Golden Week Blue

So here we the photographs from a particularly eventful Golden week.  Amanda came down to visit, and be entirely bored by my surroundings.  As I've alluded to before, it's mainly farmland.  This first picture is directly outside my front door, looking down.  There are some annoying chickens that make a lot of noise, but apart from that it's generally quiet.  There are one or two cars every now and again on the main road - it's all stuff that doesn't annoy me now that I'm used to it.

So this golden week (a period of three days of consecutive holiday in Japan) had mixed results.

It was extremely fun while it lasted, but it was only three days.  What's more, it's a ridiculous three days, falling on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  Why not push the three days forwards or backwards by a single day in order to get five straight days of holiday.  Ridiculous.

You can see some of the noisy chickens here.  They look delicious, but I'm not sure the farmer would appreciate my eating them.

The bikes are locked up under the stairs.  I live on the top floor.  One is a complete junker - luckily I requested a bike that actually worked, and after some deliberation they relented and bought me a granny bike with a basket on the front.

Obviously Amanda got the decent granny bike.

This is the view of a relative nice house behind my apartment building.  I shudder to think how much this cost, considering land prices all over Japan.

I think this picture is a good example of the general rural nature of my area.  It is awfully similar to the countryside surrounding Peterborough, around 'cowbit.'  (I think that's what it's called, anyway.)

The view up the back alley to my house.  I take this road every day, either to school or the supermarket.

It's extremely flat around here, perfect biking country.

I don't know what the main crop is, but the next few photos are of the area behind my house.  Presumably something leafy will be grown in these areas (I think rice needs more water).

This roaming store was selling delicacies such as - chicken skin (which I partook of) and liver.  It's not substantial, but it was extremely tasty.

We ate with one of my Japanese English teachers.  He showed us a wealth of Japanese style delicacies, of them the sashimi above (I don't know what the difference between sashimi'd fish and sushi is) was particularly tasty.  Archetypal Japanese cuisine.

We also had these shelled monstrosities.  Not my particular cup of tea.

And this, a favourite of the Japanese teacher we were with.  Scroll down for some closeups.

Finally, these two thousand yen bills are considered lucky by the Japanese teacher, because of their rarity.  I had never seen one before, and I'm not sure how many people know about them.  They're extremely funky looking.

This will probably be the last time I us Amandas camera, as we've decided not to see each other anymore.  The distance is too great, the opportunities too infrequent and the whole situation too difficult.  If we were closer I'm sure we'd still see each other, but it's difficult when you live so far apart.