Even though where we are staying is sort of in the middle of nowhere, the fast train stops here, which means it is somewhere.  This is lucky for us because it makes it a lot quicker to get around the island (Kyushu).  So today we zipped on over to Fukuoka for a couple activities.  The most interesting was the Hojoya Festival taking place at the Hakozaki Shrine.  On the final day of this ancient festival, September 18, birds and fish are released from captivity, in accordance with the Buddhist philosophy of not killing.  As we were two days early, we missed this part of the festival, but were able to enjoy walking around the street leading up to the shrine.  The street was filled with booth ranging from carnival games, to shops selling festival-type souvenirs and beetles (a popular summer pet, though not quite in line with the theme of the festival), and of course plenty of booths selling all types of food.  It was interesting to see what the typical “fair foods” are in Japan.  In the US it’s pretty basic: hot dogs, funnel cakes, blooming onions, maybe sometimes you can find a good place selling some 4-H kid’s freshly cooked lamb.  Maybe all this bores me, but I found the Japanese festival fare to be much more exciting (and enticing).  Perhaps it’s not boredom…I just think the Japanese food is better.  Savory foods on offer included steaming bowls of ramen, teriyaki meat skewers, grilled octopus, corn on the cob, and doner kebab (ok, so that one isn’t exactly traditional Japanese, and I don’t think the Pokemon cakes were either…).  For those with a sweet-tooth, you could stuff yourself out on the delicacies of the endless supply of little filled cakes from the mochi and manju booths, bowls of shave ice, or the aforementioned Pokemon cakes (also available in Hello Kitty).  My favorite of all in the sweet category were the chocolate dipped bananas coated in sprinkles for their creators’ skillful execution in the presentation category.  I need to stop writing about the food though, as it is making me hungry.

festival in the street

The shrine itself was very beautiful.  Hakozaki Shrine is the first Shinto shrine I’ve visited, and there were many new things inside that I have never seen before, such as the purification trough outside (for washing), plaques with wishes hung about (like prayers), and little fortunes tied up in the trees (apparently by tying the fortunes in the trees good one can come true and bad ones may be avoided).  I liked how the shrine exists peacefully behind its outer walls in a forested courtyard.  The building is very simple, lacking the ornate decorations found in Buddhist temples in Thailand and the colorful murals in Korea.  Shinto shrines have no idols like Buddhist temples.  Rather they are more of a place for the kami, Shinto gods, to reside, be petitioned and worshipped.   Shinto is actually the religion that sumo wrestling is associated with, and one of the banners hung around the shrine is similar to that worn by yokozuna, or the highest ranked wrestlers during certain ceremonies.  Shrines are easy to spot by their tori, or gateway that marks the entrance to the shrine.  Hakozaki Shrine had all these features, plus a small room whose walls were covered in gorgeous back-lit paintings.  I think they showed a story of the usual good vs. evil (I couldn’t read the kanji captions).  The artist did a wonderful job of boldly depicting the images with firm lines and clear swaths of color, giving the images a strong presence that seemed to reach past the limits of the paper.

Rain streamed steadily from the clouds all morning, so we didn’t go to the bay as planned.  However, this morning was still fun as I finally got to fulfill my lifelong dream of creating my own page of sticky pictures mostly with the help of Ayako, though Matt and Josh contributed their creativity to the final product.  It was a continuation from the randomness of the night before where, after a solemn afternoon at a memorial, we headed to the batting cages.  Josh and Matt had a home-run derby in the highest speed cage, taking turns cooling off with cold, moist washcloths provided by the kind lady at the front desk.  Ayako and I tried our best in the slow pitch booth and had a few good hits.  As everyone knows, girls are not as gross and sweaty as boys, so we didn’t need moist towels.  After Matt beat Josh, we headed downstairs to an ancient arcade (we seem to be seeing a lot of those lately).  While everyone else played a game, I ate a cookie because I was hungry.  Very hungry.

