Sitting in a Funabashi McDonalds – a strange mix of greasy fast food Americana buried inside this slightly upscale veneer. The way it always is – those remnants in my head, memories of the world I left clash with the world that I live in. Polished marble tables and sleek curved wooden chairs, frosted windows and hanging aluminum lamps – like something from a moderately upscale café, and it all somehow clashes with pseudo-neo-fifties pop dripping from the speakers and the green plastic trays and white, red and yellow paper cups that have always symbolized greasy food and cheap plastic toys. Ronald McDonald with a tight fitting cotton mesh shirt and a goatee.

No one around me seems to notice – why would they? I imagine McDonalds has always been some kind of exotic theme-park restaurant to the Japanese. And the prices are certainly moderately upscale – five bucks for a large fry and a Coke?! It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that McDonalds could mean something other than cheap, greasy fingers slipping on the clear plastic wrapper of the Happy Meal toy.

It's been a busy week - the Tuscaloosa delegation is here, and I've been running to all the various welcome parties and such. Busy, but not so bad, and it's nice to see everyone.

I had kindergarten yesterday. Those days are always the highlight of my week, and yesterday was no different. Four and five year olds have that beautiful innocence – their minds aren’t yet polluted by modern irony. It’s refreshing really, everyone sitting around just making observations rather than trying to make a point or sound clever.

I ate school lunch with them, and they just chatted away. Yes, we do eat fries with our hands – hamburgers too, but, then again, we use the wrapper. And snakes are scary and yucky. And none of us understand German. And it’s okay to eat the skin of the fish, but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. And it’s okay to peel it off with your hands.

The teacher was about my age, and kind of cute.

Michael