We were visiting our local temple in Kita Kogane which is very cool, especially this time of year when people have been decorating the graves and burning nice smelling incense. The temple grounds are very large - larger than we expected from the view from the road. There are a couple of gates, one of which has a pair of kickass 10 foot tall statues, a long driveway lined with trees and small plants, and about three main temple buildings, in that funky old Japanese style. There’s a lot of foliage around, and apparently at least one snake. As we wandered through the shaded and cool grounds of the temple, we saw quite a few Japanese children, about 4 or 5 year olds, running around with butterfly nets and containers, collecting giant bugs. There were a few supervisory adults too, and the kids were wearing uniform yellow baseball caps, so we assumed it was some sort of school activity. According to Debbie’s nova students beetles are reasonably common pets over here. Anyhoo, as we approached the second gate, we saw a few japanese boys standing around, looking very excited. One of them saw us coming, and put his arms out to stop us and started yelling at us in Japanese - the main thing we could pick up being “suuunaaaaaakuuuuu!”. We circled round to get a view through the gate, and there was a black-brown charcoal coloured snake, about five feet from the boys, curling lazily in a corner. Its body was about the thickness of a toilet roll, and would have stretched out to about 70cm at a guess. The boys were yelling for help from an adult - very excited and curious, but not afraid. Japanese kids are pretty damn cute.

We waited for an adult to show up - he looked a little incredulous until he actually saw the thing. He didn’t seem too worried, so we assumed it was safe to wander through the gate and continue our investigating. The kids and the guy nodded to us as we passed, very friendly (even though Matt was wearing jandals and a tank top, so all 3 of his tattoos were showing). Yeah, so we continued on and explored a very peaceful graveyard, a field behind the temple, and the general surrounds. Very relaxing, and very cool - at least a few degrees cooler than the street, as most of the temple grounds are shaded dirt and cobble. We were made much of the happy calmness by it. We intend to go back soon (it’s only 4 minutes from our flat) and take a whole bunch of photos, which we’ll put up on the website.

So today we’re going to see our first movie in Japan - if we can negotiate getting tickets. “Planet of the Apes” started here last week, so we’re going to go see it in Matsudo. Apparently the theatres there aren’t very big - they only seat 200 people, but that’s what we’re used to from New Zealand. The Mummy 2 is also on here, but it’s called “Hymenoptera 2” or something. Makes it a bit strange when a student says they saw a film on the weekend, then proceeds to describe something that sounds a lot like The Mummy, but has a weird name. It doesn’t help that they can’t remember Brendan Fraser’s name. Yeah, so movie tickets are just a little expensive - 1800 yen apparently, which is $36NZ. Nasty stuff. However, we can console ourselves with the fact that Matt’s doing 4 lessons of overtime tomorrow, Debbie’s doing 8, so that’s 27, 600 yen extra we’ll get on the 15 th of September (it sucks being paid monthly in arrears on the 15 th of the following month. Pants). The other thing we’re doing is picking up our Alien Registration Cards, which will allow us to get a phone (if we choose to - they’re pretty expensive beasties) and video card.

Newsflash update type thing: We saw Planet of the Apes - it was very silly, but enjoyable. It was shown via video projector, rather than film, which was a little disappointing, but it was still fun. We are now fully registered Aliens, and hav signed up for some basic Japanese classes in September - very cheap, as they're taught by volunteers. One cool thing is that the Ward Office (local government) has an international exchange service, which arranges the lessons and stuff, and they also arrange foreigner/japanese bowling tournaments, parties, cooking classes and all sorts of other stuff, most of which is very cheap. Hooray!

Deep fried chicken necks (which look a lot like chicken nuggets on a menu) are actually not bad. Yummy batter, crunchy inside, and gooey yellow spine in the middle. OK, maybe they were disgusting, but we are so starved over here that we ate the whole plate (about 150 grams). We saw a cool article in the Japan Times (English language newspaper) yesterday, all about whales. The picture was of a big fat whale inhaling several different species of fish. The title was something like Whales - A Threat To Our Oceans. It was an ‘opinion’ piece, half a page in a newspaper that only runs at about 25-30 pages. It claimed that the ban on hunting whales was causing overpopulation, and that the evil whales (obese Americans of the sea) were depleting all the species of fish that are used to make delicious sushi and rotten fish market stank. Therefore (the article claimed) Japanese fisherman should have the right, if not moral duty, to harpoon any whales they might spot in the sea (and they must spot a few, what with the overpopulation problem) and make them into whale-burgers. I’m convinced.

We wondered if this means we should start harpooning Japanese salarymen, as they too are overpopulated and eat too many fish.

Life in Japan continues to be too hot, and kinda boring. Apart from scary earthquakes and thunderstorms and giant killer bugs. It was 37 degrees yesterday, and even the Japanese were looking sweaty and complaining (in bad English) in class. 37 was the highest recorded temperature last year, and apparently August is supposed to be hotter than July. Yay. We went to the pub yesterday, and spent vast amounts of money on two beers and a snack. We also joined the local video store, a treasure trove of recent Hollywood blockbusters and the complete series of Ally McLove (McBeal to the Western world) and ER.