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Human rights of visitors to the US: declining.
Scissors being absent, just scraping at my beard with a razor seemed to do a decent job of trimming the hairs.
(ETA: I was out of small bills and big coins and decided to change a 10,000 yen bill in the nearby bank. This involved filling out a form with my name and local number. To change a not that big amount of Japanese cash into smaller bills of Japanese cash, which I'd already done without paperwork in a couple of stores, as receiving change. This seems odd.)
It occurred to me that I've had tons of sushi and ramen, udon and soba, some terikaki and sukiyaki, but no tempura here. Today I fixed that (twice), first having brunch at an udon place with shrimp tempura, no miso, and yasai (so she said; vegetables.) I'll skip ahead and say I later had it again, for dinner in the hotel restaurant; both times there was only one piece of shrimp, with the other tempura pieces being vegetables. Or for brunch, a fish of some sort, tailfin included. Brunch had tempura over rice, udon on the side; dinner had tempura in broth with soba, leading to disintegration. Lunch had iced green tea; dinner had my choice of hot or iced green tea, I took iced, and the tea *looked* exactly like water, but had a strong tea kick. I don't know how that works.
And for the third time, I went to the Imperial Palace, only this time the east gardens were open, not closed due to being after 4pm or on a Monday. I took a bunch of photos, a few including me. I saw a tiny museum of the Imperial art collection, saw and mostly heard a hidden dojo with cries of near-torture coming from the kendo students inside, saw walls and moats of course, extensive gardens, and big black birds -- either big crows, my first up close crows, or ravens. On their own, so I'm tempted to think raven, but don't know. There was the base of a donjon which had been 6 stories tall and the tallest donjon in Japan, until it burned down 19 years after it was built, never to be rebuilt. Modern Japan is built in reinforced concrete, which is uglier but far safer to both fires and earthquakes.
After that I walked north then east, through the university bookstore area. LOTS of bookstores. I didn't find the foreign books stores, though. There were a couple of stories that had "BOOK DVD MAGAZINE" in English but they both turned out to be adult -- porn -- stores. One of them had a section of DVDs that seemed to be of a girl showing herself off, rather than sex acts; one of those had a girl who looked 10, or maybe 6. Baby fat face, no hint of breasts, and "120 cm" on the cover, which sounds like a height to me. I don't know the human age-height curve but that's under 4 feet. Now, I don't know if the DVD has her prancing around in swimwear or more naked stuff -- nothing naked on the cover, and I'm inclined to think pedophiles are safer if they drain their urges with domestic masturbation rather than trying to repress and going *boom* in the wild, but still, eek and eww.
I popped into a supermarket, which had a 100 yen housewares section. -- oh yeah, found a 100 yen store near the museum yesterday. Got some reusable chopsticks and a tiny shogi set, but saw no bento boxes, hanashoujo. -- No boxes at the supermarket either, except for some disposable plastic ones maybe, and a $17 lunch box with thermal controls. Did not buy. Did buy some blueberries (kind of withered, later), cherry tomatoes (decent), green leaf lettuce (eh, but I'm starved for greens, and just eating it straight), green beans (maybe raw soybeans? probably a mistake), and, with help, some loose-leaf teas to bring home. Sencha (young leaves), matcha (powdered young leaves, tea ceremony tea), and gyoruro (supposedly, and supposedly top quality; the bag has SWEET! on it so I have my doubts.) Also a box of sencha tea bags, which back in the hotel were kind of tasteless. Maybe too diluted.
And, I found a tray of SIU MAI. Real siu mai, not the tiny shrimp dumplings in the Japanese restaurants in Bloomington; no, these looked like real dim sum. Wasn't the best I've had, but decent. Yay for big pork dumplings.
I was going to walk to Akihabara and wander and see if I could find some big anime center, but it looked like thunderstorm, so I fled home.
Principal witch-hunts gay students, lifts girl's shirt, is defended by community for defending their Christian values. Ah, northern Florida.
