Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Lightning

Last night there was lots of lightning. Chris and I sat out on the balcony and watched it for awhile. There wasn't too much rain though, but I just heard that there is a typhoon season here in September! I've been waiting for the torrential rains that people keep talking about, which I thought was part of the "rainy season." I guess the rainy season and typhoon season are separate. The rainy season was rather unspectacular so hopefully the typhoon season doesn't disappoint ;) At least some high wind / rain action would be interesting (hopefully not damaging though).

I thought I would add some of my (or our) new or unmentioned discoveries about Japan:

-There are tons of fish in the bay here. If you walk near the water at night or early in the morning there are quite a few of them "jumping" (literally jumping high out of the water). It's fun to see (and hear) at night especially.

-Japanese food is growing on me! I'm starting to acquire more of a taste for it now, and definitely not shying away from it like I used to. I still don't think of it as being as healthy as some other foods though. Still quite a bit of fried, oily, salty Japanese foods...but overall tasting much better.

-I still like the humidity. It's comforting in a weird way.

-Much much more smoking in Japan than California. I'm getting a little more used to it, but I still wonder why smoking could be so popular here? I guess I've been spoiled with California's anti-smoking stance.

-Styles are way more "out there" in Japan (at least in city-centers)...and men's clothing is much more borderline-feminine here. What's nice is it seems you can almost get away with wearing anything and not get weird looks from people (well, maybe not if you're a foreigner and wearing the 'out there' styles).

-Everything you can buy in the U.S. and can find here seems to cost twice as much. Lotion in the states $16...same lotion here $33. A movie in the theater here will cost you $20 a person! We've seen only one movie in the theater since we've been here--Indiana Jones. And most movies come out later here than in the states.

-Breads with strange fillings: I bought one bread-thing this morning not knowing what it was (very common for us to buy things and not know exactly what's in it ;) ), and it ended up having some sort of pork, barbecue-like sauce and cream cheese-like filling...not too good...I was expecting fruit filling so I got a bit of a surprise biting into it.