it's not life that matters but the journey...

I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for Japan, though I don't know why. So I went to the Mainichi Daily News website to see what's going on there, and here's what I found:

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/photospecials/graph/060403kanamara/

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060527p2a00m0na025000c.html

what a wacky country!

The weather in Japan doesn't seem to be too wacky though. Summers are terrible in Japan, but right now, it's much cooler in Japan than it is here in Chicago. I'm burning up in my apartment, and it's just 9 a.m.! yesterday we went out for a bit of shopping, and I nearly died - I had to run the AC in the car, and I almost tested out the AC in my apartment since it was in the upper 80s, and we are on the top floor of our building (heat rises!). Today will be even hotter, 90 degrees with humidity! It's too hot too soon for me!

I am really missing certain things about being in Japan: the vending machines (so you can always get a cold drink no matter where you are); the convenience store "o-bento" (so you can always have prepared food that is much more healthy than the prepared food in the U.S.); and the peace and quiet. We did live on a busy street in Japan, but it was only busy and noisy during the day. Here we have sirens going all the time, and of course the noise of traffic all day long.

Besides just being able to easily buy cold drinks, I really miss the bottled teas that I could get in Japan because there is such a variety, and none of them are sweet. Japanese people don't drink their tea sweetened, so it's much more refreshing and more healthy. Here, if you buy a bottled tea, it's almost always too sweet; I don't like flavored tea, either, especially green tea. In the summer, cold unsweetened green tea is one of the best things on earth, and it's low in calories. That's why I really laughed when I saw an advertisement for "DIET GREEN TEA." In Japan, diet tea would be an oxymoron! The only reason that a DIET GREEN TEA has to be created in the U.S. is because someone went and added sugar and other sweeteners to something that is totally a diet drink to begin with! To me, the concept of adding sugar to something that is naturally not sweet, and then removing it and adding some other kind of fake sweetener just to call it a "Diet" drink is total sacrilege.

Anyway, enough of my babbling. I wish someone would create a nice bottled cold green tea here, but of course it wouldn't sell. Most people in the U.S. consider green tea to be something healthy, and healthy means tasteless, so people wouldn't drink it. Unless we could get some cool, famous celebrity to endorse it, and then maybe the mindless masses would accept it.

Ah, it would be nice to get out and enjoy the Memorial Day weekend, but alas I think I'll just spend the day inside, at my computer. And if I get bored, I guess I'll go and try to buy some new clothes, because with this hot weather, I really need something comfortable and cool. We were invited to a BBQ today, but I'm pretty sure M doesn't want to go. He's tired and grumpy from playing music all weekend with this guy Lindsey who is very difficult and demanding. I'm not sure how long this arrangement will work before he needs to find someone else to play with. The honeymoon in Chicago seems to be over before it even began...