I was lucky to have that cookie.  We’d gotten a few of them from a give away at the train station.  At first glance I had thought the freebee was a package of tissues paired with a small pink cloth bag.  Tissue giveaways are big here.  (One time we got some free boxes of milk too.)  People stand outside the train stations or on the sidewalks passing them out.  The pocket-sized packages come with a little business card or advertisement inside.  Personally, I think this is a great way to advertise because who just wants a piece of paper?  I hate getting flyer’d.  But as an allergy sufferer occasionally afflicted with the sniffles, I will happily accept a package of tissues.  Of course the advert part of it is completely lost on me since I can’t read kanji, but at least I put the tissues to good use.  And presumably most of the recipients of the tissues are literate in their national language, so somebody must be reading the advertisements.  At some point during the day I decided to check out the little cloth bag (which is bright pink with a hideous pattern, for those of you wondering).  I saw that there was an additional item, Kleenex I assumed.  But wait, the package was stiff.  The opaque white wrapper revealed no further clues, so I opened the bag and found a cookie.  Lucky me.  It held off the hunger until we found a restaurant.

We ate in Chinatown.  Rather, China street; it wasn’t actually much of a town, though it did seem to be a bit of a tourist attraction.  Actually it is apparently the oldest Chinatown in Japan, and one of the largest.  But having visited China recently, I found it strange that something so not China could be seen as a “Chinese experience” in Japan.  Chinatowns are sometimes a peculiar creation, a strange evolution of what they once were—places where Chinese immigrants lived.  Some are still more about the living than attracting tourists.  But Nagasaki’s Chinatown, prettily glowing with paper lanterns, definitely seemed the let’s-attract-as many-tourists-as-we-can type.  It wasn’t the lanterns that made me question the authenticity.  There’s a popular food street in Beijing lit with lanterns every night—Guijie, or Ghost Street.  It was the intention of the labeling and promotion.  The shops lining the street seemed more about catering to the desires of tourists than the daily needs of Chinese residents (not counting the need to make a living).  This feeling was a little similar to my view on Singapore’s Chinatown.  Why does Singapore have a “Chinatown” when practically everyone there is Chinese [descent] anyways?

Not that this is necessarily bad, I’m just trying to differentiate the types of Chinatowns.  In my opinion there are few “real” Chinatowns.  By “real” I mean, as our friend Ben puts it, places that mysteriously function on their own economy.  Cheap vegetables, $3 plate lunches and that sort of thing.  San Francisco and New York come to mind.  Places that are more realistic than touristic.  Actually, I take that back.  Who am I to classify what is real and what is not?  Sure, some Chinatowns offer more of a commodification of Chinese culture than others.  But perhaps there are other, more redeeming aspects that I miss because I didn’t stay long enough to have a good look around or maybe came on the wrong day and missed a big festival or something.  Anyways, this whole Chinatown discussion with myself is a good reminder to be critical of my own criticalness, in the hopes that I will learn more than that which I take in at first glance (or experience).  I want to see the places I visit from as many angles as possible.

Getting back to dinner, each of us ordered a very satisfying portion of noodles. We walked away from the restaurant re-energized and set off to find a pachinko parlor.  Ok, so maybe we didn’t exactly have the intention of finding one, but we were all curious about this national pastime.  Just say it: pachinko, pachinko, pachinko!  It is a fun word to say.  Between the four of us, this is what we knew: pachinko is sort of like slot machines, only with pin balls.  Pachinko parlors look like arcades; bright lights, cartoon characters, music, etc.  Many forms of gambling are illegal in Japan, so you don’t actually win money at pachinko.  You win prizes.  Then you take these prizes outside to a back alley where there are (surprise surprise) people willing to trade your prizes for hard cash.  These prize-exchangers hang out in little booths (aka hole in the wall of a building) that look like a ticket window, except all you can see of the other person through the hole are their hands.

