My New Neighborhood

Minobu is beautiful. It is in the southwestern part of Yamanashi. The “town” is in a valley, so a river runs down the middle of it and there are mountains on either side. Minobu is really a collection of towns that were condensed into one (probably to increase paperwork). There’s not a whole lot of room between the river and the slope of the mountains, so all the towns are small. Rt. 52 runs along the west side of the river and it connects all the little towns. By driving along 52, you pretty much see everything there is to see in Minobu (the east side has a comparable road). It’s pretty rural. Many houses have little farms (think 50 ft by 30 ft). At the same time, though, there are chain restaurants, and big supermarkets. But no movie theater. The nearest movie theater is in Kofu, the capital of Yamanashi. Kofu is about an hour away by car or train (the nearest train station is a ten minute’s drive from my apartment). Downtown Kofu reminds me a little of Evanston, but as soon as you leave the downtown area, it becomes suburban sprawl – like Rt. 70 or Dempster. From Kofu, you can take a train or a bus to Tokyo (there’s even a bus that leaves three times a day from Minobu to Tokyo). It takes about two hours. So, overall, I’m about three hours from Tokyo.