So, today, I go around running various errands. It was a little humid out but not too bad... temperature was comfortable in my T-shirt and jeans. And as soon as I step out of a store, I was hit with nasty humidity. You could drink the air. You didn't walk around anymore, you had to swim from place to place. Ok, so maybe i'm exaggerating a little... but it's nasty. It's like the air right after you take a shower, except you can't simply go to the next room to dry off.
Side note: I finally asked jeeves on the internet to find out the celcius/fahrenheit conversion because i'm tired of being confused everytime i walk past the digital thermometer down the street from my apartment. So it's F=(9/5)C + 32 or C=(5/9)(F-32). So today was 82.4F... not bad... but then you have to add in the 150% humidity. Yuck.

Today i saw the cutest thing. Sometimes, at the gospel choir practices, kids show up because their moms are members of the choir. I swear today was Halloween cuz one of the kids had this Pikachu fit. I should've taken a picture of him! Anyway, he had on a yellow t-shirt with the two brown (?) stripes going across the back... and get this, the t-shirt was hooded and of course the hood has Pikachu's face complete with the ears/antennae. And that's not all. He had matching yellow shorts that had the little lightning bolt tail. It was incredible. I guess he just felt like wearing it today. There was no special occassion for him to dress up in a costume. He wanted to wear Pikachu today, as if it was like a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. That would just not fly in America. Then again, it probably has a better chance than my idea to popularize one piece jumpsuits (like the ones newborn babies wear... only bigger, and maybe slightly cooler looking).

As I sit here eating my breakfast, I wonder, do the Crunch Berries themselves have any vitamin C in them? Are they like fruit? Or is it just fruit flavored Capn Crunch that's ball shaped? The deep things I think about in the morning.

I've become Ben Tao. I check ESPN.com nearly everyday. Well, at least when and if I go back home for a visit sometime soon, I'll be caught up with American sports! Won't know a thing about new American social or economic problems cuz I don't check CNN.com or any sort of American newspaper website... but I'll know all about the Giants' playoff hopes this year and why the Warriors will just continue to be the embarassment to Bay Area sports (although Cal football in my four years there are a very close 2nd).
And that's not to say that I'm not a fan of either the Warriors or Cal football. Actually, I'm a huge fan of both... which is probably the saddest thing of all. How it pains me everytime I talk to a SoCal person! Somehow (probably because they don't have a football team anymore), the SoCal person'll talk about THEIR Lakers, who won yet another championship, and all I contribute to the conversation is, "Woo... go Warriors." To which I receive either a blank look, or wannabe sympathetic chuckles.
What happened to those Warriors? Run TMC got us to a 50 game season and of course the playoffs... to which we got ousted by the Sonics in the first round. They even had their own McDonalds hamburger. Remember the Tim and Chris burger? Or the Chris and Tim burger? Ehh, maybe it was a promo for only the bay area (like Eddie the Echo, howyadoin, howyadoin?). Anyway, it was all downhill from there... although it didn't seem that way at first. Spree was a great sleeper pick out of Alabama late in the 1st round. Picked him up because we needed defense... and as an added bonus, the NBA discovered that he had offensive game too. Webber was gonna be that awesome big man that was gonna take us to the next level. Instead, it was just a headache with him and Don Nelson (both of whom are doing awesome now in Sac and Dallas respectively). And so, went the search for the center. Why was there such an urgency for a center back then anyway? I mean, the Bulls won championship after championship with Cartwright in the middle.
I can't think of anything that was more destructive to the Warriors organization than the search for the center. First we wasted money by picking up Rony Seikaly. Ughhh! To think that the Warriors front office had the bay area (or maybe just me) tricked into believing that Rony Seikaly was going to save the Warriors! What was I thinking? Then there were all those dumb draft picks. Todd Fuller. Adonal Foyle. Jeff Foster. And finally when we accidentally got one in Marc Jackson... there were problems and we traded him away for, drum roll please... Dean Garrett (the guy who scores 20 points a game for me in video games because Garrett looks so much like Garnett). Ughh. Woo... go Warriors!