What we didn’t know about pachinko is how the game is actually played.  So on our way back to the trolley we stepped inside a pachinko parlor for a look around.  The air was smoky and had a neon glow from all the lights and rows of shiny machines.  We tried to be stealth and watch how this guy was doing it.  By the way his cigarette hung out of the corner of his mouth and the huge pile of pin balls overflowing his tray into buckets, we figured he was good.  The “game board” (for lack of a better word) consists of little pegs and slots; somewhat similar to those little puzzles you get as party-favors as a kid.  The man turned a handle and a mechanism picked up a ball and tossed it up into the machine where it bounced around on the pegs.  He had a continual stream of balls flying up into the machine.  It did not appear that there was any way to control the balls once they were “in play.”

Matt decided to give it a go.  We had been warned by Josh’s friend, Daiki, that 10,000 yen (10USD) can easily go in 1 minute, so we figured Matt’s 100 yen coin wouldn’t last very long.  Matt popped his coin into the machine and a couple dozen or so little balls rolled out onto the tray.  Carefully he flicked the lever and we watched as one little silver ball flew up into the game board.  It bounced around for a little bit before falling to the “loser” slot at the bottom of the screen.  A couple of his other tries were more successful, landing in the higher slots and resulting in a payout of a few extra balls.  It didn’t seem too exciting.  Had we missed something?  We discreetly looked around to see how others were playing.  But there is nothing discreet about four foreigners in a pachinko parlor.  One of the stewards noticed and took pity on us, trying to show Matt what to do.  Ayako interpreted—the player’s control was in how he turned the lever.  Once he finds a good angle, a player can hold the lever in the same spot and a stream of balls will be released into the same spot resulting in all the balls going into the high-worth slots.  So that’s what the old guy was doing.  We thanked the steward, but left soon after as Matt was out of pin balls and none of us desired to play again. The conclusion: pachinko seems to be a pretty lame game, but saying “pachinko” is still fun and we had a good weekend.

Next weekend is the annual Sendai tug-of-war match, which we will sadly miss by just a couple of days.  This is an example of the rope that will be used.  (And that’s my brother standing next to it.)

I can only imagine that it will be one crazy game of tug-of-war.  You can read about it on my brother’s blog.

We’ve spent the last two days in and around Nagasaki with Josh’s friend Ayako. We mostly just hung out and did random stuff (as Joylani’s post details), but I would like to write a little about our afternoon visit to the Atomic Bomb Museum. It covered all aspects of nuclear warfare, from the scientific advancements in atomic energy of the past hundred years to the politics that drove the development of nuclear weapons to the cold-war and post-cold-war arms races. Of course, the bulk of the exhibit was dedicated to the more sobering topic of the “fat man” bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The facts highlighted in museum made it horrific to even imagine: a single bomb that not only flattened and entire city in seconds, but whose heat wave reached 4000-5000 C, whose toxic mushroom cloud reached miles high into the sky, and killed tens of thousands in seconds (and many more tens of thousands in the following minutes, days, and years). The most powerful part of the exhibit was seeing the artifacts from the bombing. Wood that had been carbonized in a split-second, not to mention carbonized rice and stones. Permanent silhouettes of people, trees, and random objects burned into walls and pavement. Melted coins, bottles, and even steel I-beams. The craziest thing I saw were ceramic roof tiles that had bubbled surfaces, a result of them having cooled very quickly after momentarily being boiled. I cannot even imagine clay or concrete boiling, much less how hot it would have to be to boil in an instant. The most horrific  things I saw were the photos- skin burned off bodies, blackened skeletons, completely disfigured people, and people crushed from debris. The highest recorded hurricanes apparently have winds up to 80 knots, while the bomb dropped on Nagasaki created winds up to 170 knots. Since the bombing, people have found shards of metal and ceramic in trees that have been cut down and sawed up. Of course, the concept of war is horrific enough, but the museum showed just how much suffering (both instant and lasting in nature) could be inflicted in seconds. Having studied the development and the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan, I personally do not think it was necessary. But whatever your opinion, I think the museum did a good job of implicitly communicating the pure wrongness of dropping such a bomb on a city (official target was the “Nagasaki Urban Area”). One shortcoming of the museum though, was the brief section explaining Japan’s role in war. For one, it was all in Japanese while almost all other text in the museum were also in English (very suspicious) and two, for a museum so vocally pacifist, it did not even mention Japan’s responsibility and actions during the war. After the museum, we visited the hypocenter and the adjacent peace park. Besides some signs about 4-5 feet up on some trees that indicated the ground level before the bomb was detonated above that spot, there wasn’t much of interest. Mainly, I had the same optimistic feelings that I had looking at booby traps in Vietnam. 60 years ago, America dropped the deadliest bomb in history and today I stood safely in Nagasaki, while America and Japan are the closest of friends. I do not think that war will ever cease, but at least things bad international relations can improve.

