This week while looking at the calendar, I had the feeling that I was forgetting something. While typing an e-mail, I suddenly thought, "Oh! It's the Fourth of July!" Obviously no fireworks or Stars & Stripes flying here to remind me!
This week Eriya helped me buy a dishwasher from a Japanese auction site (kind of like Ebay). It's being shipped directly here and should arrive early next week. I decided that's one convenience appliance that I'm going to splurge on (ok, call me a lazy American if you must, but I HATE washing dishes!). Dishwashers here are almost always countertop style, which obviously makes them smaller than the ones in the US, but the product description said it was large enough to hold all the dishes dirtied by a family of four at dinner time, so it should be plenty big! (It will also make it easier to keep things clean when my groups of international guests start arriving-hurray, coming soon! Hmm, that kind of sounded like I'm being invaded by foreigners-I REALLY AM excited for my guests to arrive!)
This afternoon there was a HUGE rain storm. It was a little bit hot this morning/early afternoon. Later in the afternoon, suddenly it got darker and shortly after that it looked like someone was pouring buckets out of the sky. And what was strange for someone used to Oregon weather: it was still warm while it was raining.
Tomorrow, one of my students from church and her husband are taking me to Karuizawa. All the locals here say that it's a beautiful place, so it should be a great trip. It's a resort town many people visit during the summer to get away from the city (Tokyo specifically, but probably other cities too). Besides the usual natural landscape of the mountains here, it also has an active volcano, although I'm not exactly sure HOW active. I think currently it just has some occasional smoke and steam plumes, so I'm not expecting lava shooting into the sky, but of course I'll have my camera with me in case there's anything more spectacular.
