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Weekend -- big update all at once
(This entry was gradually written from Friday night to Monday morning, because I didn't have any real internet access along that time period. It's now Monday night and I'm at the internet cafe for a short time to upload it, before it gets too ridiculously long.)
HAVING A BICYCLE IS AWESOME.
I just wanted to get some of my thoughts down on something, even though I won't be writing my full entry about Friday yet.
I guess I feel sort of silly since I was so psyched to come to Japan and not drive a car anymore, and in reality, walking everywhere would be just fine if I didn't live over a mile from my train station, but I really hadn't explored this area THAT much relatively just because by the time I walk home, I'm exhausted and don't feel like walking any further. It's really the best 8500 yen ($80?) I've ever spent in my life.
So tonight (read: Friday night), I got back to the station, found my bike, and just rode. I rode home, then kept going. I rode to the big road near me and kept riding; I went up another big road and I found the Royal Host and the Diamond City mall (I think it's a mall?) and a whole bunch of other stuff, and then I rode around some more, and eventually I decided to stop at Denny's and eat food since I was starving. I had brought some lessons to work on, so I did that too.
(Denny's was... interesting. I think I ordered the only item on the menu that they actually have at an American Denny's -- the club sandwich. Which they called an "American Club Sandwich", but what was inside it? It was a double-decker sandwich, sure, but the bottom had some sort of chicken, and lettuce and tomato and mayo. Fine. The other half had a sunny-side-up scrambled egg, ketchup, and ham. It was probably the strangest club sandwich I've ever eaten in my life, but it was actually pretty tasty. A+++++ would eat again (except I think next time I am there I want to try the omurice and other weird crap.))
And then I rode home. Which was just great. I don't feel like going to Denny's or anything else when it'll be a 5-10 minute walk, but when it's a 1-2 minute bike ride, that's great. Heck, it takes 5 minutes to get back from the station now and I don't even mind it since riding on a bike is such a nice feeling compared to walking. On the other hand, now I have really sore, um, bike sitting muscles.
Anyway, yesterday was pretty crazy too, but that's partially my own fault. I got to work, signed in, called Sam, and we met up at the Starbucks in the Akabane station again, and then we went to the shop he'd taken me to before, and the bike I wanted had gone down to 8500 yen from 9800 yen, so great! I bought it, they put it together, and we took it out and put it in Sam's minivan, and then we drove up to my place. I got to see a lot more of what is on that big road 35, including a big kaitensushi place, a Red Lobster, another Denny's, a shopping mall called Ario with a movie theater in it, and various other things. I also realized that we drove all the way to Akabane, so if I ever wanted to, I could probably try to bike it. It was like 3 miles though, and there was some up/down hill riding to get over bridges and whatnot (you have to cross the Arakawa river to get into Tokyo, essentially).
So, I had a day on Friday at work. All four of the kids in my 6pm showed up, which meant I was pretty wiped out afterwards. My other classes went well though.
I should have gone home quickly but ended up staying to finish cleaning up the kids' lesson stuff, and the rest of my lesson stuff, and then to grab the Sprint 6 book so I could look over it for my first class on Saturday, and then to use the computer, and by the time I left it was probably like midnight again. Difference is, this time I got back to Warabi, got on my bike, and took off and went whoooooosh! As I mentioned before, I explored some, and then ate at Denny's. Yay.
Saturday morning I got up and went back to the bike garage to check on the paperwork and it was fine, and I have a spot on the second floor! But they needed me to pay some fees and fill out some more stuff, and then they put a paper tag on my bike that day, and said they'd have an official sticker for me the next day, and so I parked and went off to work. In the meantime though I missed one train and had to wait another 5 minutes and so I got to the school at about 4 minutes to 11... AND the building was still locked up, I think Sachi wasn't there yet, so I sprinted from the station (I thought I saw my 11am student wandering around). Sure enough, he came over and I explained that I was surprised the building was still closed, and told him about my bike parking, and I think it was ok. I came in and ran around doing the computer stuff and then changed clothes and started my lesson at 11:03am.
Most lessons went okay for the day, anyway. Saturday is sort of weird for me.
I had thought about going to the Swallows game afterwards, at 6pm at Jingu, but when I went to log out at 5:15pm, Sachi gave me some crap about not being allowed to go. (I had left every OTHER Saturday when I was done with class, but of course since she was gone one week for Obon and the other week in the hospital, she hadn't seen that.) So she told me to please call back my area leader, Chris from Oyama, who had called me the other day anyway, and ask him about it and about ordering books and... yeah.