The three of us plus Josh’s friend, Ayako, visited Nagasaki today.  There is a museum there about the events leading up to, during, and after the dropping of an atomic bomb on this city.  As expected, it was mostly sad and frustrating that there were people in power who thought using such a weapon was a good idea.  I don’t mean to gloss over all the things the Japanese did during WWII that were messed up too.  War in general is frustrating for its senseless side, from both sides of the fighting.  Rather than spending time recounting the information at the museum, here’s a few pictures around the impact site and memorial area.

impact site

memorial statue

If you really have no clue about what happened but would like to know, I suggest going to the library as that will be more informative than me writing about it.

Having visited my grandfather’s father’s hometown yesterday, today I decided to attempt to find my grandmother’s father’s village. My grandmother had done some research and had emailed me the name of the place. Armed with this information, some internet research yielded that the village had been swallowed by neighboring villages and incorporated into larger townships several times over the years. At some point, the village had been renamed Chida, which was then incorporated into Kao, which was then combined with several other townships into Yamaga. I write all this, not because its terribly important to you as a reader, but to emphasize the point that I was looking for a really small place- so small it had been “eaten” up several times. I was really looking more for a neighborhood than a village or town. There’s many reasons why I’m pleased with the order in which we’ve visited countries on our itinerary and now I can add today as another reason. There was no way for us to know how to get to the specific place we wanted to go. A year ago, I doubt we would’ve even attempted today’s journey, but we’ve learned just how localized knowledge can be and that if you head in a general direction, the way will often reveal itself. So we began taking a train to Kumamoto City, the transport hub of Kumamoto-ken. At the Kumamoto station, we asked the lady at the information booth if she knew how to get to a place called Kao-machi. She pulled out an old phonebook-looking thing, but it was filled with bus routes. Luckily, the infrequent bus was due to stop at the station in only 20 minutes!

We finally did catch the bus and after doing a circuit of Kumamoto City and passing its famous castle, we began heading out of the city. As we reached the outskirts of the city, the bus emptied and, just like yesterday, we were just two of a handful of passengers. Outside of Kumamoto City, we wound through the hills. I thought about how the land and topography looked a lot like San Luis Obispo, where my great grandfather eventually settled and built his farm. Although an immigrant in a completely foreign place, I wondered if he took comfort from the somewhat familiar landscape: mountains, rocky and grean, flat valleys of farms, and a relatively short distance to the ocean. After about an hour and still several miles from Yamaga, where I thought we had to get off, I spotted a sign that said Kao-Machi. I jumped up and asked the driver to let us off at the next stop. He did and we found ourselves on a busy two-lane highway in the middle of acres and acres of rice paddy. Rugged mountains could be seen in the distance to the east and north. We began walking back towards Kao-machi and then turned down an empty country road. It was so rural. We walked towards a village at the base of some hills. We passed several large fields of rice, spotted a few bright pink caterpillar-looking things, and a black snake slithering by roadside underbrush. A couple cars passed us, but there was very little else in the way of modernity. Obviously a lot has changed in the past hundred years, but if it was this rural today I cannot even imagine how small a place it was back then.

