Silkworms 101

Cute little worms

http://www.life.uiuc.edu/plantbio/digitalflowers/Moraceae/12.htm

The Empress was holding a giant tub of thingies and I didn't know what she was doing, then they zoomed in on thousands of little squirming wormies... eeee. She dumped them into a multi-compartmented cardboard-looking tray with hundreds of little teepees of leaves on it.

Wormies in silk cocoons

http://beifan.com/006wux/6wuxi.html

They picked up the cocoons with a giant lint-roller looking thing and then scraped them off into pans of... water?

Eventually the silk was spun off of the cocoons. It was a bum deal for the worms.

Other news from this neck of the woods... I had an international meal last night -- sushi and doritos. I like the tuna sushi, but have limited tolerance for the rest of them. 5 is the limit. It's a good price here -- 500 yen for 15 sushi rolls. I caught some more late-night sumo, I like the little purple guy and he won a round. Some guys in the lab have been helping me along in my sumo education, and I have learned that the little procedure at the end where the winner squats in the corner and moves his arm around before taking a little white package is where he draws the Kanji for "mind" in the air and then takes his winnings. The flag ceremony before the match tells how much money the match is worth. It's a lot!

When I went grocery shopping yesterday I was entertained again at all of the fervent stares I get, especially from little kids. I don't blame them, when I was riding in the car with Atsuko the other day I saw a blonde girl crossing the street and was just as amazed. I also stare in wonderment at foreigners.

Well I'm determined to go to church this morning and will set out for attempt number three. I thought I had figured out the times, but when I headed there at 8am with my dictionary I discovered that it was actually 8pm and 9am (they write right to left here as well, rather confusing for a gajin)... but at 9am it still looked pretty quiet so I used my babytalk Japanese to ask the nice guy cutting weeds across the road, "Today? Church? What time? 9am?" But alas he pointed to another sign that I had no hope of reading and said church starts at 10am. Well I think that's what he said. Hehe. Off for another adventure!