Week 9: Fireworks!

This week was hectic! Mostly I just worked a lot.

The big news this week was the typhoons and flooding near Okinawa and a minor earthquake near Fukushima. I am very far away from either location, but we did have a very small earthquake here on Wednesday (small enough that some of my labmates didn't notice it).

The other news was that my labmate's daughter got two beetles, named Brumby and Brumbelina. On an unrelated note, the Bulgarian word for beetle is brŭmbar ;) . Sadly, Brumbelina is no longer with us due to an unfortunate watermelon-eating incident (apparently too much watermelon is toxic to beetles because of the high water content??), but Brumby is still kickin'.

I was surprised when I heard that the beetles came from a store called Homac, which is located beside the grocery store that I usually go to. I had seen the store but I thought that it was basically like Home Depot. I went there on Saturday and it turned out to be a cross between a Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and PetSmart! They had a big garden section, lots of fabric and yarn, tons of fitness equipment, home stuff, shoes, clothes.. and a really big pet section! I can't lie.. I was kind of tempted to get a pet fish. It might be nice to have a pet, but I don't really have the space for a proper setup, and of course I would need to find him a new home when I leave Japan. But I might change my mind...  Or maybe I should just get a plant :p

On Saturday evening there were some mysterious fireworks at the Sapporo Dome!! I just checked and I guess it was just part of a promotion with the baseball game that was being held that day, like some sort of a fan appreciation thing, which explained why I saw so many Ham Fighters jerseys around earlier in the day. Even the cashier at the grocery store was wearing one! I didn't know about the fireworks in advance, but I heard them from my window. I ran into my neighbours in the hallway and we dashed up the street to watch them. We had a great view from the lab!! The fireworks display was great. The only downside was that I was EATEN ALIVE by mosquitoes. I have seen a lot of mosquitoes around, but I guess they were lulling me into a false sense of security because they never bit me before Saturday, when they descended en masse and devoured the exposed skin on the tops of my feet and also my eyebrows, so now I have a nicely swollen eyebrow and I look like a caveman. My friend commented that normally mosquitoes love her, but they went after me instead, so I still have my crown as the favourite snack food of mosquitoes everywhere.

My pictures don't do it justice. It really was a great show!

I saw my friend the fox several times on Saturday. He was really close to me - probably only five or six metres away - and he was a bit scared of my squeaky bike brakes, but otherwise he was pretty bold. He hung out and stared at me for a little while before he resumed frolicking in the grass. Sadly I only had my phone so I couldn't get a good picture.

On Sunday I ran some errands. I really needed some new jeans because I had some near-disaster wardrobe malfunctions this week. I saw some great shirts while I was shopping.

Because it's the summer and it's festival season, Tanuki Koji was all decked out with banners and flags!

All my thinking about Animal Crossing made me really want to play Animal Crossing again. After some consideration, I finally caved, and I got this puppy (used) on Sunday! My excuse is that it might help me with my Japanese (if I can make it past the setup..).

It's an Animal Crossing 3DS! It was a sign from the Nintendo gods.

I have played about 30 minutes so far and it is remarkably like my real life in Japan: I arrived and everyone spoke to me in complicated Japanese and I didn't understand anything and immediately got lost, and there are weird bugs and animals everywhere. If only my real life were as easy to figure out as the game is..

I also caved and got a cute lunch box. I'm only human!! I used the flimsy excuse that it is annoying only having two tupperware containers (since I like to cook on the weekend rather than every single day) so it made sense to get another container. You can only be in Japan for two months before you are legally obligated to buy adorable things.