Even the small village we walked around looked old, as all the houses were built in traditional Japanese style. I appreciated seeing the old architecture and walking around the small little village. The ruralness and all the little old villages are one of the things I like about Kyushu. You don’t really associate old stuff with Japan because of its reputation of modernity and being on the cutting edge of the future, but it’s like almost everywhere else in the world (except the Americas) in that there are places where people are still living in the same houses in the same places that they have for generations and centuries. Anyways, it really struck me how small a place it was. I’m kind of surprised that my greatgrandparents came from such tiny places. And although there was not much to see in Fukae or in Kao-machi, at least I got to see where I come from. And there is no substitute for that.

In reference to my last post, the second unique thing we did today was go to a Japanese baseball game. It was the SoftBank Hawks of Fukuoka versus the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. From Fukae, we took the commuter train back into Fukuoka. We walked from the stop to Hawk Town, a commercial area built around the Yahoo! Dome. We bought our tickets, which gave us access to open seating in the bleachers. The roof was closed over the Astroturf field due to slight drizzle outside. There was only a single large seating level that wrapped around the field, but there were three levels of luxury boxes. While waiting for the game to start, we watched batting practice, some mascot dances, some pop group act, and some other weird antics.

Even by the first pitch, the small stadium was probably only half full, but as the game progressed, most of the seats filled up. The bleaches became the most crowded of all. Not only the most crowded, but with the loudest and most-dedicated fans. Many of them stood the entire game and chanted and clapped to lead of about dozen conductors scattered around the length of the bleachers. There were giant flags, blaring music, chants, songs, and those annoying thundersticks. We happened to sit just in front of the single section dedicated to the visiting team. They too had a conductor and their red shirts contrasted with the sea of yellow and gray. I thought it was funny that even in cheering at a sports event, the Japanese were still orderly and ritualistic. Besides the sections of die-hard fans, the fans were pretty docile- just the opposite of Korean baseball fans and perhaps a telling difference between the cultures. When the hawks scored their lone run, I jumped up and cheered until I realized that nobody else was standing (and it was still close at that point in the game). Another interesting thing was the food vendors, who with coolers of ice cream or kegs of beer on their backs would run down each aisle to the bottom of the steps, turn to face the crowd, bow, and then begin walking back up the steps announcing their food or beverage.

As for the baseball itself, it was pretty good. Not MLB, but not Korean baseball either (I might add for those that cannot reconcile how I could write that Korean baseball was so sloppy and they ended up winning the Olympic gold medal in the sport. The reason lies in the fact, that they halted their professional season for the Olympics, so they had professionals playing other teams amateurs). Besides the DH, it was pretty fundamental baseball- stealing, bunting, hit and runs. The defense was clean and the hitting simple. And while we did only see one error, there were a few times that it didn’t seem that players went all out on plays. But this could have been more a function of playing on a Astroturf field than a characteristic of Japanese baseball. Lastly, the game was slow. Almost too slow. There was 2 minute 15 second time limit between innings, but it took ages between pitches. After two and a half hours, it was only the sixth inning, at which point Joylani and I had to leave to catch the last train back to Sendai. The Eagles were leading 6-1, so it wasn’t much of a game anyways. Nonetheless, it was a fun date and a great day overall.

Today was an atypical day, but we did two unique and unforgettable things. The first was visiting the village that my great grandfather is from. All I knew was that he was from a place called Fukae in Fukuoka-ken (ken = prefecture). We weren’t sure exactly where it was, but we took the two and a half hour train to Fukuoka City in hopes that we could find it. Once at Hakata station, we learned that it could be reached via commuter train. So we hopped on a train going west. The crowded train emptied as we got further and further from the city. Our train eventually emerged from underground as we reached the suburbs. Soon enough we were rolling through the rural countryside, interrupted every few minutes by small towns. The ride was beautiful as it took us through rice paddies, along the ocean, and towards the mountains. All told, it was about an hour when we pulled into the single platform Chikuzen-Fukae station. It was a rural little train station with a town on one side and mountains on the other. Amazingly, there was a English-labeled map of the area at the station. Knowing that my great grandfather’s family had a fish auction-house, we decided to head towards the beach, starting at the end labeled “Fukae Fishing Port.”

