Bike

My bike (which I just realized I have no pictures of) is my primary means of getting around town. And my host family bought it for me, which was awesome.

It's still a piece of overweight steel. All Japanese bikes that aren't a gajillion yen or more tend to be. This one was about 12800 yen. And for some reason, even though the Japanese have the most disposable income on the whole planet per capita, they like really cheap bikes. A Japanese bike is like an American muscle car, decent enough in a straight line, but try throwing it into a turn without being careful and you can/will eat asphalt. God help you if it's not fresh asphalt. The thing is top heavy, especially with a six foot gaijin on top, and has absolutely no shock absorbers. So it's not even really the best in a straight line. I guess I could trim a few kilos by taking off the wheel caps and the basket. The brakes would still be a little sticky, the gears would still all feel sloppy, and the frame would still be hugely overwrought, but a little bit of weight goes a long way, and I think the handling improvement would be half decent. I would also not have to push as much torque into the initial few pedals, which tend to be a strength test on even the lowest gears. A set of much wider tires would also be nice. These dainty little road tires make the whole overweight affair even less stable and therefore infinitely more awful.

Remember the bikes in Tanzania, family people? Next step of quality up. At least this baby has brakes.

Thank whatever deity that, at the very least, Ichinomiya has absolutely no hills. If I threw this bike into a few of the 90 degree uphill turns I abuse my Gary Fisher with at home, I would be more scarred up and broken than the time I forgot to wear skate pads and bombed Conservation Avenue's Far Side.

But hey, it was free. So I can't complain.

Dinner was the Japanese equivalent of a casserole, with a schfancy bento on the side. Not bad.