope you appreciate it

Japanese landscape

Summer doldrums

   The temperature is staying firmly above 80 degrees, wandering into the mid 90s in the afternoon. It's pretty soul-crushing. I've been hiding out in the air-conditioned mall in the afternoons to avoid the worst of it.

   Yesterday, I took a walk at around 7am, while it was still bearable out.

    I just got back from a trip back home, and while I was gone, a crazy bird moved into the neighborhood. Every morning at 5:40 sharp, it starts screaming its head off from the electric wires over my apartment. I think it might have been raised by fire trucks.

   I realized that I've never broken 50mph driving in Japan. The speed limit on most roads is between 25 and 30mph, and even though everyone here speeds, they don't often go over 45mph. I think if I broke 60, my tiny car might fall apart.

   That's a cat, snoozing in the middle of the road. I don't see cats very often. Either not many people own them, or not many people let them out of the house. I'm not sure if this one was domestic or feral. Usually when I see cats, I meow at them. They always stop, give me a look, then run away. Maybe I'm saying something weird.

   There's one yellow cat that comes by my balcony, yeowling sometimes, but when I meow at him, he always goes away. Idk if he's hungry or looking for a mate, but if it's the latter, I can tell him right now, he does not have a very attractive meow.

A smoky nation

   One of the risks of line drying your laundry in Japan is that sometimes when you take it down, it smells like smoke. That's because people in the countryside love to burn little piles of weeds in their yards. I assume that's what they're doing, anyway. All I know is that I often see little fires burning in people's yards.

    Japan is also more liberal with smoking. There's a smoking section in every cafe and restuarant. And in bars or izakayas, the smoking section is usually just the whole bar. One exception is Starbucks, where smoking is banned inside, period. They post a polite little sign outside saying that they don't want the smoke to interfere with the enjoyment of coffee. Other exceptions are McDonald's and KFC. Notice a pattern?

    So often when I come home after I've eaten out or even just wandered around a city, I'll notice that my hair and clothes smell like smoke. 

    Sometimes I see these whacky posters which I guess are supposed to be part of an anti-smiking campaign. In the US, anti-smoking campaigns usually tell you about how you'll get lung cancer and die an ugly death, but the Japanese posters take a more subtle approach.

   I love how these posters always have perfect English. Clearly they hired a native speaker to translate them. I think I should have that job.
  
   If you want to see more of these hilarious posters, google "japan tobacco posters."