The New Town

Long time, no see, loyal readers, all zero of you.  I know it's kind of hard to be a loyal reader when the writer isn't holding up his end of the deal.  It's been over three months since I last posted, though it seems like much shorter.

There's so much to talk about that I decided to post three entries, beginning with this one: "The New Town," "The New Job," and "The New Kids."

On July 27th, Itsumi and I packed up our satchels in Kinokawa and just like that Tennessee Pride sausage boy, hoboed on down to Kozagawa in the southern part of Wakayama prefecture.  It already felt like home in a way since Itsumi grew up about 20 minutes away from our house.  Before moving to Japan, I had spent more time in this area than anywhere else, so it didn't feel so much like moving to a new place as it felt like returning home.

But Kozagawa is a much, much different place from Kinokawa.  First, there's the population difference of about 70,000.  I've never lived in a place so natural and rural with only a little over 3,000 people.  There are good and bad points about this: first, on the good side, everyone knows me.  Then, on the bad side, everyone knows me.  It's really not that bad, but I enjoyed having a little, just a little, more anonymity in Kinokawa.  I was one of maybe 10 foreigners there while I'm by far the only one here.   It's nice seeing familiar faces and feeling more a part of the community here, but I get invited to everything.  I have to carefully parse out my weekends and evenings between pick-up volleyball games, festivals, dinners, and other various community events.  I'm even up in the ranks with the mayor, so much so that my celebrity status trumps his own.

It's tough being so famous, but it's pretty easy to escape from people here.  Kozagawa is basically in the middle of the Japanese wilderness, and it's beautiful.  On the mornings that I ride to work with principals, I don't have to mind the awkward silences because my head is twisted to stare at the scenery going by in the car window.  Nature is difficult to write about without falling into a hole of cliches, repeating "green" and "beautiful" ad nauseum, but Kozagawa is a beautiful green place.  The river that gives the town its name is fairly famous in Japan, at least with outdoor aficionados.  It's extremely clean and clear, and popular for canoeing and fishing.  The Koza valley reminds me a little of the main canyon in Zion National Park, if it was covered in trees instead of being dry and rocky.  There are giant rock monoliths sticking out of the trees in which you often see red-faced Japanese monkeys swinging around.  It's exciting to be able to go hiking right outside my door anytime, or just take a quick 5 minute drive to see the ocean.

Sometimes I do miss being so close to Osaka.  I've never really loved big cities, but I always enjoyed having access to one when I felt like going.  Osaka was just an hour drive from Kinokawa, but it's about a 4 hour train ride from Kozagawa.  I know I can't have it both ways, rural and urban.  And the upside is that I don't spend so much money every weekend now.

Of course, living in such a primitive place has its downsides, too, namely bugs.  Bugs.  Everywhere.  My goodness, the bugs.  My house was infested with all kinds of bugs when I moved in: cockroaches, spiders, earwhigs, ants, horseflies, mosquitoes, millipedes, centipedes, and more that I can't think of right now.  This was mostly because no one lived here for almost a year after it was flooded by about 3 feet of water in October 2011 by the worst typhoon to hit Wakayama in over 50-60 years.  The bugs have somewhat stabilized inside the house after lots of spraying and strategic placements of Combat roach traps, but it's still easy to find Asian huntsman spiders the size of my hand crawling on the walls outside (look them up on the internet if you really want to see them).  Actually, I've developed a love for the spiders because they eat all the huge cockroaches that find their way inside.  I don't kill them, and if they're not TOO big, I don't even throw them outside.  Eat up; have your fill, my little friends.

The bugs are pretty awful, but just focusing on them isn't fair to this town, which I love already.  I could also do without the dairy farm and the smell of crap that always seems to waft directly to my house from there, but Kozagawa's a pretty swell place.  The job ain't too bad, either, which I'll write about tomorrow.