No Sleep 'Til Fukui

A Pie Safe

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:19:00 +0000

What an unusual piece of furniture. Why would anyone bake so many pies that they needed a whole piece of furniture to keep their pies away from flies? At least this is the reason I've always heard for having screens on a piece of furniture. But was this a fantastical story about flies swarming around our pies embellished to peak the curiosity of a young girl? Alas, I'm not an antique dealer so I don't really know. But why not put your pies on a counter or buffet with a cloth or net over them - or in the refrigerator? Regardless, I love this piece of furniture. I really feel attached to and cherish the one from my grandparents' house.

As a child I could see the screen, but not the inside because everything was coming from a distorted, unfocused perspective because of the screen. It was always very mysterious to me. I can remember being short and unable to see into it - yet I knew if I climbed on a stool or other piece of furniture all my hopes to see in would be realized. Then I grew taller and could easily see all of the treasures within. I wonder, if they were really all treasures or the same junk that all of us collect in drawers, cabinets, and closets all over the world? I know for sure that there were Easter decorations inside. I can remember Grandma lifting out delicate bunnies made of glass and ceramic. Some had children holding them or pots we would fill with delicious Easter egg shaped jelly beans. Did she also keep Christmas or Thanksgiving figurines there as well? Because I know she always had just the right figurine to put on the table or in the center of a sheet-cake. Upon considering it, why would we actually put a heavy ceramic figure into the middle of a cake? Seems absurd. I certainly loved it, but shouldn't it have sunk into the cake? Maybe it did, I can't remember. But I can remember licking frosting off the bottom of an Easter decoration. These are things that I have been pondering lately. But sadly, my grandmother is no longer here to answer the questions.

Since I've grown up, I fondly remember so many things that happened in that house, huge slumber parties over Christmas, the TOY room, Josie's treasures kept in tiny shadow boxes, doll houses, paper dolls from the stacks of Good Housekeeping magazines that were bound to be somewhere, washing dishes by hand, late night dominoes or spades tournaments, squash nachos, all these things were instilling in me such a strong feeling of tradition. Being so far away from that house that played a central role in my upbringing is strange. What's even stranger is how much I know it will have changed when I return in summer. I know life goes on and all of those things, but it is really surreal that a new person will be living there and furniture will be moved. Possibly my favorite piece of furniture in the world (which is saying a lot since I worked in a furniture store) is no longer in it's prime place by the Boy's bathroom or dining room as it was most recently. I've heard lots of things have been transferred to other people's houses. As one of 30 or so grandchildren to 9 children borne by my grandmother, I never really had much hope of inheriting much other than china, which I am excited to use one day... but part of me longs to continue to remember my childhood and the wonderful times with my grandmother by having this permanent reminder in a home of my very own. The nesting instinct is growing... Yet, I know there have to be others who have these same strong feelings.

Dear China

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Thu, 08 May 2008 06:53:00 +0000

Dear China,
In order to have a smooth Olympics I have some ideas about what you should do.

1. get more taxis. Most people get belligerent when they have to wait for an hour for the seemingly simple task of getting a cab.

2. Also, put in a taxi stand in popular tourist attractions such as the Forbidden City or even somewhere near Tienanmen Square.

3. Allow cabs to stop at major intersections so passengers can get out or in easily.

4. Help drivers learn the English-y pronunciations and locations of the like 6 historic places in Beijing where foreign tourists would want to visit. Here's a hint - look up the place names in Lonely Plant. Probably the oldest Confucian temple in the city is one of those places. We had two different cab drivers who couldn't find it.

Other than wasting a lot of time trying to convice drivers to take us where we wanted to go, I think your city is nice. A bit on the hazy side because of pollution but it doesn't seem any worse than Bangkok.

Spring

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Thu, 08 May 2008 06:51:00 +0000

Spring is in the air here in Fukui. I'm amazed at how quickly and evenly the seasons change here in Japan. A lot has been said about how Japan has 4 distinct seasons, and as I've been here longer I tend to agree. I don't think this makes Japan crazy unique or anything like it has been presented to me, but it is a cool thing. Certainly in East Texas the weather isn't normal or predictable. It's just as likely to snow in April as it is to be sunny and 80 degrees on Christmas day.

