2015-03-09, A Bike = Freedom

2015-03-09, A Bike = Freedom
I bought a bike!  Yeah!!!
Sunday, which was supposed to be a rainy day, turned out to be beautiful.  It was sunny and fairly warm  (2 layers, unzipped winter jacket and no gloves warm - not California warm).  I took a bus to a shopping center that has a do-it-yourself/home center, a department store, supermarket and on the other side of the parking lot I think there is a furniture store.  Across the street is Lake Biwa (Biwako) so I finally saw it.  It's 200km around, so I guess around 130 miles or so, and on the other side I could see mountains, some still snow capped.
I found indoor sneakers for the exercise class on Fridays (you take off your outdoor shoes when you enter community centers) and rain boots.  I decided to wait on snow boots until next year.  I wandered around the home center looking at dishes, laundry accessories, etc. and then went over to the bicycle section.  It seems that silver is the desired color for a bike here so I was hoping to find one of another color so it would stand out and be easy to find.  In the inexpensive section there was one dark maroon, 2 whites and the rest were silver.  I splurged and paid and extra $10 for a white bike.  There is a lot of paperwork to go through and the two young men (along with their cellphone dictionaries) and I struggled through.  It also has to be registered with the police in case of theft.  That done, I wandered around the store some more (since I now had a bike to carry my things home in), had lunch at the great little food court MacDonald s, takoyaki (dough balls with octopus), okonomiyaki (savory pancakes with cabbage), yakisoba (fried noodles), 3 types of ramen, a stamina bowl (garlic flavored pork on rice) and a mini chicken katsu (fried pork) on rice with cabbage which is what I had.  Note to self - they had melon soda floats.
I decided I could muster the will power to walk through the supermarket 'just to check it out'.  Of course it didn't turn out that way, it's sort of like going to the SPCA just to see who's there....  so I picked up dinner, and some vegetables, and made myself leave before things got too far out of hand.
Went back to get my bike, and a basket for the rear (it came with a front basket) which will be handy while I'm still picking things up and if I need to carry heavy things.  I can take if off easily if I find I don't use it often.  I rode along the lake for a little while.  I don't know if it's because it's winter, or the fact that I much prefer swimming in oceans to swimming in lakes, but the water and shore didn't look at all appealing.  I heard there are nice beaches in some of the southern towns.
Problem.  I was going back a different way than I came.  Because I wanted to ride along the lake, and because I wouldn't have been able to figure out how to get back the way I came.  I knew that if I took a left - somewhere - I would end up on the school's street (most streets in smaller towns in Japan don't have street names, or at least they're not written anywhere) but I had no idea on which street to turn left....  So I turned, wandered, asked a few people and made it home without going too far out of my way.  Yeah for me.  If I knew where to turn it probably would only take 10 - 15 minutes so I will probably go there once a month or so just for a change of supermarkets.
I put away my groceries (sashimi for dinner again - yum) and headed to the Y100 to get dishes.  But ended up at the thrift store across the street...  Picked up some food storage containers, a pretty plate and a tray and went to the Y100 shop where I bought things other than dishes.  Again.  That was enough for the day, so I washed and put everything away, took in my laundry had a yummy sashimi dinner and listened to a book.
Since I don't have anyway see/hear a weather forecast I hoped that even though it was overcast it wouldn't rain and decided 1) not to wear my new rain boots and 2) to ride my bike to work.  Around 7 or 8 pm I heard the rain.  By the time I left around 9:30 it had lightened up and wasn't raining too hard.   I heard that we might get snow the next few days.  Maybe I should have looked for snow boots!