July 3rd (Day 7)
The day after
We took our time leaving the hotel; eating a leisurely breakfast before travelling back home. The bill for the hotel, which I think included the wedding and several rooms for other relatives, was 1.4 million yen. I will leave it as an exercise for the readers to figure how much that is in dollars. Mieko and H left early to have time to unpack before they had to catch the bullet train for the four hour trip out to the hospital.
On the way back we took pictures of disneyland.
"Please do not use for the other purpose except for drying your hair" and the 'Palclean wall' in use
Shamara trying to carry all her schwag home and Baron Town
Proof Japanese train systems are well in advance of our own. We went past disneyland on our way out. There was a lot of construction taking place.
Going on a walk
Though we left later than them, we met M and H at the house running around trying to get everything packed and put together for their trip out to the hospital. After seeing them off and relaxing a while at the house we went on a walk. Akira told stories about growing up and how during the summer break they made the elementary school children all gather at a park early each morning to exercise. Your attendance was recorded in a book. They also made all the students keep a diary detailing what they did on their vacation. Akira said he hated it and would always procrastinate until the last minute. It seems children have much more schooling than we have here; they often stay at school relatively late and go on Saturdays. It sounds like torture.
The other thing we discussed was the number of young children wandering the streets. Despite the threat of perverts we would often see small groups of school children walking the streets. When he was in elementary school A would walk 40-50 minutes to get to school. Later he would ride his bike or take the train. It was strange to see random groups of children wandering around during the day. They always seemed to be occupied with talking with each other, playing games, or otherwise having fun. Akira showed us some of the ways he would amuse himself during the long walk to and from school.
We wanted to check out the gigantic slide at the elementary school. Our path took us through a bamboo forest and on this short stretch of road we were passed by at least seven pervert patrol bikers. The slide was indeed the largest I'd ever seen and looked extremely fun. I wanted to try it out but school was in session and pervert bikers kept converging on our group.
The school building was a small (for a school building) blocky structure and the sound of hundreds of children screaming, talking, and singing emanated from it like a haze. Apart from a small field students could use as a playground, it had a pool and a student tended vegetable garden.
Perverts! We saw several lots in the neighborhood like this. Apparently they're undergound water resevoirs
Pervert forest near the school. The schoolbuilding. The giant slide from the top (obstructed by foilage)
Pervert Patrol (one of 6-9 we saw on the path) The giant slide from a distance.
Across the street there was a small park filled with concrete dinosaurs. This park was empty (except for a few resting construction workers) and we wandered around in it. Even without any mobile playsets I'm sure it would be considered extremely 'dangerous' by American standards, god bless the irresponsible people and lawyers.
Heading in another direction from the school was a temple filled with more picture taking opportunities. Along one corner of the roof was a hanging metal contraption used to collect rainwater from the roof. We saw these all over the place.
The graveyard at the temple
Before returning home we walked to a ghetto baseball park, a place A claimed he spent many many hours playing in when he was younger, and decided it would be a good place for shooting our fireworks.
"Please don't let them pee here" (in front of my daycare center)
Yagi Kindergarden
The most photographed butterfly in the prefecture
A dog grooming place The space to the right of the steps is so you can drag your bicycle up. See how many people are protecting the kids from getting run over? This guy was really into bonsai.
When we returned I was particularly damp with sweat and decided to take a shower to wash off the buildup. Unfortunately, I didn't know H had turned off the hot water (from the kitchen) earlier - it made my shower especially refreshing.
Later that evening we experienced a small cloudburst but it cleared up enough afterwards to let us shoot the fireworks. Akira started going through drawers looking for matches and though he turned the house upside-down we were only able to find a small box with 6 matches inside. The fireworks package came with two slow burning fuses and we counted on being able to use them for most of the fuse lighting. Ultimately however, the fuses turned out to be a big disappointment; they burned way too fast and either broke or went out before lighting anything. We spent most of our 6 matches trying to keep the fuses alight.
The fireworks themselves were also pretty disappointing. I think they might have been for young children and they were mostly of a quality matching our severely watered down 'safe-and-sane' fireworks we have here. There were a few exceptions in the package. One roman candle had instructions it shouldn't be held in your hand when it was fired so I propped it up in another spent sparkler. When we lit it, it popped and threw one ball high into the air then was silent for a long time. I blinked during it's second fire but I felt a shower of sparks hit my feet; it had apparently fallen over and shot against my legs. I ran a little to the side and it shot the next ball at my feet again. I ran further and it shot another directly at me causing me to jump. Soon I was running in a circle and the roman candle was shooting a series of balls at my feet like a deliberately aimed machine gun. As I rounded the circle, (having picked up a considerable amount of speed) I could see the bag of fireworks resting on the ground in my path. I stooped and picked it up as I ran by but the candle finally finished shooting. Shamara was extremely amused with the situation claiming that that single roman candle made up for the rest of the package. Akira was cursing that he couldn't find the movie option on his camera in time to film it.
Later that evening we were discussing japanese again and I learned that although A is my elder (35 vs 31) I would call him ototo (younger brother) and he would call me oniisan because I'm older than S.
That evening we watched a cheesy science fiction movie on television where the Japanese military, while testing a new futuristic weapon accidentally send a squad of soldiers, two tanks, and some helicopters into the past and bring some samurai into the future. Of course there were fights between the samurai and the tanks - with losses on both sides.
When M arrived later that evening she showed us a pastry she had purchased that was shaped like a panda's head. Akira explained it was a play on words because the word for bread is 'pan'. The next day after she had eaten the pastry she announced, "I kill panda.". It was funny.
