Friday and Saturday and a bit of Sunday
Nov. 2nd, 2008 06:05 pm(Wrote this at home but I am posting from Aprecio internet cafe in Shibuya because Manboo is FULL with like a 30-minute wait. Sheesh. I guess I should not go there on Sundays. I'm meeting up with ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alibash in a bit anyway.)
So where that last entry left off, I was in Warabi at the internet cafe.
After that, I went to the bicycle garage I used to keep my bike at, and told the nearly-deaf old dude who runs the place that I was moving, cancelling, etc. It took a while to get the message through but finally after doing a ton of thinking and calculating he decided that I didn't owe any more money for keeping my bike there and to have a nice day. Except we couldn't get the parking lot sticker off my bike, so that took a lot of doing. There was another guy there with a motorcycle and he was mostly laughing but also trying to be helpful. Maybe.
I rode back to my old apartment to see if my bike pump was still there, because it occurred to me that riding the 4 miles or so, it wasn't LIKELY I would get a flat tire but if I did it would really suck, so. I got the bike pump and then took off down my old paths towards Kawaguchi. I went past Max Valu, went past Kura Sushi, went past Ario, etc. It took 10 mins from my old place to the Nishikawaguchi crossroad, another 13 to Kawaguchi, and then I got slightly lost getting to the bridge over the Arakawa river -- ended up eventually finding Road 122 and using that. I was over the river at T plus 43 minutes, anyway, and pretty much did get back to my house around 4pm... which is when I told Sam I'd be home.
And so Sam came over to be all landlord-like and help me out. First he gave me this kotatsu that I am currently sitting at. I wish they were more comfortable for using a laptop but other than that the kotatsu (heated table) is really one of the best Japanese inventions ever. If I had a roomate or someone else around to sit with our feet under the kotatsu drinking tea and watching TV, it would be pretty nice. Alone, I feel a bit guilty when I kind of get stuck sitting half buried under a kotatsu and unwilling to move because IT'S WARM HERE GODDAMNIT but I'm not really doing anything productive and I should be writing, or cleaning, or something.
The next thing Sam gave me was an indoor antenna for the TV. It helps a bit though terrestrial TV channels are still fuzzy. Oh well.
Then, we tested the heater/AC units. Sadly, even after extensive testing it appears the unit in my bedroom does not know how to blow warm air, but the two in the upstairs living room and the one in the downstairs dining room DO work, so that's good.
Last, Sam looked at the hinges on the bath room door. As it turns out, the bad one was totally rusted through, so back to Viva Home! for us. Sam got hinges and I got a trash can for the second floor and a big fluffy kotatsu futon. I debated buying a heater, but to be honest I don't really understand all the systems of Japanese space heaters (halogen? kerosene? electric fan? no fan? wtf?) so decided to put that off until another time.
Back home, and everything's all fixed up! Yay.
I finished filling out some paperwork for GEOS (they need it to pay me my final pay and stuff, apparently) and went over to GEOS with it, where I managed to talk to the manager-du-jour-not-really and avoid seeing any real teachers or students. It was quick (but this is my reminder that I need to email my head trainer), so I made it to Daiso before they closed, bought some floor cushions and a few assorted kitchen things.
And then I went to McDonald's, since it was the first day of selling the Gurakoro, which is basically a cheese-potatocake burger. It's pretty damn good for McDonald's stuff. The value meal costs 620 yen and I had my laptop with me and stayed there for about 2.75 hours, so, value. Although -- using the seats with the counters with the electric plugs for laptops/phones/etc is actually really uncomfortable, it's high up and at a bad position for typing on a laptop. Doh. I'll have to find a better place to sit next time, somehow...
(Saturday)
I woke up Saturday and decided I didn't feel like heading down to Jingu to watch Saito Yuki pitching, and I had plans to meet up with my friend Kohei (one of my Facebook friends from a while back) at 5pm in Ikebukuro to watch the Japan Series, so instead I spent the afternoon doing laundry and stuff. I also rode my bike over to the FamilyMart on top of the hill here to grab some lunch. There's surprisingly few things open on that main road, I think I'll have to go exploring around here...
