I want to ride my bicycle

On my bike ride home today, I:

1. realized that I love biking into falling cherry blossom petals
2. almost made a little kid fall off his bike (would have made my day)
3. saw a very short Japanese man, noticed he was walking funny, and realized his shoes were platformed. This reminded me of something a tall friend once told me. Apparently you have to watch out for short men because you never know what they might do to "even the playing field." Food for thought.
4. was snarled at by a group of small boys, which brought back elementary school flashbacks of being made fun of for being American, being called a "giant," and being constantly poked and prodded with rulers because my classmates wanted to compare the lengths/heights of our foreheads, noses, and eyelashes. Also, I've never actually been snarled at before by anything other than dogs, cats, and small rodents.
5. smelled dinner cooking in almost every home I passed, which is something I love about biking here at this time of day.

Mayra's Japanese word of the day is gaijin, which literally translated means "outsider," but is often used slangily (Whether or not this is a word is up for debate, since it's on dictionary.com, but blogspot puts a little red line under it. On the other hand, the word "blogspot" also has a little red line under it.) to refer to foreigners (pronounced guy-jean). I was--and still am--often called this by children (loudly) as well as adults (when they think I can't hear them).