Tue Aug 22 01:47:15 2000
To: suzanne a
From: "Peter M. Rivard"
Subject: Snow cones
>How many ice cubes does it take to make a snow cone, Pete?
One--but it's a doozy (it comes with a mold to make ice cakes that fit into the machine--it takes very little effort to work it, and it's the best ¥699 I ever spent). ...
...then went bowling! Apparently some Brunswick exec figured out how to market to the Japanese in the 60s, so there are alleys all over the place, and a lot of bowlers. Oddities: the shoes are in vending machines, and the holes in the balls are far too small for big white guy fingers. They did have some with big holes, but only the lightest and heaviest balls. My friend Yoko is an avid bowler--she's got a dozen "how to bowl" books and videos (in Japanese) and took lessons for a couple of years before she moved out of Japan. She is a very slim, stylish, elegant looking woman, completely the antithesis of American bowling stereotypes, and I find the mental picture of her bowling quite amusing. I'm sure she'd wipe the floor with me. To study it so assiduously, though, is completely Japanese (there are also karaoke schools--some men train for years so at that important drunken binge with the boss or client they can be sure to make a good impression and not embarrass the firm ....