Archive for November 2010

happy thanksgiving!


Though it came a few days early this year, I got to do something I haven't done since I moved out of New York, and eat a real Thanksgiving dinner at the ALS Thanksgiving party, with turkey and cranberry sauce (the canned kind; sorry Mom, but the canned kind is just better) and it. was. amazing. I encouraged my entire table of Japanese students to try the cranberry sauce on their turkey (they politely tried and then just as politely demurred: it's, um, okay) though fortunately the amazingness that is turkey + gravy + cranberry sauce won over Iain, at least.

At any rate, a very happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home - miss you all like crazy, and hope that you're too busy eating too much to actually be reading this right now.

daily commute


Every morning in Numazu for me begins with a drive over the Kanogawa. Every day is pretty, though today especially so (above).


On Wednesdays, Iain finishes his morning class a half hour before me, so he usually waits till I finish my class, and we drive back into town together. The haze that hung over the rice fields all summer has finally lifted to reveal an newly snowy Fuji, so we stopped to take lots of pictures.


The drive to factory we work at every morning is definitely the high point of the massive amount of commuting we do (by train, car, foot, bike, bus and occasionally via lift from our boss' husband), but I really do like my Wednesday afternoon walk home. It was such a pretty day - and I already had my camera with me, as I've been driving to work on Fuji-alert lately - so I decided to take a few more snapshots of what Numazu actually looks like, figuring that even if no one else finds it interesting, I'll hopefully like having these in the future - I know I wish I'd taken more photos of my old alleys and apartments back in Hanoi. At any rate, above is a tiny park and a tinier shrine.


The park seems to be the local trash collecting place, which may be why this mouse is so unhappy about mislaid beer bottles.


A not particularly exciting alley on the way home.



Taking one-handed photos as I carry lunch home. I bought a new winter jacket at Uniqlo, which means I am now wearing the same thing as about 80% of Japan. 


The friendliest place to buy fruit (closed Wednesdays).


An intersection near our apartment, with teenagers waiting outside do-breath hair salon. I'm guessing something was lost in the translation of that name? 


Modern and traditional houses, across the alley from our apartment.


Mysteries of the parking lot: although you can't really see from this photo, the back right tire of that red van has been very, very flat for nine months. 

bad monkey!


So, you know that bad monkey who was attacking people in Mishima? Someone caught it! They didn't even get the reward, because they were a city employee assigned to catch the monkey (best job description ever), but at any rate, the citizens of Mishima can breathe easy again, because the attack monkey who not only bit old ladies but also snuck into houses and apparently stole food from refrigerators (!) is safely behind bars. Or chain link fence, actually, since the monkey now lives in the tiny zoo at Rakujyuen park, where it's clearly the main attraction:


There's even a contest to name the monkey - zoogoers are invited to submit their ideas. Because the monkey appears to be a girl, Iain and I both submitted "Mikka Jr." I think it has a good shot of winning. Anyway, it's important to vote.


Above: when prompted for an explanation for the suggested name, Iain wrote - since Mikka means beautiful in Japanese - "Because it's a beautiful monkey!" in Japanese. 


There are a lot of other cute animals at Rakujyuen, but they haven't attacked anyone lately and so were less interesting.


Although these goats really didn't like each other for about 2 minutes. Then, inexplicably, they were cool again.


Red panda! 


Also, attack monkeys aside, Rakuyuen is really beautiful, so the free tickets that Iain's student gave us turned out to be especially appreciated.




I've been making my own knitting patterns up lately, so I also used the pretty scenery as a chance to get a few photos of some hand-warmers I'm knitting for Iain. They're not done, unfortunately, so he could only model one, but I'm pretty happy with them so far. 



At any rate, it's rapidly becoming hand-warmer weather here, though it's still gorgeous outside at the moment: 




photo of the month!


A photo I took in Mishima this past April won the Photoburst Photo of the Month contest! If you've never seen Photoburst, you should most definitely check it out - the photographs are amazing, and I never seriously expected to win so much as a photo of the day, much less month. As you can see from the current photos being posted right now, I get to be guest editor and choose the winners for this entire month. It's been really interesting - and difficult - so far, and I'm really enjoying getting to look at so many photos, though choosing just seven a week is nearly impossible. I also got a $50 gift certificate to Kiva, which I can't wait to use. 


October actually turned out to be kind of an exciting month, photography-wise: I also got a photo actually printed for the first time ever in the Metropolis Magazine Photo of the Week, and a shout-out as Fotomoto's Featured Artist. Anyway, apologies for the shameless self-promotion: I don't usually win things like this, so October was the most exciting month ever. OK, bragging over. 

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