Greetings from Nakatsugawa!

Hello friends,

Sorry for the long delay. I have not had much internet access. I am getting happily settled into my new little life here in Nakatsugawa.

My apartment is very large and this is a nicelittle city. I live next to a big interstate, but I have a beautiful view of green fields and Japanese houses. If you look the other way,I have a view of the back of an auto parts repair shop (I choose toignore it). It`s about a 20 minute bike ride to my school, which is up on a hill overlooking the city. The Nakasendo, an ancient pathleading to Edo (Tokyo) passes right by the high school.

My supervisor is a kind and funny man named Mr. Taniguchi, and I am essentially his adopted child right now in my utter helplessness. Just today, I neglected to pack anything but sugar do-nuts for lunchand he took pity on me and shared his lunch with me.

We have been going all over the place, checking into city hall,opening a bank account (my ATM card will have Tom and Jerry on it), buying groceries, etc. Today we took a drive into the small townsnorth of the city and to see the mountains, and it was justbreathtaking. It reminded me of the Smoky Mountains back home, with green rolling mountains covered in trees. We hiked down to see awaterfall leading into a bluish-green pool that would knock your socksoff. It`s one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

Mr. Taniguchi has enlisted a veritable corps of English students tohelp orientate me while I`m here, who can also gain valuable speaking time with an authentic speaker of English. They are great fun and we have a good time driving around the city talking about what Japanese foods we like and whether or not they have had Mexican food (theanswer is no).

Last weekend I went to Gifu city, which is the capital of Gifu prefecture and has about 500,000 people. They had a gigantic festivalby the river which included a magnificent 1-hour long fireworks display. It was beautiful. Everyone was wearing their beautiful yukatas (summer kimonos) and everything was a delighful interplay between colors, sounds, and smells. Vendors had set up and were selling delicious foods of all sorts. I felt very lucky to be a partof it. It`s not something that a lot of Westerners get to see.

The food is excellent. Japan is an eater`s paradise, and I haven`t really gone without anything I might want, except perhaps burritos. I bring ham sandwiches for lunch everyday, and for dinner I make delicious curry from little $1 boxes that they sell at the 100 yen store. Pretty much all the Japanese food I have had has been top-notch, especially in the realm of desserts. The people here in this town have a definite sweet tooth, and there are excellent confectioners approximately every 15 feet. Delicious. I have had good grilled meat, good noodles, and some somewhat appetizing bento boxedlunches. I`m still getting used to the cold rice balls/seaweedcombination, but it`s not so bad, and it`s ridiculously good for you. The sake is amazing, and expensive.

Today we went walking on the Nakasendo, which was very very cool. It`s an ancient road and you could feel the history there. The best part is that it goes right by the school. On our way back, we saw the kendo club practicing (Japanese martial art involving wooden sticks). It was refreshingly violent.

More to come.