Differences, Frustrations, and Hiko-nyan

I've been asked by a few people already what I think of Japan. I tell them, from the air--in the airplane--it already looked different. And it is a different world just about anywhere you may venture.
But it is beautiful nonetheless.

I spent a good part of the day on and off a bicycle exploring the local area with our traveling group. It poured rain the entire time. Here's where the frustration comes in. If it wasn't difficult enough to huddle together in the bike shelter to fill out forms to get our bikes, confuse the entire wait-staff at the restaurant we went to with our non-Japanese food ordering skills, and get lost from the group leading the way for the umpteenth time...


...the rain really well added to the mix!

But I enjoyed every minute of the day yesterday until I crashed into bed at around 8:30 PM.

One last thing. I wanted to introduce everyone to Hiko-nyan, which a play on the name of the town Hikone and the onomatopoeia for meowing in Japanese. He's the little mascot of Hikone here, and a whole ton of these little fellows greeted us at the entrance to the mall we visited yesterday. All sorts of keychains, T-shirts, beach towels, you name it, he was there looking cute.

Hiko-nyan is the town hero, you see. In 1857, shortly after defeating the dreaded lake Biwa giant squid, he moved the Hikone castle from one large hill to the next adjacent one, brick by brick, just because someone bet him he couldn't. After that, he retired to a cave and slept for 150 years, and has now awoken to defend the city against the aliens foretold by the ancient stones.

Or it could just be that he's a highly marketable and cute mascot.