Right across the street from our house is a mental hospital, and since we are its closest neighbors, we decided to pop across the street to their summer festival. There were more people than we expected. Half the neighborhood came along to join the families of the patients.
I had to switch into genki teacher-mode when a bunch of my kindergarten children spotted me. Fortunately, with Rikuto squirming in my arms, I was able to avoid any unwanted kanchos.
We all lined up in front of the hospital, which has its windows all barred up to keep the patients from “escaping”. The guys on the roof were setting up the fireworks for later.
Most of the patients were already in their seats and watching the evening’s festivities.
There were a few fun games to keep people entertained. Here’s the ever popular baseball pitching game.
And food and drink stalls.
Unfortunately, not all the patients were content with sitting down and watching everybody else. I was quickly greeted by one gentlemen who wouldn’t leave me alone. I couldn’t understand much of his Japanese, and he certainly couldn’t understand my responses. He was fascinated by my foreign-ness and waffled on about “igirisu-go” (”Britain” language), and whether English people could understand each other with their hearts.
Moving from stall to stall, still with Rikuto squirming in my arms, this curious patient kept following, talking, and was becoming frustrated that I couldn’t understand him. It was a shame, but both Mami and I agreed that we had no choice but to head home, just 30 minutes after arriving.
Of course, going home was no big deal since we literally live across the street. Don’t believe me? I took this photo from my office window.
I know it’s not the best of views, but until this summer, the building was hidden by trees. When they came to cut back the branches, they went a bit overboard! So, at our request, they covered their windows with blinds to stop the patients peering across the street into our living room!
Anyway, we finished the evening by watching the fireworks out the window before Rikuto fell asleep on his big pink futon.
Supermarket chain, Tesco, is where I used to buy baked beans for as little as 8p (16 yen) a can. I believe you can still find tins of the little beans in tomato sauce for 10p (20 yen). Even a can of the brand name, 
9,872 former Japanese exchange students recently took part in a nationwide poll by the Japanese Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Of the respondents who had lived in the UK, a whopping 93.8% rated British food as “bland”, and as “edible as poisoned Chinese gyouza”. The source of this poll has yet to be verified, but I won’t let that get in the way of a good story.
You don’t have to wait for Japan to accept baked beans as the natural alternative to every other food, you can order a tin of the original, 84 yen Heinz Baked Beans via 
If you are in Japan, you have probably already seen the bright yellow notices plastered all over the country’s cigarette vending machines. At first, I thought it was some fancy advertising campaign, but instead, they are announcing the launch of “taspo”, an ID card embedded with an IC (integrated circuit) chip containing information proving the owner is at least 20 years old (the legal age for purchasing cigarettes).
This is probably a really geeky topic, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we all have a favorite font. Maybe it’s the font you use when you write email, or the font you usually pick for a Word document. At some point, we have all chosen a typeface that looks good and feels good. Indeed, your font is a fashion statement for the web.
