Just got done wathing another episode of Sawaya Shizen Hyakkei, and was 
reminded of how truly beautiful Japan is. For a land with so many people
in such a small area to have so many essentially unspoiled areas is
absolutely remarkable, and unappreciated by roughly 99% of the Japanese,
much less tourists. It seems half the episodes deal with Hokkaido, but
some of the shows dealing with areas just outside of Tokyo (well, Izu), 
not to mention Kochi really drive home to me some of the things I miss
about the country (though my wife and the child units are solidly in the
"If it's not a city, it doesn't exist" school of thought.)

Oh, well, just thought I'd share. We now return to the irregularly
scheduled discussions of Japanese PILFs, mid-life crises, and stream-
of-consciousness diatribes.

I'm gonna grab another beer...

Mike