My friend Kathy Washington who is an elementary school teacher at Yokota, is learning to make small stuffed dolls. The classroom is in the teacher's home. That is the way it is in the whole village. The teacher is a seamstress and makes kimonos and lots of other things.

I took a class in making pictures from small pieces of fabric. It was fun and the picture turnes out well even though the teacher spoke only Japanese. We communicated with head nods and hand motions. Everyone was able to complete thier project in spite of the language barrier.

I am standing in front of an apple orchard. The apples raised here are about the size of a small canteloupe and cost about 500 yen (about $4.65 each).



This is a water wheel at a residence. The people here have to make plans for the spring thaws which bring huge amounts of water down from the mountains. The wheel helps the water to run thru trenches on either side of the street.

The people of the village make use of the trenches by planting flowers on the side. They also make rails out of large pieces of bamboo. These are the zig-zags you see. They then cut wholes in the bamboo and plant potted plants inside. These are along both sides of the street and make the village look like a fairy land.


A lot of homes through out Japan have
family shrines in the yard. They are usually
surrounded by a fence. This one wasn't so I could take some good pictures. The shrines are actually small grave yards where family members are are buried. Lots of these shrines have generations of relatives buried there. I think that's a pretty good idea.