City profile: Suzaka city, Japan

Geography and history:

Suzaka city is in the north-eastern parts of Nagano prefecture. Chikuma river flows in the western side of Suzaka city. The east-southern part have Minenohara highland, Yonago great falls and Gomiike-habu highland. And it is surrounded by the rich natural environment.

When to go:

Suzaka city has a typical inland climate. We can feel the feature of each season there. The most popular time to visit is spring, when the cherry blossoms have a lot of flowers. Garyu-park in spring is especially stunning.

What to see:

Suzaka city is infamous, but has a lot of nature spot and hot spring. You would be surprised to see them actually.

Hilights include:

 - Garyu-park: famous for cherry blossom view and chosen as one of the best 100 of the beauty spot in Japan.
- Yonago great falls: Chosen as the deep mountains and dark valleys in Japan. Famous TV program, Sanada-maru use the view as its opening movie.

What to eat:

Suzaka city has a lot of agricultural products, grape, apple and mushroom.

Strawberry picking and grape picking is famous. You could eat strawberry and grape just after picking from the field. It is very tasty.

Where to stay:

Suzaka has Suzaka-hot spring inn. The appearance of the building look boring, but you can feel relaxed and nostalgic there. Definitely, hot spring would also made you relaxed by itself.

Massive deja - vu: Akihabara station

I had one of those "hair prickling on the back of my neck" moments this evening, walking along the platform in Akihabara station towards the Sobu line for Shinjuku. It really was a "wow, I have done this before" feeling. Unlike deja-vu, I can actually remember when I did this before: exactly twenty (yes, 20) years ago.

Image via Wikipedia

Do you want to know something that makes it extremely weird? I was wearing the same jacket (rarely worn since) that I bought for interviews - always wore back then as my 'teacher uniform' because I didn't actually know how to teach but figured I needed to look the part. Yes, the jacket is a bit tighter now than it used to be...maybe I should wear it more often?

I used to grab a bowl of noodles on the opposite platform after my last class, once a week, teaching Phillipina hostesses on cultural visaes, just around the corner on Showa dori. I didn't have to speak to get food - it was one of those vending machine jobs outside; coins in, ticket out, noodles on counter. Just enough time to wolf that down, before making the last train 'home', all the way around Tokyo Bay Kemigawahama (nr Makuhari) in China, with the drunks and the porno manga reading losers.

Strewth. 20 years? Same clothes. That says a lot doesn't it?! My last trip to Akihabara then had been to buy a 'ghetto blaster', before I escaped the crap job, crap money, crap flat-mates, crap lifestyle to get "gaijinned" constantly in Suzaka. Consolation prize there was discovering a beer machine outside my apartment; drawback was the Arctic blast delivered from the long-drop khazi in a very cold winter, and the even colder flatmate Barbara I had to pretend I didn't hate. God, she was a miserable cow!

Absolutely twenty years ago, pretty much to the weekend. Thanks Dad, for lending me the cash to survive that first week in Tokyo - bought that jacket down the side of tracks in the famous markets beside Ueno station. Serious decision then was "food or clothes?" - so, again, nothing new!