the bikes are together

and diana and i spent the day riding around sapporo on them. what a day its been. we`ve now got the hang of riding on the opposite side of the road. everyone in japan rides bikes and they all ride on the sidewalk. and it works. we saw women in dresses, men in suits, moms with kids and lots and lots of young people on bikes. and the bike parking! i have never, ever seen so may bikes parked everywhere in my life. and its all free. however, if you park your bike the wrong way, say parallel to the street, a bike police man (volunteer?) comes and moves your bike into the proper position, into the proper place. diana and i made this mistake today only to come back to find our bikes in a different place, right in line with all the hundreds of other bikes. keep in mind, whoever moved our bikes had to move them together as they were locked to one another. obviously it was not a problem.

along with the overwhelming number of bicycles, the food selection in japan is simply unbelievable. we went to visit what we thought would be a basement vending machine center in a fancy shopping mall (many, many people shop at vending machines and often they are located in the basement of shopping centers)but what we found was the most over the top selection of every type of food you can imagine. pickled vegetables of every kind, sushi, fancy cakes and ice cream, and the most beautifully packaged food ever. we took many pictures of the eager groups of people lining up for samples, which were abundant and eagerly given out. we gladly participated in the chance to eat in public with the rest of the folks, because, if you don:t know, japanese people do not eat or drink in public, while walking in the street, shopping, or doing whatever people do when they are snacking. we didnt see even one person on the street with even so much as an open bottle of water. except for us. we broke all the rules today and ate as much great food and drink as we could and we did it in public. it was the first time since arriving that people looked at us, and it was with a bit of a dont you know any better look.

at any rate, we are set to leave for the mountains tomorrow and we will post as soon as we can. were taking an early morning train and should be on our bikes by the afternoon heading towards the very middle of hokkaido for our first night of camping in japan. i think theres still snow in the mountains where were going so it will be much colder than the 90 degree weather that weve had here in sapporo. japan is wonderful!