In the local Saga dialect, various onomatopoeia and not-quite onomatopoeia are repeated three times as opposed to the usual two. For example, in Japan a dog goes “wan-wan". Well, in Saga a dog goes “wan-wan-wan". Therefore! Nuf Nuf Nuf (although it’s called Nuf Nuf, so just shut your face). Had Culture Day today (saturday) at school. Wasn’t so bad. Going to a Halloween Party with some of the above peoples in Saga City this evening. Sleeping all of tomorrow.

p.s. I’m coming home for Christmas.

First shots with the new camera. Hanging out at Nuf Nuf in Kitagata (Kitakata?). Recording more children’s songs. Having long weekends. Driving through mountains. Taking pictures of things. Buying new jackets! Receiving 17th century historical fiction &c.

My old camera broke! I bought a new camera! These pictures were taken with the old camera, not the new one! Since the old camera broke, I was unable to transfer these images onto my computer until now, which is my perfectly valid excuse for not posting about lovely Nagasaki until this instant. The new camera I bought is a Canon KISS Digital N, which is Japanese for Canon 350D. It put me back a pretty penny, but I suspect that it’ll be well worth it judging by some preliminary shots. My only problem now is that Gimp, the photo editing program I use, doesn’t have an agreeable color correcting function that I know of. So, some of the next batch of pictures are yellower than I’d like.

I realize I’m not writing hilarious stories about my life in Japan as an English teacher (like Cassie does), but I’m much more enthusiastic about photos than my job. So go read Cassie’s blog.

I’m changing it up this time. In order to get a better visual feel for Japan, I’ve posted more pictures than usual and have accordingly adjusted the size of each photo, so as to not take up so much space. I’ve also lowered my standards for publication slightly so that you, the viewer, may see more. Today’s post is of Okawachiyama, a pottery village near Imari (about an hour give or take from here). We arrived pretty late, around 4 or 5, so there wasn’t much open. Although I don’t think there’s much open usually, except pottery shops. Which is not that exciting for me, actually. But it was a very attractive locale, all steep cobblestone alleys and big mountains in the background. Oh, by the way: we went to Okawachiyama about a month ago. I’ve got some catching up to do.

This picture is a bit blurry, and for that I’m sorry. But I just thought you should know they sell placenta here. Placenta for your face.