Last night I went for a bike ride around Takatsu, one station further down the line from mine. I just picked a direction, and rode for about a half hour. While riding, I found all sorts of interesting things, like the tanuki in the photo above with the police car aimed at its head. Takatsu has to be the most desolate, boring area I’ve come across in Japan, it’s nothing to write home about. It’s like that area of the suburbs where the apartments start to look the same and you can find vast lots of unused paved space, maybe a tumble weed or two. However, it is the location of the closest(walking distance from apartment) discount second-hand bookstore, “Book Super,” which sports a cartoon owl reading a book. This has to be the coolest place to go on a lazy day, because it doesn’t just sell books(well, more manga than books…), it also has isles of old used toys and games. I love browsing through all the old Japanese movie monsters and robots. They have some American toys too, like Star Wars figures and Ninja Turtles. When you walk in, on your right is a little candy display with childrens toys and 20 Yen candies, and on the left are used music CDs, video games, and movies. Tonight I bought a second hand Super Famicom(Nintendo) and two games to play in my free time. I also got some little toy monsters which I plan to use in some crazy stop-motion animation. Oh ya, and I found corn candy. Yes, little packets of hard candy which taste exactly like corn in a can. I bought enough to mail home to everyone. When you eat them, you can think to yourself, “Wow, Japanese food is AMAZING.”

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