Headed down to Ikebukuro, and naturally got totally confused about where to meet (he was like "I'm at Cafe ___, it's next to the docomo store, across from the Christmas tree outside the east exit" except... there were like THREE trees out there. Seriously. So eventually we met up at one of the trees. I was like "Let's go find the Hub", he was like "let's take a walk around Ikebukuro!" and as it turns out, we couldn't actually FIND the place we were going to. Eventually we DID find it, after walking around for like 20 minutes... and it had a big SOCCER game on instead. WTF. So we had to find the OTHER Hub near there, and got seated about 5 mins before the game started.
We were at a big round table in the middle of the bar area and as it turns out a lot of people there didn't give a shit about the Japan Series, so that kinda sucked. There were two loud drunk guys in their early 40's at our table who clearly did care but it was unclear what side they were on (Carp fans, I think) and then there were two cute guys around my age on the opposite side of the table who were apparently Lions fans, or at least also anti-Giants. Kohei got us drinks (happy hour was half price until 7pm) and we sat there and watched the game and ate some food and whatnot.
Food: we had fish'n'chips, and bangers'n'mash, and a caesar salad; most other stuff on the menu didn't look that great. Drinks: sweet stuff. I had an "American Lemonade" and a Peach Cooler and a Dolce, which was a 3-color sweet'n'sour drink.
Game: The Lions won 2-1. Gotoh and Nakajima hit home runs -- Gotoh ALWAYS hits home runs when I watch him, he should be lucky I was watching -- Bocachica made a bad play that led to the Giants' only run scoring. Wakui continues to have a kickass postseason, and he beat Uehara. Whee.
Afterwards we walked around Ikebukuro for like an hour -- we went to the west part, walked around the sketchiest areas, and tried to find gangsters or Yakuza but completely failed. Seriously. At one point we went into a convenience store so Kohei could buy a beer because he "wanted to walk around on the street holding a beer". He's nuts. It was fun though. We found an international section of Ikebukuro, kinda between the station and Rikkio University, with a TON of foreign food places, including a mexican place I wanna try sometime. Whee.
When I came home, I was getting off the train in Akabane and someone tapped me on my shoulder and it was Akki-san, one of the Fighters fans I know, he's a college student, kinda strange/goofy, but a really nice guy. And he's like "WTF, you live in Akabane?" and I'm like "yeah, I moved here, where do you live?" and he's like "I live in Akabane too! Wow!" And then we talked a bit about the Fighters and about the Japan Series and stuff, and parted ways at the west exit of the station. I probly should have tried to get his contact info but didn't really know a non-creepy way to ask for it, but I did tell him I'd be going back to America for a few months, then coming back to Akabane, he was like "great! I'll see you at the stadium next year!"
Then I tried to buy a ticket to Soukeisen at Lawson's, and it was done-with-selling. Not sold-out per se but I couldn't buy one there. Hrm. I guess I can try to go to Jingu tomorrow and hope they have tickets. Saito pitched today, but tomorrow is Sunday so it's likely to be crowded anyway. Oishi also pitched today and I really want to see him pitch, maybe he'll pitch tomorrow again but I'm not really sure. Sigh.
-------------------------
...and adding to this Sunday now...
So yeah, I woke up and went to Jingu and it was NOWHERE near sold out or even all that crowded due to Pretty Boy pitching yesterday. Though it wasn't possible to get front-row seats like I have been doing for other games... next year hopefully I can go to like a Waseda-Todai game or something, sit up front, and hopefully see my Oishi-kun. Because he didn't pitch today, all I got to see was him warming up for a while, and I was sitting so far away I couldn't really take good pictures -- I sat up at the top of naiya jiyuuseki beyond the student seating. So I'll see later if any of it actually came out. I figured sitting in the last row I wouldn't be in anyone's way if I decided to stand up and take photos a lot.
