choushi river (銚子川), kihoku (紀北町)

last weekend i decided to explore my surrounding area a bit to get a better idea of what is in store for me over the next 11+ months. i spent saturday biking around my town. though my employer, the kihoku board of education, gave me a bicycle to use, it's really not in any shape to be ridden at all (two flat tires, broken treads, and a rusty chain would make riding quite difficult). luckily, this really nice lady that works at the liquor store offered to lend me one of her extra bikes while i live here. score!

trains only leave my town every 2 hours :(

my town is so small that i can literally bike around the whole thing (im talking perimeter, baby) in less than a half an hour. saturday's bike ride took longer than that, though, because i wanted to scope out the place too. i discovered that this place has multiple rivers, multiple shrines, and exactly one shoe store. yay?

owase city (尾鷲市)

posing in owase city (尾鷲市)

sunday i decided to check out owase (尾鷲市), which is just one train station away from me. i walked around a lot of the city in the blazing heat and found a 100-yen store (much like dollar stores in america), a couple karaoke places, and even a mcdonalds. ive been told owase has the only mcdonalds in mie this far south. though i usually dont eat fast food cause its rarely pescatarian-friendly, i had to stop in to see what their japanese menu looks like. i found out that japanese mcdonalds serve shrimp sandwiches and cups of corn. weird.

mcdonalds in japan sell shrimp (海老) sandwiches