DaiOni

Dave: sony dsc F717 for most of them back to the sports festival... of course, the girls have their own version of 'fight sports': probably more violent than the boys (those girls can be bitchy!) - this is a piggy-back fight where the objective is to pull the headbands off the opposing team (usually involves a fair amount of scratching, slapping, hair pulling, crying...)

school sports days: (this one's at junior high) contain the usual collection of relays and so on, but also some whacky events that make you say "only in japan". AT most schools, the students are divided into two teams (or more) who compete against each other for a variety of trophies and overall glory. They take it VERY seriously - always ends in tears for one team. Every year I pop into the school sports day of my wife's base school. Simply because this one event (pictured below) is quite a spectacle. Every boy in the school lines up against the opposing team. Half of them form a protective scrum around a bamboo pole (with a flag on the top), the other half charge across the field to take on the other team - the objective: to claim the opposing flag. It's a chaotic mix of red rover/rugby/combat...

on the other hand, once in a while, the intrusive hand of man and the simplicity of nature combine to paint a pretty picture or two

I touched on this subject a little earlier (with reference to a very interesting book on the 'destruction' of 'old japan' - dogs and demons, by alex kerr)... On my island you can find examples of this 'destruction' everywhere - though moreso the destruction of the natural environment, as opposed to the destruction of heritage buildings and areas that occurs in more urban centres. Typical sights are pointless rows of tetrapods (conrete blocks that are designed to protect the coast against typhoon damage - but tend to do more damage to the environment), unneccesary dams (lots of them), mazes of roads in the mountains (going nowhere, simply a way to obtain budget money and provide kickbacks to companies), beautiful rivers turned into concrete canals, gigantic breakwalls (I'll get some pics of these - they can be over thirty feet high, and utilise massive amounts of concrete - another major kickback)... and this - one of the more common sights, mountainsides that have been concreted up (ostensibly, to stop landslides): the thing is - this is in the middle of a very extensive, useless, mountain road (a long-cut, instead of a short-cut, with no residences, no business use...). So immense amounts of money are poured into the road, immense amounts of money are poured into the upkeep of the road/adjacent areas - yet they are never used! It's crazy, and the environment gets the worst deal of the lot.

from the tiny, to the gigantic: another massive statue in the middle of nowhere!

more buddhas! another shrine to lost babies/children - with an interesting collection of toys clustered around statuettes

...because the robots are a little busy at the moment... smoko! :Pimp: wonder what he has in that pipe?

mcnamg: there's plenty of nice ones about - if I have a chance, I'll take a few pics Okay, here's a quick update. No car pics in this lot (sorry - though it's not the central purpose of this thread, anyway - but I'll endeavour to try harder) first up, a bit of subtle engrish:

I don't have any new good pictures of my car on hand at the moment. I do have a shitty one though: (forester also in the background)

VIP isn't limited by budget (relatively speaking) - can be a dodgy teen in an old cefiro, or the latest merc with 20s. Try to find a copy of VIP magazine if you are really interested

IMO, it all boils down to politicians scamming the system - no different to any country, just that the culture and system here allow them to get away with murder (and rewards them for doing so)

there's a very good book called 'dogs and demons' by alex kerr: here's an amazon link that might work I highly recommend it to all who have been living in japan for a while - you'll definitely be familiar with a lot of the descriptions in the book - shatters every illusion you might have about some aspects of japanese bureaucracy/culture/general weirdness of society. I don't really recommend it to those who are thinking about coming - I think it's better to come here first and experience it - then you can read the book and become bitter, angry, etc.

I've had the same experience - from a rural/semi-rural area that has merged to form a city - just for a budget upgrade. I'm hoping to do an update to my photo thread sometime this week, that will highlight one or two of the very unnecessary things that the japanese to do themselves/their environment.

The main problem I have with JETs is an overwhelming amount of them are fresh-out-of-college/uni graduates who have never had a job in their life - think this is a holiday - and whine every five minutes because 'we do it like this back in [insert country], so that's how it should be done' rural: your description isn't too bad, but maybe there isn't a conbini, maybe there isn't an izakaya. There aren't any trains, no-one (including everyone at school, including the english teachers) speaks english. No-one likes ya either, whitey! (that was half tounge-in-cheek) trust me: semi-rural

Well, there are some very honest opinions on there ( [/rose coloured glasses off] ) Before I came to japan I printed out pages and pages of BD dribble - some of it came quite in handy, but others just illustrate 'worst case' scenarios - take it all with a pinch of salt Also - my advice is to pick 'semi-rural' - unless you think you have a really good understanding of what 'rural' japan means (and think that's a good thing)

NA, IIRC. Be careful with big daikon - it's a little close to reality