I called Chris, and we ended up talking on the phone for about 30 minutes. He's actually a pretty cool guy and he explained a whole bunch of stuff to me and asked a bunch of questions (apparently he had also asked Duane how I was doing). So, I guess that was interesting, but by the time I was done talking to him it was almost 6pm so I gave up on the Saturday baseball game again.
I stopped by the 100-yen store by the station and got some stuff (including a rug and some storage stuff and whatnot), and then debated what to do next. I figured I could either go up to Omiya to explore the possibility of going to Sendai on Monday, or I could go over to that big Ario mall that Sam had pointed out. Omiya would cost money to go to and Ario just cost bike pedalling, so I went for Ario.
It was really surreal! This place is just another 3-story mall, like in America! Department stores, clothes stores, even a food court. There's also a big arcade on the third floor and a big bookstore, and a movie theater. I looked at the listings and debated seeing either the Transformers movie OR the Saiyuuki movie. Yeah, Saiyuuki would be all Japanese with no subtitles, BUT cmon, it's Katori Shingo! And Fukatsu Eri, and Itoh Atsushi, and...
Anyway, I ended up going to Ito Yokado and looking at clothes. They have a "big sizes" section, which basically means LL, 3L, 4L, 5L, which basically means an American M, L, XL, and XXL. I'm a little too big for most LL stuff, and I tried on several 3L things. Sadly, here's what happened: I really liked this one shirt, in blue, but they only had it up to 2L. They had it in green in 3L. It fit well in 3L, and fit a little tight in LL. So I called a salesperson and explained this. And then we spent the next HOUR or so, maybe a little less, calling other IY stores to see if they had it in stock... and I stumbled over Japanese to try to explain the sizing... etc. As it turns out, the saleslady was actually Korean, and moved to Japan 5 years ago, but I swear she's fluent, even though she kept saying how hard it is to learn Japanese. She knew a little English, but really not very much, so I had to explain things in my broken Japanese, which got embarrassing for me. Eventually they came to the conclusion that if I wanted the blue shirt I would have to go to Warabi, except it was closed already, so they'd hold it for me tomorrow. Or something. I felt really bad taking up so much time -- and even worse I'd missed the start times for both movies I was interested in. AND the food court was closing so I couldn't try the omurice place.
Instead, I went to the kaiten sushi place that Sam and I had seen. And dude, it's GIGANTIC! I think it's really meant to be a family place -- there's about 8 seats for alone people, and then a TON of tables, and the belt winds around three separate seating areas AND you always see two belts going by at once. It's crazy. They also had a touch-screen menu so you could order things, and a self-serve drink/dessert bar. Also, all the plates are 105 yen each. So I had like 8 plates... it was pretty good.
I stopped by Max Valu after that for some more tea, and juice, and some cheap ice cream. OH, this is the best part, when you buy ice cream there, they give you a token for dry ice. No, really. You take your ice cream in a separate bag, put it in the dry ice machine, hang up the bag so the spout goes into the bag, and close the door, and put in your token, and WHOOOOOOSH!!! they fill the bag with dry ice, which keeps your ice cream cold if you have a long walk or bike ride home. How cool is that?
I ate ice cream and watched some TV until I fell asleep.
I started Sunday by doing laundry. During my third or fourth load of clothes I also went to the Warabi Ito Yokado and bought the shirt I said I'd buy. I suppose I didn't have to, but I sort of wanted it and they were nice enough to hold it for me.
I made some instant noodles for lunch -- moyashi soba, whatever that means. They cost 99 yen at the grocery store across the street and were CRAZY good for something that cheap. I swear instant noodles in the US are nowhere near this good -- these had freeze-dried veggies and sauce and some thickening oil and whatnot.
And then I went off to Tokorozawa around 2:30pm, arriving around 4pm, for the Lions-Fighters game. As I mentioned, Atsunori Inaba hit a home run in the first inning and I got the ball. It was crazy cool. People all wanted to touch it and take pictures of it and whatnot. Unfortunately, the Fighters lost the game. I wrote it up on Marinerds, of course.
I came home on a train sitting with other Fighters fans who all pretty much fell asleep. I went to Ikebukuro and was starving, and I wanted tonkatsu, but the place I was thinking of, they were all staring at me funny as I was reading the menu outside, so I decided not to go there, and instead went to my old favorite kaitensushi place a few blocks away. Yeah, that's two days in a row of sushi, but I pretty much spent as much as I would have on the tonkatsu teishoku anyway, and I used to love these guys when I stayed at the Kimi, they were always really nice when I went in there for sushi.
