If I Told You Then It Wouldn't Be a Secret

You know, it's true what they say when they say in Japan you drive on the left side of the street.  And honestly, I don't have a problem remembering that almost ever, but when a car comes straight at me in my lane, I start questioning who I am and how I got where I am, and wondering whether or not I'm wrong about the lane I'm supposed to be in.  Luckily, this only happens about once a day.  Maybe there are many Japanese people who don't know you're supposed to drive in the left lane.  Maybe the Japanese citizens are testing my knowledge of Japanese driving rules.  Maybe I'm in one of those Japanese game shows and I won't know that I'm in it until I've won.

I don't have any updates on work.  Most of what we do is proprietary information so I can't talk about it (i.e. TOP SECRET).  And the rest of what we do probably wouldn't interest anyone but me and my coworkers.  But I will say this: at noon every day we take a break and swim in a giant vault full of money.  Then we each pour out an entire bottle of top-shelf champagne in honor of someone we've lost to champagne.  Then, high-fives all around and a quick game of Guess Who™, Japanese Edition.  And our uniforms are made of gold, which makes them really heavy but incredibly golden.

Next week I have a holiday.  It's called "March 20th."  I get the day off work and everything.  I'm hoping to think of something to do by then.  I'll probably do what I do on most of my days off: absolutely nothing most of the day and then try to squeeze something fancy in at the last minute so I have some witty blog banter.

Now I don't have any NEW photos for today, because I'm still collecting photos of "security" cameras around town that are airing my life in real-time.  But I do have some more pictures I never did show from my outing 2 weekends ago with Sumihiro.  Take a look at these!

I can't believe I didn't even mention: the dinner party where I met Sumihiro's kids and wife was not at his house but at this guy's house.  This guy introduced me to them.  I work with this guy.  Actually, he works at our "sister" company I guess you could say.  I will be spending some time working there this year.

His wife is in the pictures I posted before of me bonking kids' heads against the ceiling.  She tried her best to stay out of most of the photos, so I won't dig up another one with her in it just to post here.  But let me just say she can cook a meeeeeeeeeean dinner.  Reminder: bacon-wrapped asparagus.

The day that I hung out with Sumihiro and went to the dam and the Sky Park and the ol'-timey house just happened to be the Day of Hinamatsuri or sometimes called Girl's Day. Many traditional homes have a collection of Hina dolls they set up for the occasion.  It usually looks like this.  This is at Sumihiro's sister's apartment.  You may vaguely recognize the scene from Kurosawa's movie Dreams, particularly the dream called "The Peach Orchard".  Kurosawa's dream was a little more elaborate than this (and some Hina doll setups are incredibly elaborate!) but this one is typical and beautiful in it's simplicity.


To bring this blog full-circle, let me go back to talking about cars and driving.  I need to put gas in my car.  The full-service station is more expensive, but I went to the self-service station and then I got scared and drove off.  I've never used a Japanese self-serve gas station before.  I actually thought about starting to pull in and the attendant directed a different car from a different direction in next to the pump I was eyeing.  So I thought maybe I was doing it wrong, and I left.  Now I have to get up early tomorrow, HOPE the gas station is open that early, and probably chicken out and go to a full-serve station.  Why?  Because several Yen is the price you pay for ignorance.