Oh yeah, Keio won. Waseda just sucked, the pitching was terrible, one guy -- a lefty, Fujii, kept walking in runs. Seriously. The ending score was 9-3.
I came to Shibuya after that, and that is where I am now.
alibash in a bit anyway.)So where that last entry left off, I was in Warabi at the internet cafe.
After that, I went to the bicycle garage I used to keep my bike at, and told the nearly-deaf old dude who runs the place that I was moving, cancelling, etc. It took a while to get the message through but finally after doing a ton of thinking and calculating he decided that I didn't owe any more money for keeping my bike there and to have a nice day. Except we couldn't get the parking lot sticker off my bike, so that took a lot of doing. There was another guy there with a motorcycle and he was mostly laughing but also trying to be helpful. Maybe.
I rode back to my old apartment to see if my bike pump was still there, because it occurred to me that riding the 4 miles or so, it wasn't LIKELY I would get a flat tire but if I did it would really suck, so. I got the bike pump and then took off down my old paths towards Kawaguchi. I went past Max Valu, went past Kura Sushi, went past Ario, etc. It took 10 mins from my old place to the Nishikawaguchi crossroad, another 13 to Kawaguchi, and then I got slightly lost getting to the bridge over the Arakawa river -- ended up eventually finding Road 122 and using that. I was over the river at T plus 43 minutes, anyway, and pretty much did get back to my house around 4pm... which is when I told Sam I'd be home.
And so Sam came over to be all landlord-like and help me out. First he gave me this kotatsu that I am currently sitting at. I wish they were more comfortable for using a laptop but other than that the kotatsu (heated table) is really one of the best Japanese inventions ever. If I had a roomate or someone else around to sit with our feet under the kotatsu drinking tea and watching TV, it would be pretty nice. Alone, I feel a bit guilty when I kind of get stuck sitting half buried under a kotatsu and unwilling to move because IT'S WARM HERE GODDAMNIT but I'm not really doing anything productive and I should be writing, or cleaning, or something.
The next thing Sam gave me was an indoor antenna for the TV. It helps a bit though terrestrial TV channels are still fuzzy. Oh well.
Then, we tested the heater/AC units. Sadly, even after extensive testing it appears the unit in my bedroom does not know how to blow warm air, but the two in the upstairs living room and the one in the downstairs dining room DO work, so that's good.
Last, Sam looked at the hinges on the bath room door. As it turns out, the bad one was totally rusted through, so back to Viva Home! for us. Sam got hinges and I got a trash can for the second floor and a big fluffy kotatsu futon. I debated buying a heater, but to be honest I don't really understand all the systems of Japanese space heaters (halogen? kerosene? electric fan? no fan? wtf?) so decided to put that off until another time.
Back home, and everything's all fixed up! Yay.
I finished filling out some paperwork for GEOS (they need it to pay me my final pay and stuff, apparently) and went over to GEOS with it, where I managed to talk to the manager-du-jour-not-really and avoid seeing any real teachers or students. It was quick (but this is my reminder that I need to email my head trainer), so I made it to Daiso before they closed, bought some floor cushions and a few assorted kitchen things.
And then I went to McDonald's, since it was the first day of selling the Gurakoro, which is basically a cheese-potatocake burger. It's pretty damn good for McDonald's stuff. The value meal costs 620 yen and I had my laptop with me and stayed there for about 2.75 hours, so, value. Although -- using the seats with the counters with the electric plugs for laptops/phones/etc is actually really uncomfortable, it's high up and at a bad position for typing on a laptop. Doh. I'll have to find a better place to sit next time, somehow...
(Saturday)
I woke up Saturday and decided I didn't feel like heading down to Jingu to watch Saito Yuki pitching, and I had plans to meet up with my friend Kohei (one of my Facebook friends from a while back) at 5pm in Ikebukuro to watch the Japan Series, so instead I spent the afternoon doing laundry and stuff. I also rode my bike over to the FamilyMart on top of the hill here to grab some lunch. There's surprisingly few things open on that main road, I think I'll have to go exploring around here...