Scissors being absent, just scraping at my beard with a razor seemed to do a decent job of trimming the hairs.
(ETA: I was out of small bills and big coins and decided to change a 10,000 yen bill in the nearby bank. This involved filling out a form with my name and local number. To change a not that big amount of Japanese cash into smaller bills of Japanese cash, which I'd already done without paperwork in a couple of stores, as receiving change. This seems odd.)
It occurred to me that I've had tons of sushi and ramen, udon and soba, some terikaki and sukiyaki, but no tempura here. Today I fixed that (twice), first having brunch at an udon place with shrimp tempura, no miso, and yasai (so she said; vegetables.) I'll skip ahead and say I later had it again, for dinner in the hotel restaurant; both times there was only one piece of shrimp, with the other tempura pieces being vegetables. Or for brunch, a fish of some sort, tailfin included. Brunch had tempura over rice, udon on the side; dinner had tempura in broth with soba, leading to disintegration. Lunch had iced green tea; dinner had my choice of hot or iced green tea, I took iced, and the tea *looked* exactly like water, but had a strong tea kick. I don't know how that works.
And for the third time, I went to the Imperial Palace, only this time the east gardens were open, not closed due to being after 4pm or on a Monday. I took a bunch of photos, a few including me. I saw a tiny museum of the Imperial art collection, saw and mostly heard a hidden dojo with cries of near-torture coming from the kendo students inside, saw walls and moats of course, extensive gardens, and big black birds -- either big crows, my first up close crows, or ravens. On their own, so I'm tempted to think raven, but don't know. There was the base of a donjon which had been 6 stories tall and the tallest donjon in Japan, until it burned down 19 years after it was built, never to be rebuilt. Modern Japan is built in reinforced concrete, which is uglier but far safer to both fires and earthquakes.
After that I walked north then east, through the university bookstore area. LOTS of bookstores. I didn't find the foreign books stores, though. There were a couple of stories that had "BOOK DVD MAGAZINE" in English but they both turned out to be adult -- porn -- stores. One of them had a section of DVDs that seemed to be of a girl showing herself off, rather than sex acts; one of those had a girl who looked 10, or maybe 6. Baby fat face, no hint of breasts, and "120 cm" on the cover, which sounds like a height to me. I don't know the human age-height curve but that's under 4 feet. Now, I don't know if the DVD has her prancing around in swimwear or more naked stuff -- nothing naked on the cover, and I'm inclined to think pedophiles are safer if they drain their urges with domestic masturbation rather than trying to repress and going *boom* in the wild, but still, eek and eww.
I popped into a supermarket, which had a 100 yen housewares section. -- oh yeah, found a 100 yen store near the museum yesterday. Got some reusable chopsticks and a tiny shogi set, but saw no bento boxes, hanashoujo. -- No boxes at the supermarket either, except for some disposable plastic ones maybe, and a $17 lunch box with thermal controls. Did not buy. Did buy some blueberries (kind of withered, later), cherry tomatoes (decent), green leaf lettuce (eh, but I'm starved for greens, and just eating it straight), green beans (maybe raw soybeans? probably a mistake), and, with help, some loose-leaf teas to bring home. Sencha (young leaves), matcha (powdered young leaves, tea ceremony tea), and gyoruro (supposedly, and supposedly top quality; the bag has SWEET! on it so I have my doubts.) Also a box of sencha tea bags, which back in the hotel were kind of tasteless. Maybe too diluted.
And, I found a tray of SIU MAI. Real siu mai, not the tiny shrimp dumplings in the Japanese restaurants in Bloomington; no, these looked like real dim sum. Wasn't the best I've had, but decent. Yay for big pork dumplings.
I was going to walk to Akihabara and wander and see if I could find some big anime center, but it looked like thunderstorm, so I fled home.
Principal witch-hunts gay students, lifts girl's shirt, is defended by community for defending their Christian values. Ah, northern Florida.