a sunny afternoon

One of the wonderful things about living in a foreign country is the little surprises you can encounter on a daily basis. Today I spent a nice sunny Sunday walking around my neighborhood. On the way to a coffeeshop, I found this - a dark den of delights. Or actually, a vending den of delights. A large beer vending machine sat in the front (note the "cameras are watching you" sign - they were watching ...).



Behind that was a ... wine bottle vending machine? Is that cooking wine?



Plus some vaguely pornographic electronic slot machines, I'm not sure Blogger would approve of me putting those up, but that's what's all the way back there, on the left.



In the coffeeshop, a red panic button in an otherwise country home-style bathroom.



My darling Hanna sent me sweet Korean-style shirts for my birthday - also, I got new glasses.



And here's me snowboarding last weekend ~



Today's Japanese word - お土産　-　おみやげ　ー　omiyage - it means gift. I think the second character 土　- mi - is the same character in 土曜日 - douyobi, which means Saturday. The character itself means earth. Very interesting that "earth" would be in the kanji for "gift".