Lost in Ogawa

Ogawa, population ~36,000. Cerritos, population ~52,000. Ogawa = Town, Cerritos = City. Mode of transportation around Ogawa: bicycle. Mode of transportation around Cerritos: car. It’s a new environment and a new lifestyle that I’m getting use to. In fact, it is a much simpler and peaceful lifestyle. Ogawa is considered the countryside of Japan. The word for countryside is “Inaka” (I is pronounced like the letter e, like the word emotion). You hear the word “Inaka” a lot in Japan. If it isn’t a big city like Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Hiroshima, then there’s a pretty good chance everywhere else is countryside. Especially Ogawa, which has a suffix “machi” town, attached to it stating that it is countryside.

Being in Ogawa has a very different feel to it than being in Tokyo. Ogawa feels relaxed and quiet where Tokyo is intense and noisy. Both has its pros and cons depending on how you look at it. During the week, I lead a pretty simple life. I get to school about 8am, and leave school around 4:15ish. I come back to my apt., relax a bit and worry about what I should cook for dinner, make dinner, watch some tv, surf the internet, and then go to bed and start over the next day. I live in an apartment all by myself, which I think is the coolest ever because I never had a whole place to myself before. I enjoys having my own space and privacy so this was perfect. My rent for my place is only U.S. $400/ month because my Board of Education subsidizes around 1/3 of my rent. Cool huh?! The BoE also provided me with a new mountain bike to get around schools and around Ogawa. Of course it’s only a loaner because once I leave Ogawa, the bike goes to the new ALT that replaces me but still, a new bike right? And not those crappy and weak looking Japanese bicycle that has no gears and a basket in front, although the basket would come in handy when I go grocery shopping! hmmm

My apartment is my castle. I had a smile when I walked into my apartment for the very first time back in late July. Every JET hopes their apt. is not the size of a game cube. I was lucky to find my apt. relatively new, relatively large in respect to Japan size, and fully furnished. That saved me a lot of money! I have 2 rooms, 1 living room, 1 kitchen, and 1 bathroom. It’s definitely plenty of space for me. A family of 4 lives below me so if they’re doing ok, I’m living in luxury here. I can always find peace and tranquility in my apt. I always have my stereo on playing music while I do something and even as we speak now, the music is on and I’m typing away. If I open my windows, it’s still the same!! Quiet!! Back in the blistering humid summer nights of August, I would get cricket sounds outside and that’s about it. On Friday nights and weekends, there’s hardly any cars on the road so no noise pollution whatsoever. So this is what countryside is like….how refreshing!

If you’re interested to see what Ogawa and my apt. looks like:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tonykao0627/album?.dir=b6ae

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 16th, 2004 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.