June 30th (Day 4)

Seeing the local sites

Today started like the previous day, I got up at 7am and watched strange Japanese television while waiting for the others to get up. Typically A gets up early so I was surprised to see him come out at 9am. Akira and M were translating her papers when I went to bed at 9 and apparently they kept it up until 5:30 in the morning. Both of them were dragging all day as a result.

It was eventually decided we would drive around looking at local sites in the neighborhood. Before taking the drive however, we walked to a local bookstore only a short way up the street and across from a set of public, open-air baths. The store carried music and movies in addition to books. They also had a series of shelves for renting manga - something I'd never heard of before.

Rental Manga

This store had the nintendo DS lite in stock and I was sorely tempted but I eventually decided against it because I didn't know if all the menus would be in japanese. After the trip I learned you can choose the language when you first turn it on; I wish I had known this earlier - the console is practically sold out here in the states.

At the bookstore I purchased two children's books on insects intending on giving them away as gifts but after going through them later I liked them so much I kept them for myself. One of the books is about beetles which is a fad among schoolchildren. There were many, many books on beetles, video games where you could fight them, and all sorts of merchandise; inflatable pool toys, plush beetles, and cage's and equipment to keep pet beetles. Schoolchildren are often taken on school trips where they collect bugs.

Driving to the park

Pulling out of the driveway was interesting...

Shortly after returning from the bookstore we went driving. First we drove out to a park near A's junior high school that was inexplicably filled with totem poles - including 'the biggest totem pole in japan'. (I'm relieved I can cross that off my list of life experiences to achieve before my death). Though it wasn't that exciting it provided lots of opportunities for taking pictures.

The park was also host to the greatest playground/obstacle course I've ever seen. It started as a series of posts to climb and play on. There was lots of camo netting and a large slide that was too narrow for my wide childbearing hips. This was followed by an installation called the ninja rope swing and a structure with all sorts of criss-crossing ropes. Following this was a large triangular structure hanging on chains, a wooden climbing wall, and a series of horizontal ropes strung between poles, a sloped beam with bells you could use to test your jumping ability, and a zipline. Further on there was a log and chain contraption that was fun to climb. The park continued but there was a work crew fixing some of the installations and they had the rest of the area blocked off. This section contained some monkey bars arranged as a teeter-totter - something that looked especially fun to play on. I wanted to claim diplomatic immunity to play on the obstacle course. There were also a series of hurdles, some walls to climb, and another play-set with a large rubber ball on a rope that could be swung on or batted around (presumably).

The ninja rope swing

Not sure what you're supposed to do with this Climb through it?

teeter-totter monkey bars...drool...

Joyful Honda

After getting thoroughly sweaty in the park, we drove out the M's favorite shopping center, 'Joyful Honda'. It was truly a joyful place as just within the front door there was a large display of fireworks. There are apparently no regulations against shooting fireworks in the city and they assume you'll use common sense (something lacking in America). I was amazed you could buy something like this in a grocery store. Sadly, the option to play in a playground where it's possible to get hurt and the ability to buy fireworks at any time of the year at at grocery store is a novel and delightful thing for me. I am so incredibly pissed that our society isn't grown up enough to handle these things and that lawyers are getting rich as a result. This is so wrong.

Shamara and I split a large package of fireworks for $24.

The joyful honda is huge - incredibly huge and it was fun spotting all the engrish signs, strange asian merchandise and foods. The store was organized on a couple of levels with large sloped escalators connecting levels. We wondered how they could handle taking shopping carts down these slopes but the wheels were designed to lock when on the moving walkway. We spent a lot of time discussing how they actually locked the wheels before we figured it out. It wasn't magnets, or RFID latching devices, or anything exotic - the wheels had a separate thin wheel that would get caught in the gaps in the metal of the escalator. Later when pushing the cart across a tile floor the wheel lock mechanism kept getting caught in the grout lines and the handle would punch me in the stomach.

In the car A told us how Buddhist (Shinto?) temples are tax exempt and seem to have more money than they know what to do with. When people die they can get a new name. There are three levels of names available for varying prices. They call it a donation but to get a really good name you need to pay more.