Japan Experiences
Niigata Prefecture

Most of my time in Japan has been spent in the Niigata Prefecture, namely in the city of Nagaoka, about 1.5~2 hours by Shinkansen from Tokyo. This is snow country. Nagaoka holds a snow carnival where contestants make snow sculptures as seen here. They were really neat!

Due to this cold type weather you would think they would have problems clearing the streets of snow. Well your wrong. They have a rather ingenious solution. My co-workers and I call them street pissers. In the center of most streets is a concrete strip. In that strip are small holes. On cold and/or snowy days water is turned on inside the concrete pipe and water constantly sprays out of the holes. Since the water is constantly flowing, the snow melts and it does not freeze!

As many of you know, Japan drives on the wrong side of the road (left hand rule). Well they trusted me to drive, and drive I did. The picture to the left shows a few of my co-workers along the sea of Japan coast south of Niigata. The van was our rental car. That day we drove into the snowy mountains, and then down to the coast. All with just a map in Japanese, and no interpreter. We never got lost (I'm not nicknamed Rand McNally for nothing!). 

The next story is not so happy. A co-worker (not pictured on this page for his protection), did a not so good thing. 3 of us were walking across a bridge over the Shinao River in Nagaoka. We stopped and noticed a huge school of carp swimming in the river. Most were black in color, but one was golden. Well, he wondered what the fish would do if a rock landed in the water. So he tossed one over and it hit the water with a splash. We noticed that the gold fish stopped swimming. Then suddenly the black carp started swarming around the gold fish. Within minutes at least 3 different schools of fish were acting like cannibals. Apparently the rock had hit the fish and knocked it un-conscious (if not killed it). We quickly left the bridge. After all, Koi fish are highly regarded in Japan.

Back to Top