{"id":258,"date":"2022-12-09T15:38:08","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T03:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/?p=258"},"modified":"2024-03-22T15:22:55","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T03:22:55","slug":"12-months-in-tenkoku-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/?p=258","title":{"rendered":"12 Months in Tengoku &#8211; Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>One year and two weeks ago, I moved to a town on Japan\u2019s west coast named Joetsu. On my third day, a local told me that I\u2019d landed the best placement in the country. I looked out the car window, through the rain at the growling motorway under a sea of sooty clouds, and silently disagreed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Joetsu sprawls along a river valley that empties into the Sea of Japan. The city itself is an amalgamation of several municipalities, among them the once-heaving port of Naoetsu and the moated inland bastion, Takada. <\/p>\n\n\n\t\t<div\n            id=\"wpmapblock_30b13e02\"\n            data-settings='{&quot;map_marker&quot;:[{&quot;lat&quot;:&quot;37.1479&quot;,&quot;lng&quot;:&quot;138.2361&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Joetsu&quot;,&quot;content&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;iconType&quot;:&quot;default&quot;,&quot;customIconUrl&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;customIconWidth&quot;:&quot;25&quot;,&quot;customIconHeight&quot;:&quot;40&quot;}],&quot;map_zoom&quot;:10,&quot;scroll_wheel_zoom&quot;:false,&quot;map_type&quot;:&quot;GM&quot;,&quot;center_index&quot;:0}'\n            class=\"wpmapblockrender\"\n            style=\"\n\t\t\twidth: 100%;\n\t\t\theight: 500px;\n\t\t\"\n            >\n        <\/div>\n        \n\n\n<p><br>In 1971, Takada and Naotsu merged, whereupon the authorities created a new cultural and administrative center in the 8km of farmland between the two towns. This became Joetsu\u2019s official center, a dingy array of offices and motorways where I spent my first few days as the city&#8217;s newest resident.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For many who drive through Joetsu, this is all they see. One such tourist was Australian travel writer Richard Pendavingh, who visited in 2005. He had this to say,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cJoetsu was a maze of tightly-packed low-rise houses without gardens or street trees interspersed by windswept concrete plazas and big, blocky commercial buildings (&#8230;) the atmosphere wasn\u2019t helped by the fact that the streets were empty and the weather was dismal but even on a good day I got the sense that it wouldn\u2019t have been a very pleasant place to live.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1331\" height=\"685\" data-id=\"261\" src=\"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-4490.jpg\" alt=\"Driving through Joetsu's city center in late November. \" class=\"wp-image-261\" srcset=\"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-4490.jpg 1331w, https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-4490-300x154.jpg 300w, https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-4490-1024x527.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG-4490-768x395.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1331px) 100vw, 1331px\" \/><figcaption>Driving through central Joetsu in late November<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Richard only seemed to have been in Joetsu for one day some 17 years ago. After one year of living In Joetsu I can say he is unequivocally wrong about one thing: we do have street trees.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Richard, however, was spot on with his illustration of the city center and even more so with his description of how Joetsu\u2019s heinous weather and weatherbeaten buildings make for a grim atmosphere. This was the town I entered back in November, 2021. Then, in December, the snow came.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One year and two weeks ago, I moved to a town on Japan\u2019s west coast named Joetsu. On my third day, a local told me that I\u2019d landed the best placement in the country. I looked out the car window, through the rain at the growling motorway under a sea of sooty clouds, and silently [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ray","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taliskersh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}