West Virginia, Japan

Just to be sure, I wanted to let you know that I may as well be living in the equivalent of W. Virginia of Japan. (Although Montana is the actual sister-state of Kumamoto prefecture.) Furthermore, there is really no state in America that could compare to this prefecture (it has a metropolis with an ancient castle, beautiful coastlines on the west, and beautiful mountains in its east. But as far as my town goes, it may as well be W. Virginia (and yet there is an amazing school system in this tiny village of 1600 people).

One fascinating thing about Japan is that it is so densely packed with pockets of different things. Coming from America it's hard to imagine such diversity of landscape and civilization in such a relatively small landmass. It all comes back to what the old famer in the Kokonoe onsen pointed out as the biggest difference between Japan and America: that Japan is narrow and America is wide. You can also throw into that equation that Japan is very old.

Of course I won't be living in this town for much longer... But perhaps you can see why ony year here, for me, is a long time (even though everyone in this town tells me a year is such a short time - talk about a guilt-trip).