School Festival and Personal Touch

As stated before, today was my school festival, well, the first day of it, it continues for a few more hours tomorrow. It was fun, despite the difficulty of asking "so, what do we do next?" I ate some things who`s names I do not know, I drank some mediocre drinks, learned how to play a few Japanese games, and got a brief peek into a "haunted house" before the lights came on and the festival was over for the day (not that a bunch of people running up to me to test out their English is scary, it seems they we`re more interested in my words than my screams [no I didn`t scream]). There were also television cameras there to report on the sixth of one of the builtings that had been covered in cardboard and paper mache to like a giant strawberry cake.

I came "home," had a shower (I`m used to the climate, but it was a hot day by any standard), drank some Coca-Cola and wished I had some nachoes. You see, in Japan, they don`t snack very much. They eat a regular breakfast (a little meat, a little salad, some bread and yogurt), a basic lunch (rice or yakisoba and something else to add some flavor to their day), and than, in this famlies case, at twenty-hundred hours, err, eight o`clock post meridiem, there`s a supper comprised of a small bowl of rice, fish, soup, tofu or something of the like, and something else. They seem absolutely fine with the eight hour gap. Thankfully though, working in a restaurant for three years has made me very good at avoiding eating food.

Anyway, from one thing to another. So why is the title of this entry personal touch? Because it`s something I almost miss here in Japan. Don`t get me wrong, on step into a Japanese book or game store and I could almost die happy, but everything here is factory made standard issue. This computer is small, and though some of its components could use a tune up (more RAM, fix the buttons for power and eject), I`d bet any one of my harddrives that nine out of ten Japanese comupter users would buy a new one rather than upgrade. And the bikes... Terry, you would not believe the conformity in bikes. With rare exception, every bike is as follows: silver with low frame, low, wide seat, handlebars that curve upwards and back, two fenders, place for bag on back, one gear, two rim breaks, one oval reflector on each tire, a basket on the front, a chain guard, basic plastic petals, a double-sided kickstand that lifts the back tire, and front and back reflectors/lights. User friendly, uncustomizable, standard issue. I`ve seen hunrdreds upon hundreds of this exact make, and very little deviation. I`m going to miss messing with every piece of machinery I touch.

Oh, right, and by the way, it doesn`t seem I`ll be doing much running. The area I`m in is very tight and maze-like (my host-father explained that had this city been bombed in the war, it would have been rebuilt in a less cumbersome way, not that that would have been a good thing) and the only place to run safely would be along one of the main rivers, but knowing how far I would get, that`s probably not a good idea, so for the moment, I`m working out at night while I wait for the lights to go out.