rainstorm in ishinomaki

It was thundering when we got done with work and walked out of school today. Tonight is my second night in my apartment here and was my first time riding home from work in the dark on my bicycle. Thunder, thunder, thunder, thunder, pedaling my bicycle for the first time through the Ishinomaki night. There's something so incredibly romantic (in the Anne of Green Gables sense) about riding a bicycle through the streets of a foreign city on a thundering evening after dark. (while singing "Oh Yoko") So, I decided to enhance the romance with a stop for some beer at the 7-11... when I came out, the thunder had produced rain. (Earlier today, when TK and I were driving to my apartment for the mandatory lesson on how to reduce the likelihood of blowing oneself up with the gas stove, he commented on how the fish smell in town meant a south wind and a south wind likely meant rain.)

So, with my messenger bag across my shoulder and the intersection almost deserted because it was leaning toward 11 p.m., I rode through the rain to my new home. What I hope will be my new home.

i now intend to sit and eat a mayonaise-slathered sandwich and sour cream and onion Pringles and drink beer and watch an American movie. ("When Harry Met Sally." It's one of two movies in the apartment. The other is "Dawn of the Dead," and features a critic's exclamation, "Scary as Hell!" on the cover.) No Japanese tv tonight. Although I think Monday night is when SMAP's show (SMAP is a J-pop band) is on. Last Monday at Ai's house we watched their show. It included a "Roulette Bowling" segment in which SMAP members and a rival pop band (I think) threw bowling balls down an alley that was spinning roulette-style. And, also roulette-style, they had to predict a number that their ball would land it. I liked it. It was entertainment that could be appreciated across the language barrier. I've been here almost two weeks, and I think I may actually know less Japanese now than when I arrived, if that's possible. I keep learning phrases (including two words for "thank you" that Japanese people traditionally say at the start and the close of a meal) and then forgetting them. I also think I'm spoiled now because Adrian is here. When he leaves, I will have no native English speakers to converse with.

But now, movie. Later, tales of my first encounter with sushi; or, plots to determine how I can show my face at Sushi Zen again.