My hometown in Japan

When you hear “Japan” what kind of places do you imagine???

Do you imagine Tokyo, with high buildings with fashion and technology?? Or do you imagine Kyoto or Osaka with the traditional temples and beautiful scenery???  Some of you might know Hokkaido which is the most Northern Prefecture in Japan, or Okinawa, our most Southern Prefecture.

These places are great places to visit, and I definitely recommend these places if you have a chance to visit Japan. But, I don’t want you to generalize what Japan looks like based on these main cities of Japan.

I come from Minamiuonuma City in Niigata Prefecture, which is a little North from Tokyo.

It looks like this.

Did you imagine this kind of scenery when you heard “Japan” ???

As you can see, it is a very rural place with a bunch of rice fields. There are many places like this in Japan that people do not about. So I would like to tell you a little bit of my hometown to make rural areas of Japan a little more interesting for you!!!

In my city, as you can see in the picture, we cultivate a lot of rice. However, it is not normal rice. The rice brand that we cultivate “Koshihikari” is known to be as one of the most expensive or delicious rice in Japan. It is probably the most famous rice in Japan. Growing up here, I got to eat this rice every day even at school which made me very picky with rice.

We can cultivate such high-quality rice because of our snow.

Where I live, it snows about 6.5 to 9 feet (2~3m) every year. My morning walk with my puppy looks like this!!

  

Here is my mom’s car after she’s done with work! It snowed this much in 8 hours!

 

WOOOOOWWW right?? Imagine how tall the snow would pile up if that continued for a couple of days!

We have special roofs that would heat up or melt the snow with water so the snow does not squish our houses. We also have water pipes in the middle of the road that would begin to shoot water out when it gets to a certain temperature. At like 5 am, people use big snow plow trucks to clear the road so everyone can drive to work. Me personally, I do not want to drive in this snow, but people who live here, including my parents, are used to it.

Thanks to this snow, not only do we have good rice, but we also have many ski resorts that many people visit. We also are famous for Japanese Sake (alcohol) because of the snow.

AND as much as snow can be tough on us, it can be beautiful too!!

 

If you are not good with the cold, don’t worry! There are fabulous sceneries that do not include snow too!

 

 

 

These pictures are within an hour drive from my City. Niigata Prefecture is famous for one of the best firework festivals in Japan, and outside modern artworks. The fourth picture is one of the artworks, a tunnel with one end facing a beautiful valley with a shallow pond so the scenery reflects.

In the middle of nowhere in Japan, there might be many places that are not like your image of Japan that might be interesting!!!

I, myself love my hometown with so much nature！

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog as well :)