I can’t believe it is inching below zero in Regina. Yes all in Regina can kick me for saying this, but I am longing for the cold weather a bit. Maybe because it helps you long for warm days more. Warm days and chilly nights have been the regular thing here. I can’t believe our afternoon temperatures are still around 20 degrees celsius. It feels a bit like spring but with fall colours (so says the leaf decorations at the department store). And I am going scuba diving in 3 weeks. Yiipee!
I am also going to the Kyoto/Nara area in…holy crap I guess that is next week and I can’t find a hotel. Good job last minute Meg…didn’t think about the leaf rush. In autumn the places to travel are ones beautiful for their changing leaf colours. People here are particularly fond of the maple leaves - Japanese maple that is. The leaves are smaller and a bit more pointy than Canadian maple leaves. So it is weird because Canada = maple leaf but I have seen more real maple leaves here than I did in my other life:part_canada.
This was supposed to be a Halloween post in which I discuss Halloween in Japan but I didn’t finish writing yesterday and now it is All Saint’s Day. Can anyone tell me what All Saint’s Day is? I have never received an explanation, or comment on it, even from the most religious people I know. Even going to a Catholic school…I don’t recall anything special happening on this day.
For Halloween - nothing spooky happened. Possibly, I should have gone to Tokyo on the weekend as I hear there were some crazy things going on there (gaijin takeover of the yamanote train line…you could probably google it…I hear it was messy), but I stayed home to learn Actionscript which I guess is a little spooky. I did go for Halloween supper with Roz and Billy last night…well…it seemed like all the food we ordered was of some orange hue and that is kinda Halloween-y.
No really, I had been thinking that I should find something exciting to do but the spirit wasn’t in me. I love Halloween but I love Canadian Halloween and despite some pumpkin decorations sold in the depaatos and a parade for costume-d children and various shinanagins in Tokyo…there was something missing in the air here. Something that I need to feel Halloween-y. (Maybe just my visible breath).
One treat to be had: finding this yakitori stand off a street around Yokosuka-chuo. Once you get a space between the row of suited men and uniformed girls stopping for a snack, you can stand there and…eat. Take skewer of meat after skewer of meat and eat and when you are done, a woman counts your skewers and you pay. It is enjoyable to watch the meat being prepared. The roasting robot to the right of the picture below is quite hypnotizing. So cheap to! (60円 = about 60 cents).
Tonight we have a farewell party for one of our group members. I’ll try to not take pictures of food but seriously, lately I have been considering the possibility of a career switch to food photography.
