Tired of the izakaya scene in Kitakami? Maybe it's time to come to American World! Its combination of shopping, restaurants, and amusements seems to be very attractive to young people in Kitakami. I can't say it's all that American — the bookstore has hardly any books in English — but it does offer fast-food burgers, Baskin Robbins ice cream, and a Ferris wheel (invented by an American engineer in 1893).

(It's also home to the only hobby shop in Kitakami, but alas, they have no trains.)

Like in America, the end of the month means bill-paying time. So today, I took the bills and some cash over to the convenience store, grabbed a snack, and paid for it and the bills at the same time. That's right. We pay our bills at the convenience store, which is very common in Japan. For many things, you can pay electronically through your bank, postal account, or credit card. Paying at the conbini is more fun, though.

Also, by allowing me to pay my bills and buy a tasty J-treat at the same time, the convenience store provides me with much better customer service than our bank in America. Ahem. I don't usually go around giving unsolicited advice, but I will say this to anyone thinking about expatriating: before you go, investigate how your bank and/or host country handles transactions where the account holder lives abroad, but all accounts involved are in the U.S. We didn't so much, and we've had to learn things the hard way. Nothing to be worried about, just some frustrations. To learn things is why we did this though, ne? And I've learned to love the convenience store.

Memo to Sunduell (Sundwell) Apartments: just because you have the paint doesn't mean you have to use it.

My Japanese teacher lives near a pretty fantastic grocery store that I've started doing my Thursday shopping at for one main reason: it carries Akita nattou. Upon learning that he liked nattou, one of Matthew's students told him that he needed to try the really tasty nattou from Akita Prefecture, which is carried locally only by this store. Matthew does in fact like the Akita nattou quite a lot, so he's pretty happy when class day arrives so I can go to the store.

In addition to the nattou, this store is noteworthy for its samples. The first time I visited, one of those little plastic tables with a lidded bin containing toothpicks and a sample item on top sat in front of the seafood section. The sample du jour? Small bits of octopus tentacle. I wasn't really feeling tako that day, so I passed. Today's sample was raw tuna — mmm.

I also get my lunch here on class days, usually a salad with sesame dressing (man, I love that stuff) and a cute little dessert like a parfait. Today, none of the salads were calling to me, so I almost got a yakisoba sandwich. Then I realized that there was no way I could eat grilled noodles, meat, and yakisoba sauce in a hot dog bun without questioning the state of the universe, so I got a teriyaki chicken sammich, salad, and cute parfait instead. Mmm.

Gift update: We've gotten a pack of tissues each from an izakaya and a drugstore. I've also gotten a mix CD from a clothing store (Justice Style and Fashion, for all your Japanese hipster boy uniform needs!), I think by virture of being the gaijin chick who walked in and carried on a conversation with the clerk in Japanese. I felt bad for not buying anything, but I don't have Japanese hipster boy uniform (baggy jeans, tee shirt, and patterned short-sleeved button-down, worn unbuttoned) needs.

This is in Mizusawa, a small town south of Kitakami. And no, we didn't stop here for lunch.

Having lived in Japan for a little over a month now, I've been exposed to plenty of advertising. But not on TV. We don't watch TV. Ever. Especially not NHK. So NHK, you can stop sending your guy around to collect for monthly usage now, daijoubu?

Anyhoo, advertising. We don't so much get junk mail, although we do get newsletters and fliers for Strawberry Cones (yeah, I don't know either), the pizza delivery joint that charges 3,000 yen (approximately USD $30!) for a large stuck in our mail slot. Every couple of weeks, we get a big laminated binder of neighborhood information that we attempt to read, then pass on to the neighbors (clockwise around the block, as is proper). What are taking a bit of getting used to are the loudspeaker trucks.

Loudspeaker trucks, or vans in some instances, drive around town announcing various things. Some are selling laundry poles; others describing their used electronics pickup services. I can't understand most of what they're saying because, well, it's Japanese spoken over loudspeakers from a moving truck. One particular type, however, strikes fear in me as an American: loudspeaker trucks advertising candidates in upcoming elections.

