Well, Hello, Everybody! And Welcome back to the next exciting installation of "Stacey's Bodacious Japan Trip!" I last left things off three years ago when I was living, temporarily, in Osaka. Now I continue my (mis)adventures on the other side of the country in Minamisoma, Fukushima! I've been living in Minamisoma for just over one month. I just got my internet all hooked up, so I'm ready to start documenting again. First I'd like to describe my area. Its a small city. I say city because Wikipedia says city, but honestly I'd call this place a town. It has 63k people, and is rather sizable, but I really only need to drive five minutes in any direction to reach farmland. There may be a lot of people, but they're so spread out, and farmland, to me, means "town." But don't let that suggest that I don't absolutely love it here. It is so small and so far out of the way, It's not like anything I've ever experienced before. I'm about a 15 minute drive from the beach. And there are a lot of shrines, both Buddhist and Shinto near me. Today, for example, I went on a drive and ended up at four of them, and I know where two more are for a visit at a later date. There are also buses that will take me to the nearest big cities including Fukushima City, Sendai and Tokyo, so it's really not too bad. On top of that, I now own a car. It's a cute little "Kei car." Oh I love my little "Yellow Plate." It at the moment has a worrying little shake, but I hope that gets fixed this month when I do my shakken (car registration where they pull apart and reassemble your car engine.) Well, that's really all I have to say for the moment. Here are some pictures! --- Just kidding! Because when I went to download the photos from my phone they deleted instead!! WTF?!?! ... kinda angry now. I cant find those photos anywhere. Perhaps you'll see them. Perhaps I'll have to go take some more. (Oh, man! I took a really good video too! I cant recreate that!) Ok, well... That's all I guess.