Headed down to Ikebukuro, and naturally got totally confused about where to meet (he was like "I'm at Cafe ___, it's next to the docomo store, across from the Christmas tree outside the east exit" except... there were like THREE trees out there. Seriously. So eventually we met up at one of the trees. I was like "Let's go find the Hub", he was like "let's take a walk around Ikebukuro!" and as it turns out, we couldn't actually FIND the place we were going to. Eventually we DID find it, after walking around for like 20 minutes... and it had a big SOCCER game on instead. WTF. So we had to find the OTHER Hub near there, and got seated about 5 mins before the game started.
We were at a big round table in the middle of the bar area and as it turns out a lot of people there didn't give a shit about the Japan Series, so that kinda sucked. There were two loud drunk guys in their early 40's at our table who clearly did care but it was unclear what side they were on (Carp fans, I think) and then there were two cute guys around my age on the opposite side of the table who were apparently Lions fans, or at least also anti-Giants. Kohei got us drinks (happy hour was half price until 7pm) and we sat there and watched the game and ate some food and whatnot.
Food: we had fish'n'chips, and bangers'n'mash, and a caesar salad; most other stuff on the menu didn't look that great. Drinks: sweet stuff. I had an "American Lemonade" and a Peach Cooler and a Dolce, which was a 3-color sweet'n'sour drink.
Game: The Lions won 2-1. Gotoh and Nakajima hit home runs -- Gotoh ALWAYS hits home runs when I watch him, he should be lucky I was watching -- Bocachica made a bad play that led to the Giants' only run scoring. Wakui continues to have a kickass postseason, and he beat Uehara. Whee.
Afterwards we walked around Ikebukuro for like an hour -- we went to the west part, walked around the sketchiest areas, and tried to find gangsters or Yakuza but completely failed. Seriously. At one point we went into a convenience store so Kohei could buy a beer because he "wanted to walk around on the street holding a beer". He's nuts. It was fun though. We found an international section of Ikebukuro, kinda between the station and Rikkio University, with a TON of foreign food places, including a mexican place I wanna try sometime. Whee.
When I came home, I was getting off the train in Akabane and someone tapped me on my shoulder and it was Akki-san, one of the Fighters fans I know, he's a college student, kinda strange/goofy, but a really nice guy. And he's like "WTF, you live in Akabane?" and I'm like "yeah, I moved here, where do you live?" and he's like "I live in Akabane too! Wow!" And then we talked a bit about the Fighters and about the Japan Series and stuff, and parted ways at the west exit of the station. I probly should have tried to get his contact info but didn't really know a non-creepy way to ask for it, but I did tell him I'd be going back to America for a few months, then coming back to Akabane, he was like "great! I'll see you at the stadium next year!"
Then I tried to buy a ticket to Soukeisen at Lawson's, and it was done-with-selling. Not sold-out per se but I couldn't buy one there. Hrm. I guess I can try to go to Jingu tomorrow and hope they have tickets. Saito pitched today, but tomorrow is Sunday so it's likely to be crowded anyway. Oishi also pitched today and I really want to see him pitch, maybe he'll pitch tomorrow again but I'm not really sure. Sigh.
-------------------------
...and adding to this Sunday now...
So yeah, I woke up and went to Jingu and it was NOWHERE near sold out or even all that crowded due to Pretty Boy pitching yesterday. Though it wasn't possible to get front-row seats like I have been doing for other games... next year hopefully I can go to like a Waseda-Todai game or something, sit up front, and hopefully see my Oishi-kun. Because he didn't pitch today, all I got to see was him warming up for a while, and I was sitting so far away I couldn't really take good pictures -- I sat up at the top of naiya jiyuuseki beyond the student seating. So I'll see later if any of it actually came out. I figured sitting in the last row I wouldn't be in anyone's way if I decided to stand up and take photos a lot.
Oh yeah, Keio won. Waseda just sucked, the pitching was terrible, one guy -- a lefty, Fujii, kept walking in runs. Seriously. The ending score was 9-3.
I came to Shibuya after that, and that is where I am now.
