Fun day, hot day, etc

Today:

Woke up at 7am or so; got showered and dressed and left the apartment around 8:10, getting to the Tokyo Dome at 9:03, mostly because I had not anticipated the station change at Oji to actually involve exiting the JR station and walking down the street, around the corner, and through another subway station. When I got to the Dome it was already packed with people in line for... wait for it... a Kanjani 8 concert. No joke. Pretty funny to me at least.

Met up with Jesse and his coworker, and we went to a mumin-themed bakery and sat around for two hours talking. Fun stuff, I hope Jesse can come back to Japan sometime so we can hang out more.

I had to get home by noon in theory since my bags were being delivered between 12-2. I suspected they wouldnt show up exactly at noon but you know my luck, if I was ten minutes late then they would, you know? So I hustled back and with 5 minutes left took a TAXI to my place -- it cost 660 yen but I was actually able to give the guy directions there, AND I got home just before the time hit noon.

But my bags didn't show up until about 1:45pm. So oh well.

I actually spent those two hours reading through GEOS info packets though, all of the notes on my students that the previous teacher left for me, so it wasn't wasted time. Afterwards I unpacked bags some, and then I left to go to Chiba around 2:45pm, for a baseball game. That links to the entry about the game on Marinerds if you want to read it.

And actually, the game took up the rest of the day, I didn't get back to Warabi station until around 11, at which point I went to Tobu 24-hour grocery/departo and bought a power strip and some other stuff I need to go home and try out. Then I came here to the internet cafe, and now it is 1am and I still need to walk home argh. Good thing games are on Sundays that I can go to since I don't need to work the next day, though tomorrow I do need to meet my manager so we can go do paperwork like gaijin card registration and all.

Still, the Fighters lost but I had a good time at the game screaming my lungs out and singing. Japanese guys in their 50's love me, too -- one guy walked me to the stadium from the station, talking to me in English about baseball the whole way, and then I sat next to another pair of guys in the stadium and one of them kept buying me drinks since I was amusing him with my gaijinness. Good times. I still don't like chu-hai much, though.

And, Fighters! High socks Tsuboi! I am all happy. I love my Fighters.

Gaijin registering and other fun

Today I met up with Sachi, my school manager, at my station. By the time she and I finished purchasing a Suica pass, I was drenched in sweat. This weather sucks.

We went to Kawaguchi and met up with Duane, who showed us a place for me to get passport photos taken, and then we went to the city hall, where I filled out the forms for my Alien Registration Card. It took an hour, so Duane went home and Sachi and I went to a Starbucks and hung out chatting.

We got the other paperwork done and then walked back to the station. We were talking about music and movies and I told her about all the doramas I'd watched and she was pretty much in disbelief and surprised that anyone bothers knowing anything about Japanese stuff outside Japan that isn't anime. I was like, "I don't know anything about anime, does that make me even weirder?" It was sort of funny.

She had to go back to GEOS after that, so I was on my own and decided to head down to run errands.

First stop: Ikebukuro. I went to the Playguide I knew about at Parco, and got tickets to the Tigers-Baystars game for me and firearmofmutiny next weekend. Yay.

Second stop: Korakuen. Went to the Tokyo Dome and got myself a Fighters cellphone keychain thingy. Hopefully I will have a cellphone to use it with in the next few days, assuming I can convince Eri or Duane to come with me to a keitai shop.

I also met a guy there with two kids -- they are there on Make A Wish, and they were trying to figure out how to get Giants jerseys, and I felt bad, so I was like, "here, these are the way the sizes work -- try these on, okay?" and showed them the samples and all. Then I ran into them a bit later and they were getting an Ogasawara jersey for the one kid and I was just like "GRrrrrrrr." "What?" "Ogasawara." "They said he was the best player." "He is pretty good. He was even my absolute favorite player, for YEARS. Then he signed with the Giants and shaved his beard and... you know Johnny Damon? Same exact thing." So I ended up convincing them to get a Yoshinobu Takahashi jersey and a Koji Uehara jersey instead.

I wanted baseball cards but they had none at the dome, so I got directions to the Yamashita bookstore, also near the dome, and IT HAS A HUGE SECTION OF BASEBALL BOOKS AND MAGAZINES! It was so cool. Got my Fighters 2007 Guidebook and this week's shukan baseball, and debated the Kazumi Saitoh picture book, heh, and the Chunichi yearbook as well, but didn't get those. I can always go back I suppose. And next door to that shop is an arcade, so I played some Pop'n, yay! Also got some baseball figures out of a capsule machine because I am a dumbass. Maybe I can foist off the Kanemoto one on a Tigers fan at the game next week; not sure what I'll do with the Maeda one of the Carp, and I didn't put any more money in after those two.

On the way back to the station I ran into the Make-a-Wish guy again and we chatted baseball for a while. The kids are going to the Tigers-Giants game tomorrow so I gave him tons of advice for ways to not piss off either fan group. He thanked me again for my help, and was like "how long have you lived in Tokyo? You seem to know your Japan and Japanese baseball stuff really well," and I was like "Err.. to be honest... since Saturday?"

Next stop: Ikebukuro again. This time all I did was get katsu curry for dinner. I wandered around Tobu a bit looking for a shower curtain, but they were so expensive there that I left. Decided not to bother with HigashiIkebukuro today, will go back some other time.

Something that should amuse me a lot more than it does is that I can go around and ask and answer things in perfectly coherent Japanese for stuff, hold conversations with people at baseball games and other places, and even do things like ordering baseball tickets, but yet the curry shop people asking me "What level of spice do you want for your dinner?" confuses me to hell EVERY TIME and it takes me forever to figure out how to just say "Mild sauce, please."

Next stop: Kawaguchi. DAISO!!!!!! Yay Daiso. I love Daiso. Got a shower curtain and pretty much every other thing I need in Japan. And so cheap, too. I love Daiso. Can't say it enough. The Kawaguchi one is also above an arcade, right by the station.

Went around looking in various stores for a bit and also another bookstore, where I read a Koshien magazine that I really need to go buy. It was about old Koshien games and had pictures of a lot of players, SO CUTE. The best was the story of Kazuhiro Sasaki playing against Shigetoshi Hasegawa in Koshien in the late 80's.

And then, next stop Warabi. Which is where I am now, at the internet cafe.

I need a bicycle and a cellphone.

But first, I need to go to work tomorrow and start meeting students. Scary, huh?

Also, another semi-funny story is that my loft is too damn hot to sleep in, so I set up my futon on the floor of my apartment. Setting up the futon was kind of difficult though and I'm not even sure I did it right. The other thing that is scary is trash collection in Japan. I wasn't sure what to put out today so I didn't yet. Maybe I'll get it right for collection on Thursday...

Oh, one more thing: Saitama's representatives at the Koshien baseball tournament is apparently Urawa Gakuin, which is pretty close to where I live. Awesome, huh? I saw posters about it all over Kawaguchi today. Very exciting! I wonder if I can go see them play at school sometime.