the dam

k-chan was asleep with little kou-chan in her arms on the floor, ojiichan was watching "chanbara" (old samurai movies) on tv with the volume up way to loud, and i was bored.

k-chan's family often talk about some dam located up the road where they used to go swimming when they were kids in the heat of summer. every time i ask k-chan to take me there she finds some excuse... tells me it's "just a boring dam".
but hey, a dam is a dam, and i wanna see it with my own eyes.
so i set out in search of the dam.

before i left the house though i took these two photos which for some odd reason have intrigued me ever since i first set foot in this house all those years ago.
the first one is of a sticker in the bathroom showing you how to use a "western style" toilet. well i never...
and the second one is of some wallpaper which covers one of the spare rooms.
it's like 30+ years old, just weird to think that i would find these bunnies cooking up some tasty treats in a "western" kitchen all the way over here in japan.




anyway, back to the dam.
as i made my way there i got a few funny looks from the local housewives bringing in their sun drenched washing. i guess it's not often that you see a gaijin with a camera in-hand walking around these woods.
turned off the small country road into an even narrower overgrown shingle road and i suddenly remembered what obaachan had said the other day about the dam.
"gotta be careful of the inoshishi; the wild boars"
her warning kinda got me thinking that maybe i should have bought denko along with me...

anyway, arrived at the dam and was surprised at how beautiful it was up here.
nature in all its beauty.
which got me thinking about the dangers nature hides from us (hey, i live in hong kong, jungles here are made of concrete)
i mean, does japan have poisonous snakes? spiders? dangerous creapy crawlies??
trying not to freak myself out i just took in all the beauty.











after playing with this little green frog (obviously the non-venomous kind) i heard a rusting in the bushes near by and this time i really freaked out.
i could so picture a huge hairy inoshishi with ginormous tusks stomping his feet in the soil getting ready to charge at the stupid gaijin who had wondered into his territory.
i was in the freeze position for what seemed like an hour but realised that the inoshishi's stomping was very rhythmic... too rhythmic.
on a closer look into the bushes it turns out the hairy inoshishi was nothing but some swift flowing water from the blimmin dam.
this is one story that i didn't skite about when i got back home to the in laws...