Life in The Valley

This photo shows the sleeper logs I talked about last time, but they're gone now, and all that's left is the bare earth...

Life is very different for me now.  Not just different from living in Japan, but also different from all of the cities that I've lived in here in the U.S.  This is a picture taken from the porch of my folks' house:

It is really beautiful here, especially on days like today, when the sun is shining and the wind is calm.  However, you can see that there aren't any street lights or neighboring houses, no city trams and no McDonald's or kaiten sushi.  Which means, at about 8:00 p.m. the house is surrounded by blackness.  On a clear night, the stars are big and shiny.  On a cloudy night, you can't see anything. 

Lately, I've been getting up and going to bed with the sun.  That's just what people do around here.  People make phone calls at 6:00 a.m.  People are in bed by 9:30 p.m.  People are much more casual about time and appointments in general.  People aren't bothered if your plans change, so they assume you aren't bothered if their plans change.  Sometimes, they remember to tell you when plans change, but usually, people figure nobody cares, so they don't bother to update eachother.  If a store has a slow day and there are only a few customers, the staff will close the store whenever they want.

This is a big departure from what I'm used to.  I can understand wanting to close a store on a beautiful day like today, but I still can't believe that people really do it.  Life is very different for me now.  I can't say that it's better or worse, but it is very different.