Japan is a great place, and I love living here. The country is beautiful, the culture always new and fascinating, and the people are very kind. One of the drawbacks to life in Japan, however, is the abundance of concrete and asphalt around me. Roads seem to criss-cross every inch of Japan, even high in the mountains in the center of the country, and it's common for the Japanese government to cover the sides of mountains in concrete to guard against falling rocks, so you can't even see the mountain you're currently driving on. Virtually every river in the country has been extensively "engineered" to guard against dangerous floods, which can make them look quite unnatural, with reinforced concrete slopes on both sides. We have a "vacation mansion" up in the mountains around Karuizawa, which sounds really cool until you learn that the word "mansion" in Japan means an apartment that is owned as opposed to being rented. As we were driving home one weekend, I caught a really nice view of Mt. Asama, a large volcano that's erupted several times over the last century. It was spectacular, with steam coming out of the top and everything, but I was having a terrible time snapping a picture of the mountain without getting a power line in the picture. Kind of lame.
5 comments:
I hope the battle going on in the Japanese Government is won such that the gasoline tax does not have to be spent only on new roads...
The volcano picture got me to thinking: with $100 oil and all the problems with nukes, I wonder why Japan doesn't make better use of geothermal energy. I've never heard of any (unless you count onsen :^)
Yes, the tax situation is quite silly. I mean, if you can't work out a way for road taxes to benefit in other ways, let's cut the taxes by half. Lord knows we need it, with gas up to 160 yen per litre for "hi-oc" (high octane), which works out to be $5.50 per gallon. Ack! I shouldn't have calculated that... Fortunately things are little different here, for example you don't commute 80 miles to work round trip like you do in the U.S. often. Trains exist and are used on a daily basis, etc.
Good idea, Steven. Geo Thermal is probably totally ignored here. An interesting question...
Japan never ceases to amaze me. You can just drive by steaming volcanoes like it's nothing; so many places to see and experience. I wish I were there now.
We're now touching the equivalent of $8 a gallon (around £1.08 per litre), with another 2p fuel duty increase planned for April, on top of ever increasing raw fuel costs. If only 70% of it didn't go straight into the Chancellor's pocket...
I can understand the argument of expanding up the ways fuel tax can be used, but the Japanese government should be careful not to go too far in the opposite direction, as otherwise it's open to abuse. Like the British Government's treatment of the National Lottery. Some things should not be imitated.
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