Fukae is an old-looking town

but still looks typically Japanese

After about fifteen-minute walk, we reached the port, which sat at the mouth of river and the ocean. Boats sat in the shallow water and mud. Arriving at midday, I wouldn’t have expected a fishing port to be very busy, but even so, it didn’t look like much. Either way, I’ve been told that nothing remains of the auction-house of my grandfather’s stories. From the beach, we continued south along the beach. It was a gray overcast day, but still warm. The water was fairly warm as well. Clam and oyster shells littered the grey sand. Joylani and I were the only ones on the entire beach except for a couple of solitary old men on walks.

The first thing that came across my mind as we walked the beach was, “What a beautiful place.” Small islets were scattered about the horizon. Clear water softly lapped at the dark sand. Shells crunched under our steps and behind us, fronting the beach, were just trees with mountains rising behind those. I think the mountains were the most beautiful aspect of the place. Joylani said Fukae reminded her of Hawaii. For a moment, I wondered why my great grandfather had left such a beautiful place to settle in Oakland. But if Fukae’s present size is any indication of its past size, it’s clear that there wouldn’t be much opportunity for a second son. But I still had questions. Why hadn’t he simply migrated within Japan? Why hadn’t he settled in any of the regions he worked en route to California, like Hawaii or the Pacific Northwest. I guess some questions can never be answered, but after glimpsing quaint picturesque little Fukae, I’m sure there were many times in Oakland that he dreamed of beautiful Fukae.

Another thing I thought a lot about as we walked were all my grandfather’s stories that were set in Fukae. Some were passed down from his father, but he has a few from his own boyhood visits to Fukae in the 1920s. The first thing I’m gonna ask my grandfather the next time I see him is how the heck he got to Fukae back then and how long did it take! Even today, its remote, so I can only imagine the means and route for a 1920s journey from Oakland to Fukae. Whatever the answer, I did think that it was pretty amazing that I was walking on a beach that my grandfather had visited as a boy. And for that matter, it was pretty amazing that I was visiting one of my ancestral homes. It was definitely a unique experience and not something you get to do everyday.

Tonight we had a fun dinner with one of Josh’s students, his wife (the student’s, not my brother’s), and sister-in-law. As we sat crossed-legged on the floor around a low table, we swapped stories and details about life in Japan and the US over little dishes that seemed to be of Italian persuasion under the influence of a Japanese chef. It was a good meal and good company. And, for the second time in Japan so far, we were asked if we are able to use chopsticks. As someone who has been using chopsticks since childhood, naturally I find this question strange. In my mind it’s like asking, do you know how to tie your shoes? But I suppose it is a fair question, considering that most of the population in the US regularly uses forks instead. Do you know how to use chopsticks?

These first two days in Japan have gone by really quickly. Joylani’s brother, Josh, met us at the train station in Sendai, the city where he teaches. He showed us around the small town during the afternoon and then we met up with some of his friends for dinner. We got around to exploring today, since josh works from noon ‘til ten. We hopped on the local shinkansen (bullet train), called the Tsubame Express, and headed south to Kagoshima city. I’m not sure how far it is, but the Tsubame gets up to about 260km/hr and it only takes 12 minutes. Kagoshima City is the capital of its namesake prefecture and is quite a pleasant city. It sits in a bay and is overlooked by the active Sakurajima volcano. We didn’t do too much there, other than stroll and observe the town. It was our first glimpse of real Japanese city, given that Josh’s town Sendai is only a 100,000 people and spread out over a large area.

