Riding the Train

Found this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XjldEzC6RU&feature=related while looking for directions for the train. Very interesting, this is exactly what it looks like- but we TRY HARD to not ride at this time of the day or if we do to take the local train instead - it is the train that stops at every stop and takes a while but you can usually get a seat!

Land of the Rising Sun

I guess it is called that for a reason- The sun comes up at 4:30 in the morning. If you don't believe me look at weather.com and you can see the rainy weather for today and the time of sunrise/sunset. We have typhoon shutters on our windows- so in addition to curtains we just shut those at night. Picture soon!

Flowers and Pineapples

Found these cute pineapples at the flower shop. O.K. I guess you can't see the pienapples to good, I'll ahve to get another picture later. Have slowly been bringing home flowers that I find while out. I think there must be a cute little florist/garden shop on every street. Next thing to bring home- a bucket of grass- the kind for cats, it looks nice, so I thought I would make a cute centeriece from it for the table.

Trash Sorting

Pictures from the festival in Yokohoma. I thought the trash sorting was interesting, even the Japanese sometimes goofed it up.... it is a little confusing and you really have to read the pictures! Our house trash is done the same way but not in as many trash cans. We have 6 sorting system at our house. Burnable, Non-Burnable, Plastics and Packaging, Recyclables, Stuff for Thrift Store type re-use, recyclable paper (milk carton - wash, dry, cut open, paper- letters and such, magazines, paper boxes, newspapers) I have not figured out the paper recyclable yet- I think each type according to our booklet has to be separated and tied with a string) It is amazing- almost everything here is recycled- the picture shows how.