I found out that ginkgo trees are common in California. (Thanks for the info, Elaine!) They may also be common in Oregon, and I just didn't know what they were before I came to Japan so I didn't notice them. It's kind of interesting that Wikipedia mentions that wild ginkgo trees in their natural environment are rare, and may be limited to one small forest in China--strange.
Well, I kind of forgot about Mr. Buri, the cockroach. But, when I looked in his little plastic prison on Sunday, he was still alive. I mentioned him to my conversation class students in my Sunday morning class (yesterday) and one of the students said that gokiburi hate soap. I was surprised, and to be honest, incredulous (To my students who read this: that's a good word for advanced vocabulary. The dictionary says, "incredulous: unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true; skeptical".) But since it was so big that I didn't want to smash it, and I didn't have any bug spray, I decided to try some soap. I opened the top of the container a little, and squeezed some dish soap into the box. As soon as it touched Mr. Buri, he started running around the container like crazy and thrashing around. I quickly closed the lid. When I checked a while later, he was dead. I just did a search on the Internet, and several sites list soap as being a good, natural cockroach "poison". Also, if you smash a cockroach, sometimes that spreads its very small eggs, which can still hatch, so one site recommended against that. So, there you have it! (By the way, I threw the box with the late Mr. Buri in the trash; I was certainly not going to use it anymore. If you come to visit my house, you don't have to worry about that...) I think that will be the end of gokiburi discussions for a long time (I hope!)
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