Towards the mountain Tsurugi the road 438 cuts through an area called Koyadaira.  I drove here some time last week after the snow had melted.  438 rolls up and over a small mountain then drops quite sharply down into the Koyadaira valley.  Just over the brow I stop the car to get a better look at the landscape.  It’s not too bad.

Still plenty of snow on the mountains.  The weather is still cool and chilly.
The first wooden house on the left as you turn onto the main street is painted pastle green.  The corrugated roof and peeling paint is reminiscent of rural France.  Perhaps.  No, actually the similarities don’t stop there.  I saw a baguette shop and a man with a necklace of onions sleeping in a wheelbarrow.  The street is deserted and terribly narrow.  Empty shops full of 30 year old talcum powder and hair.  The road widens as it follows a river and everything is looking very washed-out.  In the back of my mind I am thinking about getting back before it is dark and I have things to do but the compulsion to follow this road just a bit further is too powerful.

I end up outide a thatched house in the mountains.  It’s one of the oldest houses in Tokushima.  It’s closed for winter but I am here and no-one else is.  Some texture:

Seasoned firewood is very valuable, or at least, it should be.  This stack seems to be turning to white charcoal, and then into solid rock..

I always feel strange being somewhere like this alone.  It feels comfortable but pointless.  I look forward to the day when I can understand what I am doing.