Well, it looks to me like this site has discontinued blog plus, which means that I don't think I'll be able to post pictures here. I could be wrong though. But that's the way I read what I read. So I'll have to figure something out. I am not a computer whiz so I'm not sure where to go from here. I might do some research on starting my own site, but don't hold your breath on that one. I have no idea what's involved with starting a site from scratch.

Thought I'd write a little bit about transportation.........
Since I don't have a car, I have been learning how to get around over here via other methods of travel. We Californians (hell, most Americans at that) have intimate relationships with our automobiles. So much so that we feel quite lost and depressed when they break down, like having to take a sick pet to the veterinary's office. And this is not to mention the major inconvenience of having to walk that half mile to the bookstore, "Walk!? Are you crazy!? No one walks."
"What do you think people did before the car was invented, Bob?"
"Horses! They rode horses, of course."
And so in our quest to be someplace else in the least amount of time possible, the automobile has become a work of art and to some folks is an as much beloved part of their life as is their first born. Ferraris are beautiful. Yes they are.
But there is something else about the car, something more than just mere transportation. I mean, why haven't we Americans developed mass transit systems like many other countries? I think this can be summed up in three simple words: individuality, selfishness, and convenience. We want to go where we want to go when we feel like it and without the distractions other people cause. Maybe I'm being harsh here, but this is way I see it. And yes, I am one of these people too. What strikes me as funny here is that in our quest to be traveling alone we end up with thousands of other people, all moving along the LA freeways slower than we could walk. "But I've got my windows rolled up, thus making me alone and free to listen to the radio station of my choice."
But over here it is different. Yes, there are many cars, but there are also other highly convenient means of getting around. Take the trains, for example. The trains over here are clean, run frequently, and are highly punctual. Don't get to a train station one minute late cause your train will have already left. If you can endure the less than frequent but more than occasional stares of the other train goers who also happen to be from this country then the trains are a great way to travel. Speaking of the natives and trains...they don't like to sit next to foreigners. And I don’t know why. Perhaps one got bit at sometime in the past after his/her husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/mother/father said "oh sit down, he won't bite you," and the story spread like wildfire. I don't know. But I've had individuals come up from behind me with the obvious intention of sitting down across from me (many of the seats on the Minobu line are benches two asses wide that face each other) but when they see what I am they run screaming to a different car. Well, alright, they don't exactly scream, but I can swear that I sometimes hear the voices in their heads and they are screaming to themselves; and in the end they don't sit down across from me, much less next to me, "AAHHHH!" I, of course, don't take this personally due to my superior intellect and the knowledge that now I have two whole seats to myself.
So the trains are great. Little pricey sometimes, but great.
I've only ridden the bus during official JET events, once to Fujiyoshida, and once on the way Shizen Gakuen. Of course, the official JET events don't count because everything is taken care of for you. But the times I caught the bus to Fujiyoshida and back and to Shizen Gakuen do count and there is really nothing extraordinary to tell. But apparently the busses run like the trains and there are many of them. I read somewhere that the busses here are really a support system for the trains. I don’t know if this is true but it sounds about right, though, to some people, I’m sure, the busses are the main source of getting around. Anyway, they seem to work just fine when I have used them, but you mainly use them within a town or city and if I am staying in town I prefer to use another method of travel.
Which leads me to my next point....the bike. Now, I realize that some of you Americans have probably not been on a bike since the days of yore. This is where I part ways with you. In Bakersfield, I often rode my bike to work and school and loved it. Well, if you throw out the traffic. And the smog. And the nearly nonexistent bike lanes. And the summer heat. Ok, maybe I should have driven, but I didn't and honestly I did like biking to where I had to go. There is a feeling of great power when you out accelerate a car across the intersection, or when you hit a construction zone and slice right through it while the cars are backed up over the horizon, or in knowing that you are getting exercise and not contributing to or taking part in the economy devoted to the maintenance of vehicles and all that they entail. Call it a holier-than-thou attitude but it is nice to bike around feeling good in what you are doing.
So to make the transition to the bike over here was not that big a deal for me. I enjoy biking to the schools that I can, to the Kencho, to the train station, and just generally to anywhere I want to go. Give me a good bike and I am happy to pedal it out, which brings up the idea of “a good bike.” The bike I was given by either my predecessor or the Kencho (I haven’t yet figured out who owns the bike) is what I refer to as a “granny bike” but has also been called a “Japanese bike.” You don’t see too many of them in America, at least not where I’ve lived, but they are all over the place here. Typical bikes with a basket on the front, a kickstand, fenders, and a chain guard. No big deal. So I got one of these on the first day I was here. My supervisor showed it to me and I said, “Oh,” to which he laughed. It is not a nice bike. I used this bike for the first month I was here and still use it to run errands where the basket will come in handy (namely beer and grocery runs). But I wanted a better bike. I wanted a bike I could be proud of. A bike with gears so I could go fast when I wanted, or uphill when I needed. A bike that I could I go off-road with. A bike that I would need to lock due to would-be-thieves walking by and saying to themselves, “Oh, what a nice bike, perhaps I’ll steal this one.” I wanted a mountain bike.
So I was going to indulge myself and buy one but Amy informed me that she had bought a mountain bike off her predecessor and that she really had no use for it. She told me that if I bought her a regular Japanese bike that she would give me the mountain bike. A regular bike costs about one hundred dollars. “Hhmmm,” I thought, “what’s the catch?” But there was none and the deal was done. So at this point I had a mountain bike but it’s down in Ichikawa where Amy lives. I considered my options on getting it up here: train? not allowed, in someone’s car, perhaps, “or maybe I could ride it,” I thought. So I asked one of the veteran JETs about the possibility of me biking from Ichikawa to Kofu. “Oh, no,” he told me, “there’s really no straight shot and the road aren’t good for biking.” So I took this at face value. I mean, he had been here a year and seemed to know what was going on.
But a few weeks later, still without a mountain bike, and no leads on how to get it here I decided, “Screw it, I’m just gonna bike it some early morning now matter how long it takes.” So I spent a Friday night down at Amy’s, got up the next morning at around 6:30 and took off. The night before I had checked with some maps and it looked like the road marked “3” basically made a straight shot from her town to mine. “What the hell was that guy thinking?” I thought to myself as I rode along this road at 7am with very little traffic and Mt. Fuji where it should be, off to my right at about 4 o’clock.
And you’ll be happy to know that I pulled into my apartment complex just about an hour after I left Amy’s place. “Jeez,” I said to myself, “that was easy. I should have done that a couple weeks ago.” Between the walking to and from the train stations and the train ride itself, it takes Amy and I about fifty minutes to get to one another’s places. The bike had taken me one hour. Not bad. Might have to do that again. So now I am the proud owner of a Trek mountain bike with gears and good brakes. Ah! What a life.
So anyway, transportation isn’t really a problem. If any of you come to visit you will see that the walk into town is a little long but it ain’t bad. The only down side to all this is getting groceries home. That tends to be a pain in the ass. You can only fit so much into a little bicycle basket. But that’s the only down side. I do miss driving but not all the auto maintenance and insurance and whatnot that goes into owning a car. So there you are.