So my family came by not too long ago. It was great just to see familiar faces again. It's been nearly a year since i've seen someone familiar... and it was weird. Not in a bad way at all. It was just, well, kind of overwhelming. Being completely comfortable when being in the same room as someone else... what a concept!
So anyway, I'm finding that I want to visit home even more so than ever before. I'm not necessarily homesick... but it's more like a combination between wanting to know what's been going on in the world I used to know and wanting to do the familiar. Sure, I've been able to email and AIM some people... but there's nothing quite like meeting face to face. There's just so many more things you can see and do. And well, as for the familiarity, I haven't been able to establish familiarity yet, in my 10 months here. I mean, I was just starting to get used to my new surroundings in Kaminoyama in my 6th month there, which was when I had to leave. And I've been here in Hokkaido for only 4 months now. Just never really felt settled. Never really could call a place, home... yet. Thinking back, it took me about a semester and a half before I got used to being at school at Cal... with the dorms and the people. That's about 7-8 months. And that was with the help of having some familiar people around me.
Anyway, with all the moving, culture adjustment, and stuff I'm pretty tired. Just want to see and do the familiar again. SPEAK A FAMILIAR LANGUAGE. So, hopefully, if everything works out, I'll be back home on vacation, either early or late September. We'll see!

Today was actually quite warm! I can't say how warm it was because I only see celcius here but it was warm. Wore shorts, T-shirt, and the sandals... and felt comfortable wearing them! I was so happy. Summer finally arrived. HOWEVER... it was short lived. So early in the morning it was pretty warm... I was caught off guard as my jacket and jeans indicated. And it gradually got warmer as the day went on. I had to spend the afternoon inside the church because of gospel choir practice but I was happy nevertheless because i knew that the sun was shining and that i could finally stay comfortable in shorts. So gospel practice ends at 6PM and it was like a switch... as soon as it ended, down came the rain. Now i understand that here in Japan, it can rain pretty hard during the summer. But that wasn't the case this time. It was a cold rain... not a warm tropical rain.
SUMMER LASTED FOR ABOUT 12 HOURS! I dunno if the Hokkaido people are trying to scare me, but they said that tonight's rain is the beginning of fall. I was like, "Fall?! What happened to summer!?" I am definitely far far from home...

Mayonnaise. I don't get it. Why do Japanese people love the stuff so much that they cake it on everything. So far I've seen mayonnaise on sausages, mayonnaise on pizzas, even mayonnaise mixed in with rice. YUCK! As far as I know, mayonnaise hasn't had a long history in Japan either. It's not like they've grown to like it over the generations. I just don't get it.
Me... I just spread the stuff on sandwiches or hamburgers, that's about it. Anything more than that... and well, I don't feel so good for the rest of the day. Something about the taste and the smell along with the texture and... ughh, my stomach's turning just thinking about the stuff! But regardless, the Japanese love their mayonnaise... oh and Tabasco, but then I don't want to take the time to write about that.

So now that I've written about food, I'm gonna follow it up with the other subject that Japanese people always talk about... the weather. I'm becoming Japanese! Woohoo! Maybe? Anyway, so it's July now, and when I step out of my apartment, it seriously feels March or April. I really can't prove it because of the stupid celcius system for temperature. The thing is that I know I learned how to convert celcius to fahrenheit (it took me a good 2 minutes to spell it like that so it better be right!) from one of those chemistry classes I took at school... ehh, but I didn't think that it was all that important. Instead, I remember how to make mayonnaise (which Japanese people love!). Besides chemistry uses kelvin... who uses kelvin other than people who study chemistry? I mean when somebody says, "How hot was it today?" Nobody I know answers with "Oh, the weather report said that it was 294K."
Anyway, going back to the original subject, it feels like Spring when we're in the middle of Summer. You know, it's a bit foggy in the morning, kinda hazy during the day and so it's not hot, but then it's all that chilly either. So now, I'm getting worried. I mean, if Summer's like this... what's winter like? Yikes! Anyway, I decided to get into the summer mood regardless of how warm it really is. I think I'm the only one walking around the streets in hawaiian shirts, shorts, and sandals.