if you are here just as you are

The rain here is interesting, it's no heavier than a sprinkle but it is constant. If it's raining in the morning it's pretty sure that it will be raining straight through all day.

Today another IC came to escort me to to get my gaijin card - thank goodness she did because I would never have been able to understand the forms by myself. That will take two weeks to process, and once I get it I can go to the post office to open a box. Post offices here are oddly important, my paycheck will be deposited there, and I can theoretically pay utilities at these little ATM-like terminals.

Barack Obama is on the television here a surprising amount. There's more about him than about Japanese politicians, and there's nothing about the other presidential candidates. He's even reached the dubious achievement of being impersonated - there's a show where people bring friends and family on that they think look like so-and-so, and someone brought this tiny dark-skinned kid up who was smiling widely. None of the hosts could guess and neither could I, and finally the katakana オバマ - o ba ma - flashed up on the screen.

I'll head to the store tomorrow because my current diet is woefully unbalanced - primarily curry. The carrots are delicious, good as home-grown - they only come two per bag but they're huge!