A bit about my town.

Just got back from camping in the mountains and I'm a little too tired to talk about that so I'm going to talk about the places around town I frequently go to by bike.

Mine: 4 floors, basically the town's mall. 1st floor is a grocery store and a few other restaurants and retail shops. 2nd floor is mostly clothes shopping, a book store and a 100 yen store (equivalent to that of an American dollar store which much more interesting stuff). The 3rd floor is parking and the 4th floor is an arcade. A lot of kids hang out here after school to eat, shop and take purikura. I usually spend time in the book store, 100 yen store, cute school supplies/accessory store and wander around some of the clothing stores.

Recycle Shop: Next to Mine, sells second hand and new items, everything from clothes to electronics to house wares to accessories to guitars to fishing gear to school supplies, super cheap! They also play a lot of American music, like new KeSha, Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry and older music including songs from Eminem and "This is Why I'm Hot". I have to resist the urge to sing along to some of the music, cause it's in English :P On a side not, the second store of the building, above the Recycle shop is an internet and manga cafe. I walked around for a second, but I really have no use for it.

GEO: Discount manga/movie rentals/video games/music on one side and a Big Lot's type deal on the other side. They have a kinda creepy mascot guy.

100 Yen store: heaven.

Don Don Down on Wednesday: A second-hand clothing and accessory store, with a cute fruit and vegetable tag system that indicates the price of the item. For example, suika/watermelon tagged items are 100 yen, wile kinoko/mushroom ones are 300 yen and so on. The building is bright yellow and has a black guy's face on it (who I assume is their mascot; Don). On Wednesday, all the prices are a little cheaper. I've shopped there a few times and one of the clerks gave me a points card. It gets stamped with every 100yen/dollar I spend and if I spend 5000 yen/$50 I will get 500 yen/$5 off, I don't think I'm going to spend that much there though. I thought it was kind of amusing how she gave me one even though it was probably clear I didn't really know what she was saying.

Ice Cream shop: I don't remember the name of it, but it is a small, organic ice cream shop started by local house wives. It is very cute, and I tried sea salt ice cream there. It was really yummy, the owner and creator of all the flavors said it is their most popular flavor.

The Mall (Mine) and the Recycle Shop

Down the street past the mall

Udon Shop

Pachinko

Ice Cream Shop

Interesting collection of statues at this shop.

Biking on the way to Mine

More of the street and the GEO Mascot

Pretty much the scariest thing I have ever seen. And they are all over the town. I think it's *supposed* to be a raccoon/tanuki and bring in good luck and can be seen outside of restaurants. This one just happens to be 5 feet tall.