Blessed by the Potato

At least three times now I’ve meant to go out for ice cream (once leading an expedition for it), and three times we’ve found all the places we could find closed up. Today I finally went to the place that had the fancy crepes and ice cream, and got myself a tiny bowl. It was much more expensive than I thought: 300 Yen (~$3) for a tiny, tiny little scoop. It was really good orange ice cream though (not quite sure if it was sherbert, gelato, or something else… I think its closest to a traditional sherbert), so I think I might go back this afternoon before they close on me again, or maybe tomorrow morning, and spring for the 1100 Yen crepe + 2 scoops + toppings. Plus I probably should try the green tea flavour (thankfully this particular store doesn’t trade in whale flavour).

Yesterday, Dave completely lost his mind. Too many nights in a row drinking and not sleeping, and all of a sudden he was giggling like a madman at anything. As he was trying out the TMS stimulator, he was giggling uncontrollably. At dinner, he nearly lost it laughing over the picture of the sausage in the menu. This, I assure you, was not a normal giggling fit, but clearly one that bordered on madness. Actually, it lay on the madness side of the border, so I should say it bordered on sanity. Despite desperately needing to sleep, when he got back to the hotel he stayed up until dawn (which, to be fair, is at 4 am here — I don’t think they’re in the right timezone for their longitude) uploading photos to facebook.

Facebook, meanwhile, has started to scare me. They have all these stories, pictures, information on links and relationships between people, and chintzy gifts. The only purpose I can see for all this is that they aim to slowly replace us with robots, or perhaps pod-grown versions of ourselves, and this information is necessary for the first wave to fit in without drawing undue alarm.

For dinner tonight we found an out-of-the way Italian restaurant that was fantastic. It only had two tables and seating at the bar for about 6, but the food was really quite good, even by Canadian standards of Italian food. I had a plain penne with arrabiata, and Gen had linguini with salmon and I think a pesto sauce. The proprieter was a very friendly old woman who spoke 4 languages (including passable English). Like many places, we had a bit of trouble walking out with a receipt: it seems to be a pretty foreign concept here, at least for food.

For all those who doubted its existence, behold: bacon bread!