This year I was shocked at how quickly the mountains around Takefu have changed from barren branches to covered in cherry blossoms to bright green leaves. It all happened so fast, and I feel like I barely had a chance to take it all in. I guess traveling to China over the peak cherry blossom season made that feeling more acute. Since I'm preparing to leave soon, I've been trying to get in the last cherry blossom viewing party, the last BBQ, last time to see a mountain covered in azaleas, and so on. I know the time I've got left will pass quicker than I want it to.

Finally Finished

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:42:00 +0000

The JLPT test is finally over. Rob and I took level 2 which is a really difficult exam. It requires you to know 1000 kanji in addition to 6000 words and difficult grammar. And probably junior high level of reading comprehension. Obviously, I am not at that level at all! I still have trouble stringing together sentences that make sense, and tend to just use the phrases I know too often. So I think we will both fail, me miserably, and Rob by not so much (he thinks).

This leads me to a junction in studying Japanese. Should I keep at it? or just know what I know and hope I don't loose the few words I know immediately upon entering America. It's such a tough language to use. Sometimes I feel like it's worth it - today I read an email in all Japanese. Other times like at the travel agent last week I hope to catch a few words I know, and respond in one or two words which is frustrating.

I watched a movie in Spanish the other day and thought I could understand tons of it, even though my last Spanish class was 8 years ago. This is a huge difference from Japanese which I have been studying somewhat diligently (well for me) for the past 7 years, taking a 3 year break while living in Longview and Chicago. The fact that I can't even understand shows with limited vocabulary in Japanese after all this work sort of makes me want to call it quits. hmm. I don't know what to do.

From School

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:41:00 +0000

So I was walking around the school just now and heard organ music. How come I didn't realize we have a pipe organ in our school? Why do we have one? Who on earth would be playing it and for what purpose? These are all questions I was asking myself just now. And since I have a laptop to use at school, and a connection to the internet I thought I would post these feelings for everyone to know about.

I decided that I don't like organ music. It makes me feel creeped out. I think the only time I've ever heard that music is in my Grandma's church. And usually it is accompanied by 6 or so feeble voices singing their hearts out. I seem to remember few of them being on key. Maybe the style of music of her church and mine was so different that this memory sticks out in my mind as the only time I've ever heard the organ being played. Regarless of that though, I think it's weird to hear such somber music at a high school.

Hello Higashi High School

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:56:00 +0000

I transfered schools this year, and I think it was a good decision. I was really sad to leave my old schools, and felt like I was abandoning some of my teachers in an English teaching and motivation battle they could never win.

But, Higashi High School is amazing! So far I've had to work every day quite a bit - planning anywhere from 1 to 4 classes a day. I'm always doing work which was very unusual for me at JHS. The kids I am teaching are really cool. They have their own opinions about the world and Japan, and they can expresses themselves in English. They come up to me (unsolicited) in the halls, teachers' room and before class and engage me in conversation where my opinion is valued. It's unbelievable compared to my previous situation.

Also the teachers are really nice and welcoming. My desk in the teacher's room is surrounded by 5 JTEs and 1 other JET, Toby, who is from the UK. So I can chat with people, and get ideas for classes really easily. Last night was our welcome party. It was a this really fancy place so I thought everyone would be serious and not talk that much. But it turned into this crazy party. I think at least half of the teachers there, about 20, came up and talked to me! This is pretty unusual behavior for teachers towards at ALT. After going to lots of parties where I only talk to the person next to me, and maybe one other person who gets me a drink, and hearing about the same thing happening to lots of ALTs, I was really happy and appreciated their friendliness even more.

I didn't get an invitation to the 2nd party. I feel like if I were really cool I would have. It's a good goal to work towards next time. But it was ok because I planned to go out with friends later anyways. Rob came to pick us up, and it turns out had hit a wild boar inoshishi on his way home from calligraphy lessons. Yikes! It messed up our bumper. So I'm going to look into getting that fixed today while he is at his school's cultural festival.

