Daisuke, Ken-ichi, Taiki, right after they graduated 3rd year middle school (=9th grade US). I'm going to miss them. Taiki is a really nice kid. kids go to all different high schools, based on entrance exams, so they're going to be seperated from most of the people they spent 3 years of middle school with. In the background is their classroom. (each class has one classroom and the teachers move around). It was decorated for graduation. Before leaving their teachers came in, all crying, and gave them lots of informal going-away speeches. For me I still keep in touch with only one person from middle school, but around here I think these relationships are kept up.

Mutsumi and Chiemi, two 2nd year girls who are in english club. They're what you might expect during class, very nice and never talk, but in english club they change and are exactly like people at home. The 2nd graders went on a trip to muroto the other day. the trip was to the beautiful point at the end of the island, but instead of enjoying that, we went to a 'deep water factory' called 'aqua farm' which pumps water from 300m deep in the ocean off the point and makes it into various products that have alleged health benefits.

After that we went to the beach for a bit, and then to a MAKEUP FACTORY. at the factory we looked at an assembly line of old women putting hand lotion in bottles and listened to advertising speeches. Very strange. I was mad. I'll accept obvious lies about water being imbued with the power of nature, but taking middle schoolers to a makeup factory doesn't seem right. At least the bus ride was fun, I heard lots of funny japanese middle school jokes.

Oh yeah, and you can see more concretized coastline. They're having a big national athletic competition here in 2 years, and kochi has imported a lot of people who are living here just to be able to compete on our team. So all these coastal villages of 5000 drunk farmers now have tokyoites living in them training for different events.

After three days of rain I saw this river. So me adam and katie ran around the riverbank for a while. Every riverbank in japan has been made into concrete. It seems excessive. All I know is that on the 10k train ride to Kochi city construction takes up about 8 k of it. Can you imagine a 5 mile long construction area?. They're building two new stations, building more tracks, and rebuilding the walls on some rivers.

They're also building pylons coming up from the middle of this little river. so they had these pits going into the water with the water being blocked by metal sheets, and pumps keeping the water out 24hours a day. two of them in the middle of the river, right next to the existing train bridge (and the rivers only maybe 20m wide anyway), and then also a huge area cut into the water so they can rebuild the river wall there. Every day passing this pit in the middle of the river it would be a little deeper.

The construction industry is strange here. When they repair streets they block off the road and occasionally you can see someone doing some work, but mostly all you see is guys with red light sabers directing traffic. Sometimes they'll have a 10 foot section of the sidewalk blocked off, and have two guys stationed at the ends, directring pedestrains around it. I think that's how the government's trying to revitalize the economy or something.

my friend katie at this ceremony called "sei-jin-shiki" (= becoming person ceremony). Everyone goes through it here when they turn 20, it's when they officially become an adult. most people there had dyed hair. Every single person there looked beautiful. Katie and me just showed up at the local ceremony and watched. The girls all smoked and talked on their cell phones. Turned out that that day at a nearby town a couple of kids had run up to the podium during a speech and shot little firecrackers at some bigshot. He got really mad and yelled at them during his speech. It was all over the news for a few days- the disrespect of the young for their elders, etc. They kept showing a video of them doing it as if it were some assassination attempt.

other people from the 'becoming person ceremony'

me, august 2000, standing on this gigantic road bridge that goes over... ricefields! it gives you a great view of the surrounding- fields! and hills!

Mike standing in a river, july 2000. The incredibly beautiful hills covered with trees and bamboo in the background are typical of all of Kochi beyond a few miles from the coast.

Sachi Nagano, a woman who works for the board of ed who took care of all us new jets coming in. Really sweet, caring, funny. He umbrella broke so she was using that leaf instead... page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4 page 5