It's About Time

We are everywhere doing everything we can in such a short period of time. The past 5 days have found my group in Nagasaki visiting schools, Ground Zero, the Peace Gardens, Christian Churches, Tea Ceremonies, Universities and a recycling plant. All of that plus eating some of the most outstandingly amazing foods I've ever experienced. I also, through an incredible coincidence (do they exist?) was lined up with an LDS family for a home visit over the past weekend. I went to church with them. It was the first time I've been to church in more than a month. It was a good place, a good space, for me and seemed to be a positive experience for everyone.

I have sooo many images I could upload, but am prohibited from uploading the best ones. Those w

ould be the faces of the children at the schools we have visited. They are incredibly beautiful. sitting with them, feeling their energy, innocence and passion for life was/is

transformative.

So much to write...so little time.

One thing that's coming to me about ESD is that there will never be sustainable solutions for sustainable development issues, be they energy, housing, transportation, resource depletion, climate-change, sustainable food supply, world peace or any other SD issue of substance just by teaching it in the classrooms. There are some internal issues that a substantial number of us will have to confront. It will require a shift in our nature or at least in our perceptions of

who/what we are and our place and relationship with everything and everyone else.

It's about time, no?

Thursday we went to a public bath at a hot springs. It waas a little different :) but very relaxing. The meal we ate there reminded me of an Italian wedding. We ate such a variety of foods, including Kobe beef which is the most expensive beef in Japan. We also spent some time at the longest suspension bridge in the world, 2 1/4 miles long. If one picture is worth a 1000 words I'll add a lengthy chapter here.

One pic is a cross-section of one of the cables used in building the bridge. Wactually took an elevator up onto the bridge.

Japan is AMAZING

Actually, its the Japanese who who are so hospitable and proud to do the best they can as they perform their jobs. The airport was unlike anything I've ever experienced, so polite and orderly. Anyway, I'm here in Kobe with the Fullbright ESD teacher exchage. I'm just going to add some pics for now of our first evening here.

Flooding and Such

It's been a crazy month so far. So many things to do between gardening, goats, getting ready for Japan and working with the Forest Service. Today is the first full day off I've had from the FS in 2 weeks.

I thought I'd include some pics of what I've been up to. We've been blasting rocks, repairing roads, filling and laying sandbags (all of which activities are related to our heavy snowfall this year).