Lotus Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:06:00 +0000

Lotus are so amazing here. I never knew there were so many varieties of the plant. we saw pink, yellow, cream, and white colored ones - all in varring shades and with different patters of color on the leaves.
Here's a field of lotus growing naturally.

After walking around the fields and then gardens we stopped for soft serve icecream that was lotus flavored. It only tasted a bit different than vanilla - but I couldn't say for certain it was lotus flavored as I've never eatten a lotus. Getting different flavors of soft cream for each season is really popular here. I've tasted loads of different ones. My all time favorite was sakura.

After ice cream we soaked our feet in a hot spa bathtub thing with some plastic lotus blossoms, some real ones, and some dried see pods in it. I think there was lotus soap in it as well. Then we took this group picture.

Another year come and gone

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 06:36:00 +0000

In a relatively unusual move for me, I'm going to write on this blog. It's been awhile, ne. We've been super busy if that counts for anything.
We had our last super blow out Tanan sayonara party in July. Man was that a crazy night at karoke. *I appologize to anyone reading this who I called a liar or accused of trying to cheat me... ugh, painful memories, why am I so crazy at karaoke???*

Here's some Tanan manliness for you. We'll miss Joe and his hair.

Hopefully by now everyone who went home is settled into their new life (or still traveling the world). Don't forget about us in Japan. We miss you all and so you know, it's incredibly awkward walking into an apartment where ya'll just seem to be missing - left for a combini run and someone else moved in.

Amanohashidatte

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:47:00 +0000

Amanohashidatte is really beautiful. It's on the official list of the 3 best views in Japan. There's tons of 3 best lists in Japan, but this one people actually know about, even if they haven't seen it. It's a beach filled with pine trees that stretches across a bay on the Sea of Japan. It's about 4 hours from Takefu - and probably only 100 miles, but the roads are always slow here. Mountains, narrow roads, and stop lights don't make for fast going.

The best way to see the view is to climb or take a chair lift to the top of either side. Then look at the view through your legs, bent over. It's kinda crazy and surreal to see everyone doing this. If you look at it this way, it apparently looks like a bridge up to heaven. I didn't come to that conclusion, but maybe I'm not imaginative enough? what can you do?

Near there is a fishing village called Ine. The houses all have garages for their boats on the bay. It was really scenic and nice to drive around such a small community. We also saw wild monkies! and rice paddies flooded with water. Seeing the reflection of the sky in the water is really cool to me. No matter how many times I see it, I'm still impressed.

Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

Takayama Matsuri

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Wed, 16 May 2007 11:47:00 +0000

The spring festivals in Takayama is really beautiful. It's a bit like the one in Gion in July, but it is in a much smaller cit. So it has a small town, community feel to it. Big wooden floats, basically three story houses on wheels with walls made out of really old tapestries or scroll paintings, are paraded through the town. This one was really beautiful so we took a picture next to it... like you do.
Also, they have puppets here. The puppet performances are the hi-lite of the three day festival. They are suprisingly well animated (controlled?) and do some unexpected stuff. Even though they announced the story of each puppet show in Eglish before it started I was still a little surprised when this doll appeared with a dog looking mask.
Takayama has delicious beef. If you go there you should try it. We ate dango at the slowest food stand/hole in the wall place known to man. It was cold even though they put it over charcoal and tasted terrible. How can you mess up mochi on sticks covered in sauce? geese!

Gifu

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Wed, 16 May 2007 11:18:00 +0000

We took a trip to Gifu, the prefecture to the east of Fukui to see some culture. Our main reason for going was to see the Takayama spring festival. We got derailed from going last year because of a car accident, so we were quite anxious to make it there in one piece. well, I was probably the only one who was worried.

Gifu is pretty famous for some villages in the Shirakawa-go. I think it means Shira river valley. but no research went into that assumption. These three villages are world heritage sites and are amazing because of their huge houses with thatched roofs. Apparently it's really expensive to thatch a roof, and you have to protect them against fire, huge amounts of snow, and various other things. Maintaining these houses is costly and requires the whole village to help each other out. So the tourist yen and government loans basically keep this village alive by helping to pay for re-thatching every 30 years. Otherwise it would just be metal buildings built to last 50 years at the most like the rest of boring, ugly Japan.

