Falling for fall...

You can take the desert girl out of the desert, but you can't take the desert out of the girl. Or something like that.

This is the first year since 1992 that I have lived somewhere with four distinct seasons. Central Arizona has two seasons, hot and not so hot. Southern CA isn't much different, although I do remember there being ice on the ground when I returned to Claremont last January, which should definitely qualify that time of year as winter in my book. In Japan, I am experiencing (almost for the first time really) these fabled four seasons. When I arrived in August, it was definitely summer, miserably hot and sweaty, and green. While this lingered on until the end of Septemeber/early October, the past few weeks have witnessed a rather dramatic change. Leaves are no longer bright green. The weather is not hot and sweaty, even in the sun. I can see my breath when I bike to school in the morning. By 6 pm, its almost completely dark out.

At first, this was a welcome change. It was nice being able to open the windows in my apartment. But this lovely temperate weather was short lived. It seemed like the day after I shut the windows, I had to drag out the space heater. All of a sudden, the all-cotton clothing layers I relied on to keep me warm back home in the states became rather insufficient. This wasn't fall---it was winter!! I was outraged, and moreover pretty dang cold. Until people in other places reminded me that 65 F really isn't that cold. So decked out in some new wool sweaters, I've tried to embrace the season.

One way to enjoy "fall" is to do "fall" things, like picking kaki with your calligraphy class. Just look at all the fun we had.

Setting out. It was a chilly grey day when we started. Note that not just the crazy desert girl is bundled up.

An innocent kaki blissfully ignorant of its doomed fate.

The lovely Miss Shepherd demonstrating how to pick a good one.

Photo shoot time. We spent about 10 minutes acutally picking fruit and another 20 running around taking lots of pictures. Like the oh so tasteful one above.
The location of this kaki picking fest. Lovely.

After kakis we headed to winery where amidst the fall leaves we saw several tourbuses full of Japanese wine enthusiasts finding another way to take the chill out of the air. And we played in the leaves.

We took a break for lunch at a restaurant that looked like a log cabin and had a fantastic heating system. It also had a glorious view of the surrounding country side. After finishing our 5 course lunch (Naoko-sensei takes such good care of us, its rediculous) the clouds had moved on, leaving a sunny fall afternoon behind.

Perfect weather for visiting a pottery factory (not quite the right word, workshop maybe?) With Naoko-sensei and her infinite number of connections, we not only got to see the beautiful pieces for sale, but got a behind the scenes tour and saw the gigantic kiln the ceramicist built himself in his barn, complete with brief tutorial. It took me back to those camp counselor days when I had to trudge up the hill in the middle of the night to check on the kiln, gah! No, really it made me want to try my hand at pottery again.

Beautiful blue cups.

A whimsical little bird.

The kiln to end all kilns. It was huge! The potter said it took two days to do a complete firing, and I think he said that it takes all of the wood you see piled up around it to get it started. And I was complaining about the not-so-automatic ones at Girl Scout Camp. This man obviously loves what he does.

After the pottery, our lunch had settled enough for our last stop of the day...an onsen. This one was outdoors and if you were brave enough to raise your nekkid self out of the hot water a few inches you were rewarded with an incredible view. However, it was quite cold.

That, in a nutshell is how I began to fall in love with fall. How could I not?

[Author's note: Sadly, this feeling was short lived, when I woke up later in the week and could see my breath in my bedroom. A highly scientific experiment invoving all of my alarm clocks, which happen to have thermometers included in their displays and a few quick conversions from C to F concluded that I was indeed sleeping in the coldest room in my apartment, which made sense in August. Not so much now or for the next 4 months or so. So I dismantled my bed, moved it to the warmest room and moved some of the clothes into the other closet. The temperature in this room hovers around 60 F when I wake up, which is surprisingly a whole lot better than the 55 F the other room likes to stay at.]