Just another Friday morning in Japan

Doggie fetch newspaper

I’m a morning person in Japan. This is ridiculous because at my old job, the hours were 8:30-5:00 and I would drag myself out of bed every morning after hitting the snooze button multiple times. Here, my job never starts before noon and sometimes ends as late as 9:00pm, but I’m up and ready for my day at 5:00am. There are several reasons for this. I’m sure the jet lag and the opposite hemisphere have something to do with it, but mostly, it’s this crackhead of a bird.



He’s outside my window every morning right around 4:30 sounding like a rabid howler monkey. The video doesn’t really do it justice because of the dinky microphone on my camera, but it’s insane how loud this bird is. I thought about making a slingshot, but would more than likely break my neighbors’ windows, giving a whole different meaning to “gaijin smash”. So, since I have 6 or 7 hours to kill before I need to be at work, I’ve changed my daily walk to an early morning one. Here’s what I found this morning on my two hour walk. Note: the first hour was intentional, the second hour was trying to find my way home.

I met this little guy on his way to school. It was obviously show and tell day so I asked him “nan desu ca?” (what’s that) and he proudly showed me a huge cockroach. I would have preferred a hamster, but it makes for a great picture. The young school kids all wear matching yellow hats and backpacks which adds to the cuteness, especially when they are in packs.


Right before I lost all sense of direction, I came across a thick bamboo grove with an overgrown path leading into it. Naturally, I went. I found this awesome ruin of an old Japanese house. It had some kind of old cart rusting inside. A few yards away, in the thick of bamboo, was another building that was too dilapidated to recognize. I hung around for a while but a few large spiders eventually persuaded me to get back to the road.




After being totally lost for a while, I found a shrine right in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. I’m not sure if it is Shintoist or Buddhist but I know a muppet who would know. Mup? Care to comment?

The interior of the shrine was dark and cool and completely hidden from the neighborhood surrounding it. It had a long rectangular pool of water, a hollow tree with what appeared to be its own mailbox, an open shrine with intricate wood carvings and a bell, and two smaller shrines with small statues inside and folded paper tied around them. Observe:

The lions guarding the entrance made me smile

Found the timer function!

Not a bad mini expedition. I’ll post more as I explore. Time to go to work!