After going to the village, we visited a park devoted to preserving lots of different buildings. They were from lots of different parts of the region and used for many purposes. It was a bit more sterile than Shirakawago because there weren't bus loads of people, telephone wires, souvenir shops, cars and buses to be avoided, and annoying bullhorn messages all of the time. I liked both places, don't get me wrong. the real villages do feel lived in and constantly changing with the times - but seeing something a bit more peaceful was also nice.

I love trees

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Wed, 16 May 2007 10:57:00 +0000

This weekend we joined up with the Takefu Rotary club and the international association (EIA) to plant some trees. Apparently these beech trees we planted live to be about 300 to 500 years old. Well most are getting on up to a ripe old age of 400 years. So to end a year themed with nature conservation and education the Rotary club decided to spruce up the forest with... not spruce trees. (Although there were still plenty of those living.)

The funny part about the day was actually the fact that we didn't plant any trees. Too bad, huh. The weather was predicted to be terrible thus causing a hike up a mountain to be dangerous. Also the ground would be muddy and we would do a lot of damage to the side of the mountain and underbrush and stuff like that if 60 people were walking around. or so I think I understood from the Japanese explanation. When I don't understand I usually just tend to fill in the gaps with what I feel like they should be saying. The Rotary club planted all of the trees except two the day before. So our work consisted of hiking the mountain, eating lunch, drinking tea, and putting strings around the saplings to help them grow straight. not that taxing, but we got to talk with friends and support our community.

This is the EIA team along with students from Takefu Higashi High School who speak great English!

Huge Kites

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Fri, 11 May 2007 01:24:00 +0000

Ready to Go
Originally uploaded by robizumi.

Hamamatsu has a huge kite festival. By that I mean the kites are huge... well the festival is huge, too. It seems like each neighborhood in Hamamatsu had a kite. There were more than 100 neighborhoods represented at this festival.

A friend told us about this festvial when we were camping and we decided to drive there and check it out. Hamamatsu, which is in Shizuoka prefecture, was about a 4 hour drive from our campsite. Which meant we had to get up at 6 in the morning to drive there. It wasn't too hard to wake up early since we were camping though.

The kites were amazingly huge. It seemed like they needed about 10 people to get them off the ground. It wasn't that windy but the kites managed to stay aloft. I was suprised. There were tons of people there, but most of them seemed to be affliated with a kite team. All of the team memebers had matching happi (coats) with the symbol that was on their kite. A lot of kites just had kanji on them but many had pictures of foxes, or samurai helmets.

When the moved the kites out to the field to fly them, they had a small parade. Usually this seemed to consist of old men holding the kite and small children playing trumpets and drums. It was pretty fun to see. Often you were just encouraged to duck under the kites instead of move out of they way.

Camping during Golden Week

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Fri, 11 May 2007 01:13:00 +0000

Lake Biwa at Sunrise
Originally uploaded by robizumi.

Golden Week is a series of public holidays here in Japan. The Japanese don't really understand how to take it easy so right smack dab in the middle of the week are two work days. So it could be this huge great vacation but instead they are two smaller vacations with an insultingly short work week in the middle.

All that being said, we went to Shiga prefecture for camping. We snuggled right next to Biwako the largest lake in Japan. It was pretty big. We walked around, enjoyed nature, and tried not to do a whole lot. There were hawks picking up spawing fish out of the stream right next to us. There were people with dogs every where. It was a nice time. We managed to make some steak fajitas and get some hot sparkler action in.

Momiji and Kyoto

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:51:00 +0000

Peaches and Leaves
Originally uploaded by robizumi.

