Entertainment/free time:

Today we walked to a near-by museum called “Yuzo Yamamoto Memorial Museum”. He was a famous Japanese author who built the house in 1926. In 1946 it was seized by the occupational troops, then returned in 1951. It became a library until 1985. Now it’s a museum. They advertise it as a “western house” so that piqued our curiosity. For only 300 yen each we were able to tour a relatively large house with extremely squeaky floors, and look at displays that were all in Japanese! They did give us a flyer that was in English, but that was all. A DVD was playing about one of the plays that this author wrote – would have been nice to understand it (& then again, maybe not!!). Behind the "mansion" was a fish pond with gold fish. One of them looked like it had a UPC code on it's back - not likely, but we'd never seen one like it before. Sorry, no fish pictures.

What else do we do for entertainment?

Puzzles: (2,000; 1,000; 1,000 piece)

Toys: (I love that their toys almost all wind up rather than needing batteries. They will work well in our Christmas shoe boxes! – in the meantime, Roger has enjoyed them!)

He's enjoyed a lot of the food, too! (What is it? Not a marshmallow!)

Shopping for clothes

The heat wave motivated me to shop for something cooler. There were 13%, 15% and 20% signs in stores everywhere - we assumed items on sale for that much off. However, upon closer examination, we discovered at least some of those sale prices were only for "members".

We “accidentally” found a discount store (GU) on the 8^th floor of a building by riding the escalators to the top for fun!! There was a pretty pink skort (skirt/pants) that I thought I would like. But not given to rash purchases, I held off. A week or so later we went back – it was gone. We had also seen several other skirts I thought I would like – they were all gone!! So I bought another one.

A few days later we took the escalator up of a store where we regularly shopped the basement grocery store. There was a nice yellow top I thought I’d like, but needed to try it on first. I was too tired and hot.

We returned to that story several days later and it was still there. I decided to try it on.

I took the top to the fitting rooms, and motioned that I wanted to try it on. The clerk went with me to the small cubicle. As I stepped in, she hastily showed me I needed to remove my shoes. So, barefoot I stepped into the room (with a very dirty carpet) and pulled the curtain. She knocked slightly and stuck something through to me. It was a “mask” that I was to put on before pulling the top over my head!!

I liked the top and it fit, so I bought it! At least no one else will have to try it on and maybe get my germs!!

Intersections and "wait" lines

Some intersections are important enough that the pedestrians/bicyclists have their own signal. So, cars going east/west get a green light; then cars going north/south get a green light; then traffic stops and the intersection is free and open for bikes and walkers to cross any direction. It reminds me of the “all skate” option from bygone rollerskating days! For the most part, people wait for the green light, no matter how small the crossing, or how few cars there are on the street.

Speaking of waiting, we see lines:

Bikes waiting to get a paid parking spot in the bike parking lot (sorry, no picture – we didn’t know why they were lined up ½ block long until we got to the front of the line). Bikes pay to park almost everywhere.

Taxis line up – they are very common, probably because people don’t own cars

People line up to buy “obento” – fast food. The lines can go out the door around eating time, but they are busy most of the day. We are amazed at how many "mom and pop" type eateries (& shops) there are that stay afloat.