* This essay column is written by a longtime foreign resident of Japan.

Much as I enjoy living in Doshi Village, I do venture outside its confines and travel to other parts of Japan. Before my eldest two sons headed off to university, my wife and I went to see them play rugby in various locations. Now we sometimes travel on weekends to watch our youngest son's junior high-school soccer team play throughout Yamanashi Prefecture. Dan is goalkeeper and team captain, positions he takes seriously.

Just as there are parts of the village I have yet to explore, much of Yamanashi Prefecture remains blank on my mental map. It's a big place, with a great variety of scenery, impressive mountains, and agricultural produce from apples to zucchini.

There are great differences in the climate: In early February we drove to Nirasaki to watch the soccer team lose there. The school grounds were brightened by narcissus and crocuses in full bloom. Back in Doshi, the bulbs of these blooms were slumbering under a thin blanket of snow, waiting to be awakened by the kiss of spring.

In Nirasaki, I wandered across to Hachiman Jingu shrine and down to a nearby river that runs parallel to Route 20, to admire the different colored rocks, coveting some for my garden. If you have a strong back, weak mind and a big pickup -- as I do -- it's surprising the size of stone or log you can move without mechanical assistance.

When my wife and I visited Nirasaki last year, we drove up into the hills behind the town and came across Mitake Shyosenkyo, where the muscular rock has shrugged off its covering of vegetation to produce a denuded landscape that looked almost Chinese to me. The area certainly attracts busloads of tourists.

And travel broadens one's horizons. Unlike Doshi, which is squeezed into a long, narrow valley that restricts one's view, the mountainous area on the other side of Kofu offers panoramic vistas that encompass Mount Fuji and the city below. You don't have to travel very high up into the hills for night views that are simply stunning, with a thick carpet of multicolored lights twinkling below.

And while Doshi's agricultural crops are restricted to rice and cresson, which resembles a giant watercress and is used raw to garnish food, elsewhere in Yamanashi one finds terraced vineyards and fruit orchards. This time of year the plum blossoms are a delight, truly making one feel that spring has finally sprung.

Although Kofu is less than 90 km from Doshi, the bird life is far more diverse, with cormorants, lapwings and egrets that I've never seen near my home. Not to forget the huge carp in the waterways there.

Although I've lived in Doshi for more than a dozen years, I'd be hard pressed to say what characterizes the village. Probably its clean water and air, steep, cedar-clad slopes and abundance of besso, or second homes. But over in Minami Alps City I'm instantly aware of all the gas stations, barber shops and temples or shrines. I don't know if they drive more than most folk, or if their hair grows especially fast in that corner of Yamanashi Prefecture, but like the rest of us, they can only die once!

I don't for a moment think I'll be able to avoid dying, but for now I'm delighted that fate deposited me in such a fascinating prefecture. That chain of events includes a wrongly delivered newspaper in Scotland, which contained an ad for a job in Bermuda that I ultimately got. A phone call I happened to answer there that led to me staying in the same set of apartments as my Japanese wife-to-be. Her desire to return to Yokohama and a real estate agent here who took us some distance from the property we hoped to see to our future home in the village.

Doshi was my destiny.

If you have any comments please e-mail me at jtweekly@japantimes.co.jp

The Japan Times Weekly: March 6, 2004
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