We went to Kyoto so see the red leaves this fall. Red leaves are called Momiji (紅葉) in Japanese. We were just a little early and many of the trees had yet to turn, but there was still plenty of beautiful things to see. Luckily Matt told us they were lighting up Kyomizudera at night. Something they only do during certain times of the year. Tonight we are leaving to visit Tokyo, and Nikko. Then we will travel all the way back to the west side of Japan and head down to Shikoku by car. So you can expect quite a few pictures in the next 2 weeks or so.

Nara: A deer ate my map.

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:23:00 +0000

IMG_6209.JPG
Originally uploaded by robizumi.

These pics are from our trip to Nara. The deer in this photo looks cute and all, but let me tell you the deer are jerks, even though they bow before you give them a deer treat. Nara was a beautiful and confounding city. I can't imagine a major American city with a thriving deer population in the center of town. The deer don't seem to be fenced in, but the streets seemed clear of dear carcuses. In addition to the deer the largest buddah in Japan is there. It's called the Daibutsu which actually means big buddah, perhaps it has another offical name but people seem to call it just Daibutsu. It is in Todaiji which I mentioned as the place for the Omizutori in an earlier post.

Kyoto: Summer '05

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:16:00 +0000

Peaches and the Love Stone
Originally uploaded by robizumi.

I tried to make a clever version of the Summer of 69 by Brian Adams (The only acceptable Brian Adams song) but I'm too 二日酔い (futsukayoi) to do it. Here are some pics from our trip to Kyoto. It was my first time to go there. Most of the pics are from Kiyomizudera (清水寺) A temple so big it has a shrine inside of it or something like that. One of the big attractions there, is the Love Stone. You walk about 10 feet with your eyes closed. If you get to the stone you will find love. There should be some more Kyoto pics comming soon.

Kimono Day

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:00:00 +0000

Kimono Day
Originally uploaded by robizumi.

Here are some pics of us dressed up in Kimonos. These are older syle kimonos. I believe these were from the Heian Era. It was a cultural exchange event. A whole group of ladies dressed us up, and then we told them about our countries. Here is a lovely pic of Heian Era Joe answering my cell phone.

Jazz

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:13:00 +0000

I was really excited to go to my elementary school's jazz concert. They held it with a local Big Band Jazz group in Fukui city's Harmony Hall. The kids totally exceeded any expectations I had before coming. They were amazingly talented and great at playing their instruments. Espeically since they only practice three hours a week. and some of them just started this winter!

I love taking pictures of my elementary school kids. They are so cute (in a nice, I'm not being a creepy stranger kind of way). I dare you to tell me what could be cuter than a 9 year old playing an adult sized bass guitar. Nothing. well maybe the boy playing drums. I'll let you decide.

The man in the picture is Shin, the Band's coach and the home room teacher of the 4th grade class. He speaks English and is a really good teacher, not to mention a cool guy. I love going to his classes. The kids are so energetic and good at using conversational phrases in English. I wish I could teach them more often. sigh.

Yuki ga Furu!

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:53:00 +0000

It's Snowing! After months of no snow and finally deciding we should change our snow tires to regular- along came a snow storm. This was very surprising after the sunny and warm weather of late.
Here's a picture of the mountain behind our apartment. You can see dead rice stalks peaking out of the snow in the field.

When it snows and I look around at the scenery in Takefu I realize one reason why I like living here. It's so beautiful. And Japan really does have 4 seasons... maybe they're not as distinct or on time as they should be, but at least they do eventually occur.

Omizuokuri

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

IMG_8906.JPG
Originally uploaded by robizumi.

Here is the other burning stuff festival we went to recently. It’s called Omizuokuri which means water sending, a strange name for a festival where they burn stuff, I know. The ceremony is about 1,200 years old, which is pretty old, I suppose. The idea is this: Sacred water is taken from Obama, in the south of Fukui and poured into a river. This river winds around all the way to a well in Nara. The well that happens to be inside of Todai-Ji a huge temple in Nara. It takes about 10 days or so. Then in Nara, they have a big Omizutori ceremony, where they pull the water out of the well and ... well burn things.

I have heard that the river they pour the water in actually empties into the sea of Japan. It’s not that shocking when you think about the whole process. I mean, how could the priests be expected to pull the same sacred water -which seemed like about a liter- at the Omizutori ceremony, that was sent at Omizuokuri 10 days earlier?

