The Irony of Ironing Non-Iron Shirts

AM

Least: Between 10:40am and about 10:55am, I sweated through the ironing of three non-iron shirts. The thin, chemical fabric is supposed to breathe and allow the lucky wearer to airily breeze through the day without fear of sweat-through. Even wearing a breathier undershirt, the sweat still beads on my forearms reaching the surface layer in an instant. Sometimes, I look as though I may have been washing dishes. I'd wear a short-sleeve shirt, but with a tie, I think I look like someone who's come to fix the photocopier.

Most: Somewhere around 11:50am, I went on my almost daily stroll up to the Family Mart. Today there were two queues of tradesmen. All were in the strict uniform of a flannel do-rag and massively inflated pants. As usual they had cleaned out the refrigerated shelves of food so I settled for a tray of egg-laden sushi and inari. I completed my lunch with some red miso soup with a couple of pipi-sized clams lurking in the bottom. It will be interesting to see how many of the next 9 hours the feed will fuel me for.

PM

Least: Between 3:45pm and 8:00pm, I fell victim once again to the global financial crisis. With so many teachers around and slightly less students, doing 'light office work' can rule for hours. Today it was in Kishiwada adding promotional materials to packets of tissues. It is incredibly common to be offered tissues on the street, but incredibly uncommon to see people emptying their noses in public. The underbelly of the recession is pretty far from interesting - especially when it's happening to me.

Most: Relieved of my working duties at 9:35pm, I legged it to the station to find that I'd missed the express train to Tengachaya. The next best, and more interesting option was to board the Rapi:t B for an extra 500yen. The Rapi:t B is a very interesting and fast machine. It has the face or a 1970s anime robot and the innards of the inside of a sleazy private jet from the same decade. The internet tells me that the Nankai 5000 series were designed by an architect with the design theme 'Outdated Future' and began rolling in 1995.