One Life Japan

The other day my camera took a hard bang and the next day I noticed that once I zoomed in (extended the lens), I was unable to zoom out again (contact the lens) without a lot of fidgeting. After a inspection, I realized that there was a small piece that had broken off and was inside the lens, sometimes jammed in where it shouldn’t be, preventing its proper functioning.

This was the cheapest lens I could find (used) when I purchased it. It was out of warranty, probably costing more to fix than to get another one, and besides, I need it for work tomorrow, so no time to send it to a shop. I decided to take matters into my own hands - carefully disassembling it as I record where each screw went and how it all fit together. I never made it deep enough to extract the piece because the further I got into the lens, the smaller the screws got, until it was beyond the reach of my tiniest screw driver.

Attempting to put everything back together proved futile. Although it looks (almost) the same, something seems to be wrong, as I now have a camera that will not focus. It does however, make a nice macro lens. Hence today’s photos - all taken with the broken lens either in my house as I was testing it, or on a walk to the local shop for some beer to drown my sorrows once I realized I would have to purchase yet another expensive piece of equipment to fill my photo addiction

Last week I attended the yearly hamlet soukai were everything gets decided for the next year, and any local office positions are voted on. Last year Tomoe attended because we did not know that only the “men” of the house are supposed to come but this year she stayed home (she says it is to not embarrass me, but I think it is because the meeting was quite long last year). It is followed by a quick ceremony at the shrine next door, for which we pay a shinto priest to come from Iiyama. This priest must have the least worries about unemployment of anyone in Japan - with 23 hamlets in our village alone, and many more in the surrounding villages, and three or four ceremonies per year that he presides over, he is busy all year, and all he has to do shake a tree branch around.

Of course, as with any meeting, this was followed by emptying several bottles of Sake. I guess that makes it worth the long meeting that I only understood about half of.

For maybe the first time this winter I was happy to see the sun that had been winning the battle against the snow that never came. Despite being disappointed that it was so much like spring last Sunday, that I was able to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt, I was happy to see the sun shining through the windows of the smoke-filled neighborhood temple. Every year the temple is opened up for one day and everyone from the neighboring hamlets files in to say a few prayers and eat some mimi dango (mochi rice shaped like an ear - mimi means ear) It is PROVEN that if you eat a mimi dango this day, you WILL NOT catch a cold for the next year. I had never heard of this before moving here, so I asked around and found that it used to be done all over Japan, but the drug manufacturers wanted to start marketing western cold medicine and lobbied to have mimi-dango declared illegal. It was illegal until the mid-sixties, but by that time most people in urban areas had forgotten all about them.

I have mimi-dango made with our no-chemical rice powder if anyone would like to remain cold-free this year! Only 1,999 yen plush shipping for two. (You are only supposed to have two because you only have two ears)