Water business aside, we got to the temple, and our friend Joe bought a torch. He wrote a message on it, which is what you do, and we headed up to the temple. Then the guys in the temple start burning, what looked like a small tree, inside of the temple. Then they swing it all around the temple and they burn really big torches and took them along the path that we were going to follow. Then it was our turn to light our torches.

What happened next was not unlike being at a mosh pit at a rock concert. Except replace angry youth with old men and women with sticks. Old people in Japan are some of the world’s premier pushers and this group was no exception. Even my overwhelming girth and Joe’s rippling muscles were little match for the “low Tide” of short elderly pushing. An old woman hit me square in the forehead with her torch with out so much as a sumimasen. I also saw some people accidently drag their burning torch along the legs of an unwitting old woman. She escaped immolation but I’m not sure how.

Luckily we made it to the path with our lives. We then proceeded to the river, which was about 30 minutes away.
By the time we made it to the river the torch was far to small to safely hold, so Joe threw it into a bucket of water. Then we watched the ceremony of water sending. Which was pretty average. They shook the big torches, and poured the water out. That was probably the least exciting part of the whole thing.

What I have failed to mention up until now is that the priests are wearing outfits that are a little like that of the KKK. When Japanese people talk about Omizuokuri they always mention this first. Not because they like the KKK, but rather they like the look on your face when you hear about it.

Sagicho - the burnin stuff festival

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:11:00 +0000

IMG_8478.JPG
Originally uploaded by robizumi.

We got the pics up for Sagicho Festival. People burn old decorations at this festival. Then while the fires are raging crowds of people rush in with pointy bamboo poles, to roast mochi. This is one of two fire-centric festivals we have been to lately. I'll try to get the pictures from another burnin festival, Omizuokuri, up soon.

We also got a pro account on Flickr. We are going to try to get a lot of photos up our Flickr page.

American Gamees

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:55:00 +0000

We were asked to play an American game with kids this weekend at the Echizen International Association's yearly festival. They choose pin-the-tail on the donkey for us. Also, they kindly made the donkey poster. Here's Rob doing a demonstration of how to play .

I will admit I'd never considered drawing the donkey from behind. Also, this one's teeth are a little bit scary. Maybe the kids were afraid of it. I was sorta creped out by it. Lots of kids and adults too tried our game - so I feel like internationalism was a success. We also got to make some crafts and eat Brazilian food for really cheap. Delicious!

Then we went to look for blooming plum blossoms with Joe and Kyoko. Unfortunately there was only one tree barely in blossom at the Manyo garden. So we went to find a waterfall. It was a nice walk up the foothills of Mt. Hino. I don't really think Hino-san has foothills, but I don't know what else to call the hills at the base of a bigger hill/mountain. It's not quite spring yet, you can tell everything is still brown, but it was a really warm and sunny day. I think spring must be right around the corner.

Sagichou

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Izumi) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:48:00 +0000

Sagichou

Here are our pics of the Sagichou festival in Katsuyama.

Historical Viallage of Hokkaido

noreply@blogger.com (Peaches) — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 11:37:00 +0000

Hokkaido has all kinds of old stuff. My favorite happens to be old houses, Japanese architecture and culture. So we headed off to the Historical Village of Hokkaido to see those things. It was amazing.

The village has about 60 buildings that are over 100 years old. Most of them have the original furnishings inside. We saw all sorts of buildings like a doctor's office, newspaper place, restaurants, college dorms, a school, warehouses, and a silk worm factory, complete with a ferris wheel for the worms enjoyment - or death. Pretty cool stuff. You can go into all of them and see how people lived. This is a sake brewing company. The barrels that hold the sake are huge.

I really enjoyed the newspaper printing office. It's hard to imagine stocking all of the characters necessary to write a newspaper in Japan. There are about 3000 kanji. It made me feel nostalgic for the times when I used to run down my grandparents stairs and see their printing press. Those were scary times filled with spiderwebs, dust, and amazement. This museum was nice and covered in snow.