because I couldn't sleep in...

Here's a list of things that have amused / surprised / confused me about Kyoto:

-- People walking around with umbrellas on a clear day
-- The near complete lack of litter... especially in light of the near complete lack of convenient trash cans on the streets
-- quadruple burgers at McDonald's
-- shrimp burgers at McDonald's
-- The number of places with bad English in their names (but, of course, this makes me think of "El Pollo Loco")
-- The number of T-shirts with bad English on them (but, of course, this has led to much
speculation among my travel companions about what it is that all the Japanese tattoos in America REALLY say)
-- The stereotypic clusters of schoolgirls in uniforms walking around -- especially the group containing the brave girl who called out "hel-lo, nice to meet you" upon seeing a group of white folk wandering around and then giggled and screamed in glee when I replied "nice to meet you, too."
-- The fact that a red pedestrian light does not coincide with a simultaneous green light on the opposing side of traffic. (Red pedestrian lights seem to indicate that opposing traffic ALMOST has a green light.)
-- Smoking sections in restaurants.
-- Smoking sections RIGHT NEXT to nonsmoking sections. (I remember when California was like this, but I've become spoiled.)
-- Side view mirrors on the hoods of cars instead of next to the doors.
-- The fact that my brain seems to have decided that -- in a pinch -- when I'm having trouble communicating with someone, I should pull out my incredibly poor Spanish to help, no matter what language the person I'm talking to speaks.

I'll continue this list later, and we'll see how Sapporo compares....