Thursday, March 08, 2007

An old house


Although Spring wil probably give me more scenic pictures, I took my camera with me this morning at 6:00 when Choco and I took a walk. We live fairly close to a well-known mountain in Nikko, Nantaizan so this is the view from behind our house. The sun had risen enough to light up the mountain but not enough to hit the rice fields. About a half an hour later here is a close up of the mountain, on the other side of that ridge of forest.

The last picture. No, is not our house! Along the country road that I travel on my daily walk, is an old house that goes farther and farther into decay as the years go by. I walk by it almost every day and every day I wonder if it is still standing. It leans a little more every week. Tetsu thinks it will last another couple of years but I'm not so sure.

About 7 years ago, our neighborhood, and this house made national news when some man fell into this old house's dried out well one winter and no one realized it for over a week. He managed to survive off of the snow that fell into the well. I think he had been out hunting when he fell in, so he had his rifle with him but the well walls absorbed the sound of the shots when he tried alerting people to his situation. A week after the man went missing one of his friends remembered the old house and thought about the well and checked it out so the story had a happy ending. I must have walked past this house and the well quite a few times while the man was trapped but it was only afterwards that I noticed the gunshot scars on the overhanging roof that were left when the man tried signalling for help.

1 comment:

Conni Lu said...

Tanya, Thanks so much for posting these photos. I love seeing a view of where you live, and the mountains are just beautiful. The story of the man who fell into the well is quite unbelievable, it's a miraclel that he was found and survived! Please show more photos of your area in the future! :)