Q. What is aomori bokeh?
Aomori-ken, 青森県 in kanji (literally, 'blue-green forest prefecture') is the northern-most prefecture on Honshu, the main island of Japan. It's famous for snow, apples, the Nebuta festival, and beautiful nature sites. It is also my home for the last year and some months.
Bokeh is a term in photography that refers to something out-of-focus or blurred. It is also how I see the world, whenever I take off my astoundingly high-prescription glasses. Bokeh is my starting point, and also my daily reality since my eyes are giving me no end of trouble.
Bokeh comes from the Japanese word ボケ, boke. In addition to the meaning used above, other meanings for ボケ are idiot, fool; to fall in love, to admire; to grow senile. The kanji are different, of course. It also means Japanese quince.
Q. Who is stix?
That’s me, Jamie. I am an architect by training, currently on sabbatical to teach English in Japan. I have multifarious hobbies and interests- martial arts, language study, cooking (and eating!), reading science fiction novels and self-help books, practical minimalism, historical trivia and so forth. Up until August 2015, I was living just outside of San Francisco, California; I lived in the Bay Area since 2003. I grew up in Upstate New York, and two or three times a year I visit my family there.
Q. What are you doing in Japan?
I am an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) through the JET Programme. I work with JTEs (Japanese Teacher(s) of English) to teach English to high school kids, in Hirosaki City, in Aomori-ken. I don't have any formal background in teaching, so every day I am learning as I go. 少しずつなれます.
Q. I don't want to read so many words, I just want to see the pictures.
In that case, you should look at my Flickr page, where I usually put pictures first before they make it into a post here. There might still be some words there, but you can ignore them. Here is a shortcut to my Flickr Japan collection (although as of November 2016, I'm
Archisticks Flickr
23 Nov 2016