Regardless of which party you prefer, you have to admit that this is one trend that you do NOT want exported. Seriously: imagine setting down the sheaf of political advertisements that your mailman delivered so that you can answer the phone, which turns out to be a call from Candidate X's campaign staff asking for your vote, then hanging up to hear a blaring ad for Candidate Y, followed by a blaring ad for Candidate Z in some other race. And, because our elections have been really contentious the last few years, you'd hear these much of the day . . . every day . . . for MONTHS.

I think we'd all vote for a big old pass on that, ne?

The flavor of Tohoku - it's Hello Kitty nattou crackers. Yum!

Or, why I'm glad I don't work at the factory next door.



Actually, having an exercise routine built in as part of your work day might not be a bad idea. The Japanese people are traditionally pretty healthy, and this kind of health program has surely contributed.

8:00 am -- Wake up to sounds of small city life, including clanking and machinery from nearby cement plant.
8:30 am -- Breakfast. Sometimes we have toast, eggs, or cereal (Japanese cornflakes + Iwate milk = awesome). Other days, we eat rice topped with umeboshi (pickled plums that look like brains), seaweed, or natto (fermented soybeans that have the texture and viscosity of warm Rice Krispie treat matter).



Okay, sometimes Matthew has natto. I fear the natto.

We also use mornings to catch up on American news and our respective newsgroups and food boards, since much of what happens happens while we're merrily snoozing away.

11:30 am -- Put futons away (only sometimes, I confess), iron, go to dry cleaner, decide whether we'll have lunch together. Matthew suits up for work and cycles off, messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He's adorable. :) I do laundry in the Jetsons washing machine, or clean up the teeny-tiny kitchen, or deal with paperwork.

Somewhere around 1:00 pm -- Lunch! I bike over to Matthew's school, and we seek out a mealing venue. There's a good, cheap takoyaki (grilled octopus balls, by which I mean balls of octopus meat) joint near his school that serves lunch specials of takoyaki (obviously) or tasty, tasty yakisoba (grilled noodles), onigiri (seaweed-wrapped rice balls stuffed with something like spiced roe, salmon, or brains), and a dessert (most recently, melon custard -- mmm). The people running the place are very friendly and chatty.

2:00 pm -- Deetsing around on some combination of errands, exploration, grocery shopping, and the inevitable WTF? moment. Here's today's:



I finally acquired an apron today. It makes me look a bit like a miniskirt-wearing short-order cook.

Sometimes, my travels take me to the "WellYu" building, home of the Kitakami International Assembly Hall and a tiny, excellent art museum. KIAH is where Matthew first learned about The Moustache's reputation from a fellow Amerika-jin, an exchange student from Florida whose father had seen them around.

Somewhere around 5:00 pm -- return home and unpack goods. Feel relieved to have blood flow restored to hands if I overestimated how much I could reasonably carry on my sketchy bike, as I did today. Study Japanese, or surf the net, or catch up on email, or go for a bike ride.

7:00 pm-ish on days when it's not raining -- watch sunset.



:)

8:30 pm -- make dinner. I've been cooking a fair amount of Japanese food, including fish, and had quite a bit of success. Fish is tricky, but for some reason, seems very easy to do here. On Tuesday, I made salt-broiled whole aji (horse mackerel), including gutting and de-gilling. There's no stopping me now...

9:30 pm -- Cocktail time! Matthew gets home from work around 9:10 most nights, changes, and makes drinks while I finish dinner. We eat and speak some Japanese before doing our last internet stuff and going to bed.

11:00 pm -- get out futons, go to bed. Listen to frogs communing along the Waga River.

Several of you expressed consternation upon learning that we have Lucy and Ricky futons in our expatriate marital home. Also about the availability of storage space in the demi-closets, but that had more to do with the pending opinion in Handbags et al. v. Trains.

There is, however, a very good reason for the single futons. It would be virtually impossible to do this



with a queen-sized futon. Aren't the giant blue futon clips awesome?

Special birthday shout-out to my fellow June celebrants!