Salt is not a spice

   Today was beautiful and warm out - 60 degrees. It was also really windy. I decided to go for a walk and explore the side roads north of my apartment.

   As soon as I left the main road, I found farms. Each plot of land is pretty small; nothing like big corporate farms that you see in the Midwest. Some of them were pretty big, like the one above, and others were little vegetable gardens grown in someone's yard.

   There were also plots of land with these yellow wildflowers growing on them. I think they are wildflowers, anyway. They seem to grow in rectangular plots, so maybe they are planted on purpose to re-fertilize the soil.

   In some ways, the town reminds me of upstate New York. There are some older, Japanese-style houses (these are usually the ones attached to land), and then there are a few modern suburban houses mixed in. Some houses also look like they are built from concrete and sheet metal. Those generally look pretty run down. 

   There are also a few abandoned buildings that used to be restaurants or pachinko places. There are a lot of little restaurants that look like if you walked in, you would be the only customer. Then when you get back to the main road, you find the bigger restaurants, including chain restaurants. The convenience stores are as densely distributed as Starbucks in NYC.

   I also spotted a "European-style Club! Your safety is guaranteed! (安心!　安全!)"
   Reassuring.

   I found a supermarket that is about a 20 minute walk from my apartment. I bought a big box of salt there. It was in the same aisle as sugar and soy sauce.
   Unfortunately, parmesan cheese was too expensive, so my pasta tonight will feel incomplete. I've been frying cherry tomatoes with garlic and mushing them into a paste, though, and that makes a pretty delicious sauce.
   I also purchased some cheap coffee. It's too late to drink it today, but tomorrow I'll see if it's any good!

   I've been driving for the past couple of days, and it is mostly fine but occasionally harrowing. Of course the right/left switch is disconcerting. My main problem, however, is traffic lights and street signs. There are no stop signs or speed limit signs - those things are written on the road itself. The traffic lights are horizontal instead of vertical. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but the mere fact that they look different from what I'm used to makes it harder for my brain to notice them. Plus, for some reason, about half the time they hang the traffic light over the right lane - which is the lane I'm not driving in! This also makes them harder to notice. Well, I'll get used to that. But today I came to a traffic sign that was red on top, and then on the bottom, the left arrow, straight arrow, and right arrow were all green! I slowed down and was about to stop when the guy behind me helpfully beeped, telling me to go ahead. I went. I checked that he followed behind me, confirming that he really was telling me to go.

   Stop unless you are going in any of the directions available for you to go.