Although we haven’t done too much yet, Japan is really interesting. Its my second time here, but there’s a lot of things that still seem new. The tiny cars, automated everything, and the ubiquitous vending machines that sell everything from sodas to beer to cigarettes to hot bowls of ramen. I do remember that Japan seemed like the future and it does even more so now. Its not futuristic in a Shanghai-funky-architecture sense, but in that everything is designed and done in an intelligent and orderly way. Our visa stamp was a barcode (and we’ve learned that the barcodes on everything from billboards to products can be photographed with your mobile phone and you’ll then be taken to that website!), saving a lot of work and waste. The trains run on-time down to the minute. People don’t litter and will carry their garbage until they can throw it away. I see people putting their cigarettes out on the ground, but then carrying the butt until they find a trash bin. I’ve even seen several people pick up scraps of litter randomly and throw it away. Perhaps its presumptuous for me to say that its like the future- perhaps things in the US will not be nicer in the future, but I hope so.

The other thing that’s quickly noticeable here is the ritualistic behavior of the people. The hellos, thank you’s, and goodbye’s everytime you walk into a store. It is highly systematic, yet in a friendly and polite way. Far from feeling like we’re interacting with robots, Japanese seem very friendly and helpful. I definitely feel that people here respect one another (train timeliness, litter, etiquette) and I think that’s where the extreme courtesy comes from, although we still aren’t attuned to it all yet.

Yesterday at noon we finally arrived at Josh’s, where he came to greet us at the Satsuma-Sendai train station in his good old Humboldt State t-shirt.  He lives literally a minute away from the station, which will be quite handy as Matt and I plan to make frequent use of our rail passes during our stay on Kyushu as we go on excursions during the day while Josh is out at work.  Luckily the trains are punctual and fast here, meaning that if we leave in the morning on a train across the island, we don’t really have to worry about not getting home again that night.  Unlike India, it is very abnormal for trains to be late in Japan.

Once at Josh’s apartment, which he had so lovingly cleaned for our visit, I pushed aside a pile of his dirty laundry to make room for our backpacks so that I could unpack a few things.  I dug around in Matt’s bag for a minute to find a particular item.  Proudly I presented him with a gift from home: an American football.  My brother grinned and went to work inflating it with a bicycle pump.  Matt and I freshened up and we all went for  a quick lunch before deciding to head to a nearby park for a game of catch.  Josh gave us a quick tour on the way there.  Sendai seems very small town—no big buildings, not a lot of traffic, and pretty mellow.  Consequently, there is not much to report on the tour.  Once we arrived at the park I was reminded that I am not very good with the football.  After a few earnest but unsuccessful attempts at teaching me the right technique from both Matt and Josh, I was content to sit on a bench and watch them play catch.

Afterwards, we headed to one of the larger grocery stores in town to get some ice-cream.  I have a thing for grocery stores: all that food, all those raw ingredients—so much potential.  Groceries change from country to country, and Japan’s seem to be pretty good.  Perhaps my perspective is biased since I also really like Japanese food, and Japanese groceries happen to carry all the right ingredients for making the aforementioned cuisine, in addition to offering plenty of pre-made foods.  My observations were confirmed the next day when Matt and I went to the Daiei in Kagoshima.  Daiei is a low-end department store, and the bottom two floors sell all kinds of edible goods.  Matt picked up some fresh mochi and I some other snacks for an on-the-go lunch.  And then we gawked for a few minutes over the bento box section.

It was essentially an open cooler, like the ones you would find in a market’s deli back in the US.  Only instead of soggy sandwiches and questionable looking salads, this cooler was filled with trays of sushi rolls, bowls of noodles and corresponding condiments, a variety of bento boxes, and, of course, sashimi which looked ravishing in the glow of Touched By An Angel-esque lighting shining down on it (oh wait, that was just in Matt’s head).  Since we are staying with my brother for a good amount of time (about a week and a half) and because the cost of our two rail passes has already put us over our daily budget, Matt and I are planning to make a majority of our meals while we’re here.  But it’s not just about saving money.  It’s about trying food.  We could go to a restaurant for Japanese food, but not all residents of Japan go out to eat every night, so why should we?  I’m excited to try more items from the grocery store than just the prepared items that we are usually relegated to buying for lack of a kitchen in which to cook the other items.  Not that the pre-made items are bad—the mochi here is onolicious!  Anyways, in conclusion: Japanese markets=A+