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For as natural as Hokkaido is, our city kind of messes it all up by hosting 3 gigantic factories. One of them is the largest steel factory in all of Japan. No wonder it took me 40 minutes to bike around it last fall when I was trying to get to the other side of the peninsula.
A few weeks ago when I was walking out of school and I saw the freshly fallen snow looked a little grey, I thought it was my imagination. Maybe somehow it had been disturbed, but in such a natural way that I thought it was fresh. Then today I noticed it again. My house has white (enough) snow, but it's particularly bad around school downwind from the factory.
Now I know, however, that it definitely fell grey. A few weeks ago a large group of us went out to dinner to celebrate a birthday, and an ALT who lives up on the hill above the factories with his Japanese wife was telling stories. Apparently, he knows a car salesman who refuses to buy any used cars from The City by the Sea because the polution rots them out so quickly from the inside. Apparently the aforementiond steel factory puts out something like 2% of all the polution in Japan (WHAT?) and even so it's three times more efficient and three times greener than any other factory of its kind. Disgusting. It's no wonder most of the City by the Sea looks like the dystopian future of Gary, Indiana.
Furthermore, other than some crows, a flock or two of sparrows, three stray cats, a rabbit, and a seagull, I've seen no wildlife here at all in 6 months - and I've spent a lot of time exploring the beaches and the city limits. I suppose you have to consider that we're on a peninsula, in a city where virtually 0% of houses have yards, but still.
Also, it stinks. Like literally. Partially there's recurring natural sulfur from the volcanoes and their hot spring vents, but generally there's a foul mechanical rotting smell that regularly takes over the city. I guess you can tell which direction the winds are blowing. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but I'd say it involkes mental imagery of rusting steel colored 1970s blue and lung cancer.
For the most part these terrible things can be blocked out, depending on where you spend your time (and what direction the wind is blowing). Things are a lot more natural around the ocean and in my neighborhood, and the factories and train tracks are limited to a certain part of the peninsula. I don't hate it here, but it makes me realize I probably wouldn't want to raise a family in the City by the Sea.
A few weeks ago when I was walking out of school and I saw the freshly fallen snow looked a little grey, I thought it was my imagination. Maybe somehow it had been disturbed, but in such a natural way that I thought it was fresh. Then today I noticed it again. My house has white (enough) snow, but it's particularly bad around school downwind from the factory.
Now I know, however, that it definitely fell grey. A few weeks ago a large group of us went out to dinner to celebrate a birthday, and an ALT who lives up on the hill above the factories with his Japanese wife was telling stories. Apparently, he knows a car salesman who refuses to buy any used cars from The City by the Sea because the polution rots them out so quickly from the inside. Apparently the aforementiond steel factory puts out something like 2% of all the polution in Japan (WHAT?) and even so it's three times more efficient and three times greener than any other factory of its kind. Disgusting. It's no wonder most of the City by the Sea looks like the dystopian future of Gary, Indiana.
Furthermore, other than some crows, a flock or two of sparrows, three stray cats, a rabbit, and a seagull, I've seen no wildlife here at all in 6 months - and I've spent a lot of time exploring the beaches and the city limits. I suppose you have to consider that we're on a peninsula, in a city where virtually 0% of houses have yards, but still.
Also, it stinks. Like literally. Partially there's recurring natural sulfur from the volcanoes and their hot spring vents, but generally there's a foul mechanical rotting smell that regularly takes over the city. I guess you can tell which direction the winds are blowing. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but I'd say it involkes mental imagery of rusting steel colored 1970s blue and lung cancer.
For the most part these terrible things can be blocked out, depending on where you spend your time (and what direction the wind is blowing). Things are a lot more natural around the ocean and in my neighborhood, and the factories and train tracks are limited to a certain part of the peninsula. I don't hate it here, but it makes me realize I probably wouldn't want to raise a family in the City by the Sea.
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