Hikone is really a very pretty place now that I have gone out and done a little more poking around. The routes I've stuck to so far, mostly between JCMU and the grocery store, are all completely urban, so there wasn't a whole lot to look at besides crowded housing. However today I went in the opposite direction, which lead me to the realization that the JCMU facilities are right on the edge of town, because I only went about a hundred feet and suddenly the city dropped away. I saw a lot of rice fields, lots of open space, running right off to the base of the near by mountains.

It's been getting warm, with pretty high humidity. I usually can't see much of the mountains, even though they're only a couple miles away because all the water in air creates a pretty thick haze most days. Usually I can't see to the other side of Lake Biwa either because it gets too thick to see through after a few hundred yards. At least I'm pretty that haze is made of water… It has neither the loathsome stink of industrial pollution, nor that tingling feeling that means it eating holes in my epidermis. That and the fact I don't recall seeing any industrial complexes belching smoke out there among the rice paddies.

Which leads me to my interesting vending machine siting of the day. I haven't seen anything too strange yet, just beverage vending machines every two or three feet, as well as an ice cream machine over at the train station. However today I saw a row of vending machines that dispensed rice. Ten pound bags of it. To top that, the one at the end didn't even sell it in bags, but in those traditional straw casks. The first ones I could understand. You're on you're way home and realize you need to buy some rice. Instead of having to go into town to the grocery store, (where finding a place to park within three miles of the store would probably be a problem) you just hit the vending machines. It's just that the straw casks seemed a little weird. A vending machine for those who eschew the vagaries of modern life… um… someone here might be missing the point, although once again it could just be me.

English quote of the day: "With appropriate density and electrolyte fluid that is close to that of human body fluid." (off the side of a can of Pocari Sweat - the japanese answer to Gatorade). I had a lot less trouble drinking this stuff before I read the can.