Oscar the Grouch

I am unhappy to report that the rainy season has started here. Good bye sunshine, we will see you in a few weeks. It will rain for about a month here. Not Vancouver rainy weather, but hot humid sticky rain that gets into your apartment and leaves you feeling damp and sticky. Plus creating a lovely haven for mold to flourish. Lovely....

Packing Report
One box of winter clothes ready to be sent. Two boxes almost ready to be sent, upteenth more to be found and packed with stuff...aiya...

I did not get yelled at by the garbage men this morning. This is a first for me. One of the most negative feelings I have about Japan stems from dealing with sorting my garbage. Not the actual physical process but the terror I have in confronting the men who take it from me. To make a long explanation short, garbage is divided into two types, burnable and non-burnable. Well, twice a month you take your non-burnable garbage to a community gathering place and put it into its assorted piles. I dread going and thus save it all up for one trip every 2 months. When I go there, I always manage to have my garbage thoroughly searched and bags ripped apart because I have somehow not sorted it right no matter how hard I try. I read the instruction book on garbage sorting and follow it religously but alas for the most part I get yelled at by these old men who sit there eyeing me suspiciously while I try to inconspicuously put it into its respective piles.

Well this morning, with my shoulders slouched in the anticipated tongue lashing in rapid fire Japanesee, I put my bags down and then promptly eye one of the old men pounce on it. He then proceeds to say something and I automatically pavlovian style say, "sumimasen, gomenasai"...only to realise that that was not my bag of garbage. I then proudly look at him with an air of defiance and say, that is not mine. This is the first time in 2 years that they did not pull apart MY bag in front of me and make me re-sort it into the "proper" piles all the while yelling to me in Japanese....triumph over the "garbage meanies"...