special update from mediateque in sendai

Yes, it`s true. I am currently exploiting free internet in a large media museum called Mediateque in the bustling city of Sendai in northern Japan. Pulling into Sendai on the Shinkansen was almost like entering Tokyo on the night bus--it really is big compared to the others around here. It`s funny how most Japanese cities look the same, or at least share so much infrastructure in common that it`s often a laborious task to point out the uniquenesses. That is, unless you examine the products for sale in the o-miyage (souvenir) shops. Every city, and often enough every town, usually has their own meibutsu (special product) that is shamelessly advertised all over the place, and usually comes in small packages arranged neatly in a pretty box. Examples are sudachi (small lime)- flavored cakes and liquors (Tokushima), fish-shaped cakes filled with red bean or green tea paste or even cheese (Miyajima), soft rice wraps filled with anything from chocolate banana to strawberry to the ubiquitous red bean (Kyoto), minced fish shaped into a bamboo leaf (Sendai), beer and milk products and chocolate (Sapporo), and the list goes on. Meibutsu are extremely well-known, and often enough people will travel to a place simply to taste the local food.
I am just perusing the city today, which is in a sick way refreshing after being out in the countryside where the trains run every hour instead of every 5 minutes. I might also take advantage of the metropolitan atmosphere and purchase a recharger for my powerless cellphone. Funny, i bought the thing to use while traveling and i immediately lost the charger. The matron of the new hostel is very nice, and her half-English compliments nicely my half-Japanese. Tomorrow i visit Matsushima, a collection of hundreds of variously-shaped islands and a big tourist attraction, much like every place to go in Japan. Touristy-ness aside, it`s usually fun! Once you get past the stifling commercialism.