I'm going to have to re-read some of the old Conrad books I have. It may mean more to me now that I am here in the tropics. Back when I was in the Frozen North I couldn't get past the snow banks that lined the road and the drifts that filled the walks.

Today we went out to buy a sewing machine. For the last week and a half they have been advertising a sale at the local craft shop. We headed out innocently enough. We knew that Ward's mother would be there and Gordon wanted to get one for his daughter-almost-in-law.

Our first intimation that we were getting in over our heads was when we got caught in traffic as we approached the shop. Ben Franklin, the shop has a most imposing name, sits on a sleepy side street with a number of other small shops and a large sporting goods shop. Mark's Honda car sales facility is split by the street and people sometimes use the car lot for parking when going into the shops.

Now however the street was crowded with slow moving cars. There were people headed into Ben Franklin and coming out laden with boxes. We managed to get a parking spot and headed in. Coming through the main door we could see the store was busier than normal but there was nothing to indicate the crowded parking lots. But we could also hear the crowd in the back of the store.

They had cleared out the middle of the place and set up two long tables at right angles to each other. There were demonstrator models set up along the tables. People, mostly women, were crowded around the machines, poking and prodding, asking questions and examining bits of cloth with a critical eye. On the other side of the opening were stacks of boxes on wooden pallets and more tables with cash registers on them. A line ran from that table to the back of the store and around the back wall and up the side wall to the demonstrator tables. Ben Franklin is a large store. There were a lot of people in there. The air conditioning was running full blast and could barely keep up with the humidity thrown off by that many people.

We were fortunate. Ward and his mother were there and Ward's mother had been in line for an hour. She was close to the registers so we had her buy a machine for us. Gordon did too. Unfortunately they had run out of the cheapest models and we had to buy the more expensive one but, we have a machine!

While talking in the crowd we realized that the Japan Festival was going on down at Ypao Beach Park. This was the third one since We came to the island and we had not yet been to see it. We decided, since we were into crowds today, to head on down.

Approaching the park we saw signs warning us that the parking lots were full and advising that free buses would carry us from various other parking lots. We tried anyway and got lucky. We found a spot in the parking lot right at the beach.

The festival was set up in a big square of canopies. There was a smell of cooking food, music blasted from huge speakers surrounding a stage, men and women wandered around in traditional Japanese dress, and the kids from the aikido club were there in their martial arts uniformas and bright colored belts. We arrived before the start of the fun and could not buy anything yet. We had to use tickets at the booths instead of money so we purchased $40 worth of tickets. One booth had a book sale, all Japanese books, and Wakana bought a bag full. We saw the portable shrines that would later parade around the site. We bought some drinks and some Japanese fruit, madarine oranges and green pears. Wakana gat a 5 minute massage and I bought her some scented lotion for her hands. We watched some local high school kids, including Gordon's daughter, perform an abbreviated version of Snow White in Japanese. The dwarves were represented by kids walking on their knees. It was a riot.