Life is best by train.

I was so happy when I finally got a car in the fall of 2006. It has served me well, earning thousands of miles and braving very skinny, windy roads through thick jungle and falling pink clay.
Two weeks ago however, La Mer, that dinged and dented beauty, died (many times, it's a long story...full of adventure, many helping hands and A LOT of pantomiming to Japanese garage guys).
Thus I've been living my life carless and found myself a little disappointed when I realized that she was fixed today and will be back to me before the weekend.
Why disappointed?

The day after La Mer quit me, I had an important meeting in Matsue (the city 3 hours north of me), luckily she had passed out only a half hour from Matsue, and all I had to do was walk from the apartment of the very helpful and generous Luke, to the Shinji train station and catch a train to the meeting.
Walking through the backyards of that tiny town was absolutely magical. It was snowing heavily, in big wet flakes, and the wind was blowing all of it in my direction. I found a path (turned out to be a road) next to the tracks and followed it to the station. I passed the underbelly of a little neighborhood, parts of houses and gardens that you can't see from the road. There were ladles made of bamboo, frozen to puddles of water in dragon-mouthed birdbaths, crowds of frozen cabbages covered in snow, and daikon radishes half above ground. The radishes looked like pale, chubby goblins, leaning toward each other for warmth. I met an older man, carrying a huge pile of brush in a basket on his back. He had two inches of snow on his hat, but didn't shake it off. He passed me in complete silence. The stillness, even feet from busy train tracks, was smothering. After a late night of dealing with car troubles, it was the perfect path to take to remind me of where my feet alone can take me.

Without La Mer, I need a ride to work everyday. Kameda sensei is the lovely literature teacher who drives me. She has two little girls, Yume and Mei whom you've seen on this blog before. I can't tell you how much it has warmed me to see their tiny faces smiling every cold morning in the apartment parking lot. That's worth the trouble in itself.

I went to visit Lena and Leif in Yakami last Sunday, it's about an hour's train ride after a snowstorm (a half hour normally). The only people on the train were old men and women with groceries, and one beautiful young woman who asked me what country I was from. You know when you meet someone who just radiates beauty and grace? This woman had it, and had I been a man or a lesbian, I would've fallen in love then and there. She told me I shouldn't eat my large pastry on the train. Rules.

Here's some footage taken from the train ride and the rest of the day with Leif and Lena: