牛久市

What is 牛久市? Ushiku-shi is inaka (literally: "house in the rice field") - the sticks, the boonies. It is a bedroom town. Yet, it will always have a special place in my heart. From natto (my first lunch in Ushiku was cold natto soba with a raw egg on top - scary!), to its kappa matsuri that is always interupted by a taifun, Ushiku is my Japanese cultural lode stone. Check it out here: http://www.city.ushiku.ibaraki.jp/
It is even lisited in Wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushiku
The kanji 牛 (ushi) in this case can be read as "cow", while 久 (ku) literally means "meeting place" or "coming together", and 市 (shi) is "city". "A City Where Cows Get Together". Kind of catchy, eh? Actually, I never saw any cows there, but there is a copy of a French Chateau (built during the Meiji period), that used to produce wine (but the soil in Ibaraki Prefecture really wasn't very good for grapes). Now the wine is made elsewhere but sold at the chateau. They do, however, have a really good German-style bier garten (I meet the German brau miester they brought in to set up the brewery). The city also boasts Ushiku Daibutsu , the second tallest standing statue of Buddha - (Wikipedia says it is the tallest, but we were beat out by one that was recently built in Taiwan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushiku_Daibutsu).

The view from the top is impressive, but it is mostly of rice fields. Nevertheless, Ushiku-shi will always be special to me, because it was the first place I lived in Japan. I always felt a perverse sort of pride in telling sophisticated Tokyoites that I was from Ibaraki. The symbol of the town is the kappa monster (he's the guy at the top of the post with the cup of water on his head, holding the cucumber).