First impressions of Asago-shi

Asago-shi (the suffix -shi indicates a city) is apparently famous for leeks. I can`t tell the difference between one leek to the next, especially since they`re usually mixed in with something else. That just happened to be the first thing they mentioned when I asked what was special about Asago. Like I mentioned in my last post, it`s made up of 4 towns that got together, presumably for tax purposes: Wadayama, Santo, Asago, and Ikuno.

It`s in the northern middle area of Hyogo-ken (the suffix -ken indicates a prefecture, though other special prefectures have their own...like Tokyo-to, or Kyoto-fu), the prefecture which contains Kobe and is just west of more famous cities like Kyoto and Osaka. It`s located in the Kansai region, an area famous for a blunter, somewhat more aggressive sounding dialect. People in my area speak a variation of Kansai-ben known as Tajima-ben, with slight alterations to verb conjugations as well as altered pronunciations of nouns and different conversational particles.

Sorry for the sudden Japanese nerd outburst.

Apparently the area is pretty good for onsen, skiing/snowboarding, and so far that`s it. It`s a relatively poor area (everyone is poor compared to those in Tokyo), with a fair number of single mothers and farmers. There`s a big store called Jusco in the middle of town which has everything from bathtubs to TVs to a travel agency to strawberries.

The area also has the ruins of Takeda-jo, a castle up on a mountain which has a spectacular view of the valley. There`s also Awaga-yama, the highest mountain in the area...more on that in a later post. In any case, it`s a rather non-descript town in the middle of a prefecture that I had never heard of. There`s rice fields/paddies, lots of small individual vegetable gardens, tons of old people, and an odd odor.

It`s also full of lovely people, all too willing to smile and bow their head in greeting. The attitude of people in Tokyo wore on me for those 6 months, and I have a feeling that won`t be a problem here. Come visit sometime! We`ll probably spend most of our time at least 2 hours from my apartment, but the area is good for a couple of hours of sightseeing.