to see a NEW house being built in my village.

vanessa

more stationary.

grammatical errors?

vanessa

numata, gunma, japan. dental office. not the traditional japanese style.

vanessa

the japanese love love love their stationary. and so do i.

let’s learn about onions!

vanessa

so there have been decently-sized earthquakes here in japan since saturday. they are all coming from the prefecture of Niigata (along the western japan coast). go two small prefectures east, and that is where i live.

Luckily I was in lower Saitama, so I didn’t experience the “big earthquakes” that were in my home of Northern Gunma.

When I did get home however, I wondered how I could live in such a messy house, but then realized that the mess was all from the earthquake.

Most people in my village just experienced some pots and pans falling down, while I experienced damage to my walls. My kitchen wall’s corner was all crumbling, with a long clean crack from the corner all the way to the door and to the shower room.

My house is special though. It’s about 30 years old, and used to be a koban. (yup, that is right. a police box).

Here is a picture of my wall, and of my toaster oven that sort of fell off my microwave!

vanessa

We hired a couple bicycles and made for Kunming, site of the Emporer’s Summer Palace. The ride - from the center of Beijing - took about 6 hours round trip, accounting for wrong turns and breaks for food.

Mao still glares disapprovingly from his perch at the top of Tian’men Square.