My sister had left the country, which consequently left me with about 60,000 yen to my name and 3 weeks until pay day. I decided to ignore my lack of funds and take a trip down to Fukuchiyama with Yumi with the sole purpose of finding me new glasses.
The optometrist in Japan was not unlike the ones I’ve been to in the States. There’s a waiting room, a receptionist, and lots of weird eyeball attachments within the office itself. The differences however were also quite numerous. The first being that Yumi and I waited to be seen for almost two hours. During this time we had to watch a British war movie set in Africa from the 1970’s. Roger Moore was in it! The receptionist had lost the paper I had filled out about my medical history etc. When we re-wrote the information, she promptly placed my form in the back of the queue. I believe that’s why we waited two hours. I wasn’t terribly pleased with how that went, but as Japan brings out the timid, non-complainer in me, I contently sat and waited for my (UNFAIR) turn.
I had my eyesight measured! They use C’s instead of E’s… I wonder how much of a difference it made! They discovered that I was as blind as I had previously mentioned, and started measuring my eyes for contact lenses. This somehow involved me being prodded in the eye with a queue tip and then immediately having my eyes rinsed in a glorified bedpan! I wasn’t used to that sort of thing, so it caught me off guard otherwise I may have instinctually fought it. Anyway, I had lenses fitted on me (contact and regular) and then set off to the glasses shop next door to pick out new frames.
It was a bit emotional having to say goodbye to my old glasses frames… I think I had had them on the bridge of my nose since I was 18 or 19 years old. However, I picked out ones that essentially looked the same (to this day nobody has noticed them). So, in all it was a happy ending!
I should also note that Yumi and I went to eat ramen, and that it was tasty!
I joined Leigh, Ray, Steve, Claire, Ruth and Masami Yoshida for some good old fashioned rice planting this weekend. The steps are simple: roll up pants, put on a ridiculous hat, take off your shoes, stand knee deep in mud/creatures and shove some rice plants in the ground. Masami had already planted about 99% of the rice with a tractor or machine of some sort and the group of us were just filling in the holes that the machine had missed. There isn’t much more to tell, but it was one of those experiences where you stop mid-way between your task to think, “Wow I’m planting rice in Japan – it doesn’t get any zanier than that does it?” I would also stop every few minutes to think about how many tadpoles, swimming centipedes, snails and general creepy crawlies [including spiders that walk on water] were flitting around my ankles. I didn’t like it when I had those thoughts, but they were frequent. The guys got REALLY into it (along with Leigh… and even Claire for that matter!) I, on the other hand, was more of a well-wisher and enjoyed the experience without ever wanting to do it again. We finished off the evening with a feast at the Yoshidas, and I quickly fell into a food coma.
The next morning I met Yuuki and we went to the Sakura Park in Honjo/Tsutsukawa for the sports challenge day. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just a bunch of kids playing baseball (Honjo won because the teams tied so they janken’d for it!), PTA games, and eventually a long walk around the Tsutsukawa area. I think it was about 8km, they said. Yuuki and I put on our number jerseys and set out with the entirety of Honjo Elementary school girls on our walking adventure! It was very very very hot. I blew through two bottles of water within the hour and a half we were outside. We also saw a million rice patties, old houses, birds, bugs, and even a snake in the grass! Eek! Afterwards Yuuki and I went to eat FAMOUS SOBA at the Urashima Shrine Park in Honjo across from my house. Good eatin’. We then were too lazy to do anything else the whole day and went home to nap for all eternity.
