The rim of the largest caldera in the world, overlooking Aso-machi. If you look closely,
you can see steam rising from Aso-san. Sulphuric fumes released from the top of Aso kill a couple of people each year, mostly the old or sick. Recently Aso mountain has been acting a bit "sassy", and so sometimes you can't go up (depending on how the volcano has been feeling recently).

Lately the weather has warmed up considerably to the point where I can comfortably wear two layers of clothes in the mountains, and a shirt and shorts in the city! Bugs have begun to come out of hibernation and are slowly making a comeback. I can no longer use my whole kitchen as a giant refrigerator. The snow is disappearing slowly, although the shady sections of the roads remain slick and dangerous (last year, around this time, a friend of mine flipped his car on a warm, sunny afternoon and had to get driven to the airport so that he could make it up to Osaka to watch J5 perform). Hanami is just around the corner, and I think that I am finally getting over my cold (that I caught right when I came back from Korea). Its Monday and I'm exhausted already, but at least we have good weather.

I don't feel any better about the avian flu situation in Kyushu after reading this. Yesterday I was told that poultry farmers in Ubuyama are not allowed to sell eggs or any other chicken products until further notice. This morning, the officials inspected our chicken and came up with nothing, but Kokonoe is not very far away. Take a look at the map below:

(from the Daily Yomiuri Shimbun)

Man, that would really suck if I had to stay put in Ubuyama due to a quarantine. You never know- its not beyond the scope of probability, in fact, I predict that the Government is gonna start quarentining areas if people start getting scared, like they were about SARS last year.

This year's SARS is Avian Flu. Last year, many JETs were unable to travel to Southeast Asia, and even Australia because everyone's Board Of Education was scared to death. I was barely able to slip out (turned off my cell phone because Joe warned me that his BOE had forced him and Jason to cancel their trip to Japan) with Justin and Nam to Thailand. Once there, I didn't once think about SARS, except when other people mentioned that the Secratary of Health (or some important Thai Guy in charge of the wellness of the Thai people) was offering something like 10 grand to the families of any person who died because they caught SARS in Thailand. Supposedly, really poor people were trying to get infected and come into Thailand to claim the reward...

Imagine my surprise right now. I just walked in, and on the front page of the Daily Yomiuri reads: "Avian flu hits bantams in Oita Pref." with a huge map with an X on it about 30 minutes drive from my house. I was just thinking at lunch "Hmmmm... Ubuyama has a lot of chickens, but Avian flu would never reach this far from Yamaguchi (which is located on the southern-most tip of the main island of Honshu, just North of Kyushu). Its too bad that some schools have made the teachers take over caring for the chickens, and that some have even killed all of theirs in order to be on the safe side. Ah, I better eat faster, it looks like Miki-chan is catching up to me...". And so, we will see how this affects Ubuyama. Luckily I don't live next to the chicken farm like my supervisor.