It feels like yesterday when my son and I were walking past the rice fields on our way home from kindergarten while looking at the little tadpoles swimming around the all but non-existent rice plants. It was late spring and there was a long hot summer lying before us, nature outings, trips to the beach, …
Being lovers of nature as well as the old and new world, we are so fortunate in where we live. While a shorter walk takes us to the train station or the shopping center, a short bicycle ride takes us to the nearby beach and mountains. And a thirty minutes drive will let us reach …
It starts with the name. Raizan, thunder mountain. I cannot imagine a more awe inspiring name for a mountain, and it is easy to imagine how people who gave the mountain its name felt that this is a mountain to fear and revere, a mountain of deity. Raizan is located a short drive from our …
Every now and then my wife goes to Tokyo for work. This time she was away for three days leaving my son and I to handle two nights without her milk. So what to do between morning and nightfall to enjoy the day and also to make us as tired as possible to make the …
I cannot get enough of the mountains here in Japan. Every day I feel drawn to them, to see them, to feel them, to walk among them. It is almost like they talk to me through the air I breath, the cold winds that sweep around my face, the dense forests. The air at home when …
Being a beautiful day, my son and I decided we should go exploring together. Just as I was about to prepare our picnic lunch, our son’s grandmother called and said she had prepared some lunch for us today; wow! So it was with homemade onigiri bento that we set off on our bicycle heading for …
I could not resist to follow up the last post with a story of how we have enjoyed our lussebullar, saffron bread. The second of Advent we climbed the mountain at the foot of which we live. Ever since we moved here I have been looking up at the mountain, wanting to stand on its …
Finally the most beautiful time of the year is here. Before our son was born, I would take an early morning train and go to the mountains, searching for the autumn colors in nature, walking the trails with my camera and tripod and thermos with hot coffee. I would take an early morning train and …
Sometimes our son seems to grow more in one day than in a whole month. My wife and I were talking the other day about when we should stop call him baby; of course he is still our little baby (and I guess he will continue to be as long as we live), but we …
Since becoming a father I have not had the time to work so much on my own art and poetry. Well that was a bit of an understatement – I have been too busy nursing our son, taking care of the house, moving from Tokyo, trying to find some daily time to study Japanese, that …
From our house, the first thing we see in the morning when we open the curtains, and the last ting we see at night while the sun is setting behind the big pine trees growing on a hill next to our house, is Imayama. Imayama, 今山 is a small small mountain close to the sea …