Last Weekend in Shinjo

July 24
Woke up, had breakfast, and then headed out to grab my bike from the city office since I had left it there the night before, since drinking and riding your bike is as big a no-no as drinking and driving your car. That only took me a little under forty minutes or so, so I got back and showered, and then headed out again to meet up with Will to do a little shopping.

We were out for maybe an hour or two, finishing up at our third store, when it started to downpour. Will didn't want to wait for it to stop because he wanted to go get Mister Donuts for lunch, so he took off on his bike, and I, being the paranoid insecure dweeb that I am, waited for maybe a minute or two before getting on my bike and following him. I wasn't going to go to Mister Donuts, but home for lunch; I caught up with Will a little bit before Mister Donuts and told him I was going home, and then he decided he didn't want to go to Mister Donuts after all, so we ended up going back to the Kontas, drying off and having lunch with obaa-chan, ojii-chan and Misato.
It had stopped raining by this point, so we headed back out and went to Will's house so he could change his shirt and drop off his wallet and stuff, since he wanted to go back to a random river he had found the other day. We biked to the river and then headed up it a ways on foot, wading through it at some points and at others walking on the rocks on the banks. It was really fun, even though I was going super slow since I didn't want to slip and fall or break an ankle. We turned back after maybe an hour or so, I'm not exactly sure, and then  biked back into town. We went to a bookstore to browse around, and then Will decided he was going home, so he left. I stayed for maybe five more minutes before realizing how sleepy I was, so I biked home too and took a nap.
After that nothing really interesting happened again. I woke up and had dinner, and then organized my luggage a bit, and tried to get online but for some reason the internet wasn't working, so I just listened to music and paced around in my room before going to sleep.


July 25
Obaa-chan woke me up around 8 to have breakfast, so I could eat and get ready in time to go to watch this firemen's drill/competition thing that I guess had something to do with what Mama-chan does for work (she's not a housewife after all like I thought). When I first got there, one of the firemen took me around and showed me all the different types of vehicles they use in rescue operations--ambulence, fire engine, rescue vehicle, stuff like that. It started to rain though, so he had to cut his explanation short, and I went back under the tents to watch the competition. It was between eight different teams of firemen from fire stations around Shinjo and the surrounding towns, and they had to like run a hose down the length of tarmat and hook it up and put out a "fire," from what I could tell. That was kind of cool, but really repetitive and super formal ceremony-like, like all Japanese gatherings, so I was happy when it was over. Shinjo City's team lost though, because it started to downpour right in the middle of their exercise.
After the competition was over, I got to go into the main control room at the fire station and see how they dispatch all the different vehicles to different parts of the city. Then we went home and had some somen noodles for lunch, which was another fun experience because Papa-chan and ojii-chan had built a sort of water chute out of a piece of bamboo, so instead of just eating the noodles off of a platter, we took turns dropping noodles onto the bamboo, and then the rest of us sat around and grabbed the tumbling noodles with chopsticks as they waterfalled by. It was really fun, and you had to be really adroit with your chopsticks if you hoped to catch anything to eat. We didn't have just noodles either, but small tomatoes and some blueberries (which are super hard to catch!) and cucumbers too.
After lunch I went back out to do some solo shopping, going to the hundred-yen shop and a supermarket called Yoku Benimaru. It was super crowded though, so I came back after an hour or so because I was getting claustrophobic. I took a nap, then woke up just in time for dinner, ate dinner, and biked over to Will's house (he's staying with Takahashi-san, one of the guys who works for the education department at the city office) to watch some fireworks. It was a really cool show and I got most of it on video (with some interesting conversation in the background thanks to me and a drunk Will). After the fireworks were over I went back inside with Will and Takahashi-san, and I talked with them and Takahashi-san's wife for a good hour or so before biking home. Takahashi-san biked with me half of the way, until Papa-chan met up with us (Takahashi-san had called him before we left), and then the two of us biked home together. Apparently Takahashi-san and Papa-chan have been friends since school (middle or high school I'm not sure), and now they both work for some part of the city office. Random tidbit of information for you.
Anyway, I got home and wasn't really tired, and the internet still wasn't working, so I listened to music and paced around again until I got sleepy, and then went to bed.