"Yes, the chicken was made with peaches!"

So today like I said, I just strolled around Ikebukuro, my temporary home, to see a few things without hurting my legs...so time for some random musings...

the Japanese separate their trash...combustible and non combustible and sometimes further into plastic bottles, (known as PET bottles because just about all things bottled are bottled with plastic type 1 or PET) cans, or newspapers...just about everything is recycled...and what can't be recycled gets burned. And speaking of trash...there's almost no litter...this can be blamed on the fact that the Japanese are so helplessly kind and considerate to each other and the Earth but that's not the strange part. I want to know how the Japanese streets can be so clean when there are almost no trash cans on the streets!!! I mean I'm walkin' with a plastic bag in my hand for miles and the most I see is a couple of recycling bins for bottles next to a vending machine! I can't even find a trash can in a bathroom half the time...I usually have a hard time finding a public bathroom at that!

speaking of vending machines...they're huge in Japan! and everywhere! On just about every block, even blocks with no large streets, there are vending machines. Why are there vending machines on minor streets? Because there are businesses everywhere! Every home is a store front essentially and I guess even old business owners know that young people love to buy cold drinks on the street.

...the power lines...are sooo tangled...I'm kind of worried...on my walk back...I looked up and thought, "someone needs to take a comb to that thing..."

...the guy who lives next to us keeps pigeons...just thought you might wanna know...

food is pretty cheap around here I got a really sweet bean paste filled green tea rice mochi treat thing for a buck and the rest of breakfast came out to about 5 bucks...

ah yes Pachinko...jesus christ, if you value your hearing don't go in a pachinko joint...the automatic doors opened up and rrrraaaaaaauauuuewwwrrrrr a huge roar came outta the joint. I can't quite figure out how it's played either...but there are a lot of themes...even Neon Genesis Evangalion! There are at least two pachinko joints in the area and I'm beginning to wonder if it's like their version of fast food (there are less macdonalds than pachinko joints...or banks for that matter) or churches (I haven't seen any of those yet).

the Japanese are very aware of their surroundings...they have these mirrors everywhere to help drivers see around the corner for pulling out of driveways and taking blind turns.

I'm not sure if this is normal for a train station in a large city but there's a mall underground in the train station near here...but it's also right next to an actual mall down the street...and they're both huge but the above ground mall is huger. It may not take up much surface area but it's got like 11 floors so yeah...pretty big. One of the floors is taken up entirely by a book store like twice as big as any Barnes and Noble I've ever seen. There's an awesome manga collection of course. You know how there are paintings of strong men and sexy women on the covers of romantic novels in America...well in Japan they have manga style drawings on their covers...which is misleading. I opened up half the fiction novel section before I realized there were no pictures in any of them. There's a movie theater on the 8th floor but there are only two screens...Instan Promise (I think that's what it is in English) and Juno...there's another movie theater down the street from me showing Machine Gun Girl 2 (apparently about the revenge of a girl with a machine gun for an arm) and Star Ship Troopers 3 (I didn't even know there was a 2).

It's normal for store owners to just leave their places unattended...just up and leave...no body watching the register...a black guy eating soba right there...oh well.