I mentioned over on AnnaLee's Blog that I lived in Japan and used to go running in the mountains, by the lakes, amongst the shrines. It really sent me on a bit of a nostalgia trip so I thought I'd share a little bit of that with you guys.
I lived up in Hokkaido in a little village called Toya where I taught English. Toya's slap bang in the middle of Shikotsu Toya National Park and is suitably astonishingly beautiful. I mean something straight out of a fairy tale. Toya itself is right next to an active volcano (which erupted in 2003) and so its principle attraction is an onsen (hot springs) which people come to bath in. And when I say hot, I mean hot: Toya gets about 4 months of snow and spends much of its time in Winter below freezing yet, when bathing in an outdoor onsen (which you do naked by the way), me and the guy I was out there with got out and had a snowball fight to cool down!
Anyways, it's a pretty place; I've got lots of stories but I thought I'd let some pics do the talking:
This is Hokkaido at the top of Japan. Toya-ko is in the near the bottom left-hand corner close to the arrowed part of the map. It is a lake with an island in the middle. It's quite small on the map.
And here it is:
Pretty amazing, huh...
Looking back on these pictures now, I can barely believe I used to live there. Strange times.
Also thought that I'd put up a couple of pics from the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (snow festival). If you're ever in Japan, near Sapporo in Winter (long shot but...), you have to see this. Enormous scale replicas of buildings, great dragons, and cultural arcadias all lovingly carved out of tonnes of ice and snow. It is fucking amazing.
When I go home I may actually put up a proper slide show of all of this as it'd be a nice document for me too. That would give you a proper feel of some of the amazing things where I lived.
____
Well, that's Japan. Back here in Blighty I got another distinction for my Nietzsche essay so I'm pretty goddamned pleased about that. the current essay is wavering on collapse but I'm trying not to let it bother me. After all, sun is shining, spring is coming and the birds are calling.
be well people
I lived up in Hokkaido in a little village called Toya where I taught English. Toya's slap bang in the middle of Shikotsu Toya National Park and is suitably astonishingly beautiful. I mean something straight out of a fairy tale. Toya itself is right next to an active volcano (which erupted in 2003) and so its principle attraction is an onsen (hot springs) which people come to bath in. And when I say hot, I mean hot: Toya gets about 4 months of snow and spends much of its time in Winter below freezing yet, when bathing in an outdoor onsen (which you do naked by the way), me and the guy I was out there with got out and had a snowball fight to cool down!
Anyways, it's a pretty place; I've got lots of stories but I thought I'd let some pics do the talking:
This is Hokkaido at the top of Japan. Toya-ko is in the near the bottom left-hand corner close to the arrowed part of the map. It is a lake with an island in the middle. It's quite small on the map.
And here it is:
Pretty amazing, huh...
Looking back on these pictures now, I can barely believe I used to live there. Strange times.
Also thought that I'd put up a couple of pics from the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (snow festival). If you're ever in Japan, near Sapporo in Winter (long shot but...), you have to see this. Enormous scale replicas of buildings, great dragons, and cultural arcadias all lovingly carved out of tonnes of ice and snow. It is fucking amazing.
When I go home I may actually put up a proper slide show of all of this as it'd be a nice document for me too. That would give you a proper feel of some of the amazing things where I lived.
____
Well, that's Japan. Back here in Blighty I got another distinction for my Nietzsche essay so I'm pretty goddamned pleased about that. the current essay is wavering on collapse but I'm trying not to let it bother me. After all, sun is shining, spring is coming and the birds are calling.
be well people
VIEW 18 of 18 COMMENTS
hickers:
hahaha, that's hilarious! i hate NIN, and my ex girlfriend's gonna hate me for sending her that!! 
supernovice:
Henry is my "guardo camino."