I played one game of PNM at the arcade I used to always hang out at in west Ikebukuro, and by then I was feeling sort of dizzy and tired, so I decided to just go home. Rode to Akabane, switched trains, rode to Warabi, got my bike, came home, and that was really about it for the day. I wrote my baseball entry a bit and graded some homework, and tried to watch for the baseball highlights but they didn't actually show me! Awww. Instead, I ended up falling asleep watching a TV program about Saga Kita, the highschool which won Koshien. There was an interview with Sadaharu Oh on another channel at the same time, and these both followed a half hour program about Yu Darvish's modelling career, heh. (Incase you don't know, Darvish is the 21-year-old Iranian-Japanese ace pitcher on the Fighters.)
My airconditioner is still leaking. I've put two bowls out to catch the water, but I think I might ask Sachi about it today or tomorrow. (I'm going to stop by GEOS to drop off homework and my washed dress clothes and whatnot.)
Also, I added the picture of Inaba's home run ball to my last entry. Whee.
HAVING A BICYCLE IS AWESOME.
I just wanted to get some of my thoughts down on something, even though I won't be writing my full entry about Friday yet.
I guess I feel sort of silly since I was so psyched to come to Japan and not drive a car anymore, and in reality, walking everywhere would be just fine if I didn't live over a mile from my train station, but I really hadn't explored this area THAT much relatively just because by the time I walk home, I'm exhausted and don't feel like walking any further. It's really the best 8500 yen ($80?) I've ever spent in my life.
So tonight (read: Friday night), I got back to the station, found my bike, and just rode. I rode home, then kept going. I rode to the big road near me and kept riding; I went up another big road and I found the Royal Host and the Diamond City mall (I think it's a mall?) and a whole bunch of other stuff, and then I rode around some more, and eventually I decided to stop at Denny's and eat food since I was starving. I had brought some lessons to work on, so I did that too.
(Denny's was... interesting. I think I ordered the only item on the menu that they actually have at an American Denny's -- the club sandwich. Which they called an "American Club Sandwich", but what was inside it? It was a double-decker sandwich, sure, but the bottom had some sort of chicken, and lettuce and tomato and mayo. Fine. The other half had a sunny-side-up scrambled egg, ketchup, and ham. It was probably the strangest club sandwich I've ever eaten in my life, but it was actually pretty tasty. A+++++ would eat again (except I think next time I am there I want to try the omurice and other weird crap.))
And then I rode home. Which was just great. I don't feel like going to Denny's or anything else when it'll be a 5-10 minute walk, but when it's a 1-2 minute bike ride, that's great. Heck, it takes 5 minutes to get back from the station now and I don't even mind it since riding on a bike is such a nice feeling compared to walking. On the other hand, now I have really sore, um, bike sitting muscles.
Anyway, yesterday was pretty crazy too, but that's partially my own fault. I got to work, signed in, called Sam, and we met up at the Starbucks in the Akabane station again, and then we went to the shop he'd taken me to before, and the bike I wanted had gone down to 8500 yen from 9800 yen, so great! I bought it, they put it together, and we took it out and put it in Sam's minivan, and then we drove up to my place. I got to see a lot more of what is on that big road 35, including a big kaitensushi place, a Red Lobster, another Denny's, a shopping mall called Ario with a movie theater in it, and various other things. I also realized that we drove all the way to Akabane, so if I ever wanted to, I could probably try to bike it. It was like 3 miles though, and there was some up/down hill riding to get over bridges and whatnot (you have to cross the Arakawa river to get into Tokyo, essentially).
So, I had a day on Friday at work. All four of the kids in my 6pm showed up, which meant I was pretty wiped out afterwards. My other classes went well though.
I should have gone home quickly but ended up staying to finish cleaning up the kids' lesson stuff, and the rest of my lesson stuff, and then to grab the Sprint 6 book so I could look over it for my first class on Saturday, and then to use the computer, and by the time I left it was probably like midnight again. Difference is, this time I got back to Warabi, got on my bike, and took off and went whoooooosh! As I mentioned before, I explored some, and then ate at Denny's. Yay.
Saturday morning I got up and went back to the bike garage to check on the paperwork and it was fine, and I have a spot on the second floor! But they needed me to pay some fees and fill out some more stuff, and then they put a paper tag on my bike that day, and said they'd have an official sticker for me the next day, and so I parked and went off to work. In the meantime though I missed one train and had to wait another 5 minutes and so I got to the school at about 4 minutes to 11... AND the building was still locked up, I think Sachi wasn't there yet, so I sprinted from the station (I thought I saw my 11am student wandering around). Sure enough, he came over and I explained that I was surprised the building was still closed, and told him about my bike parking, and I think it was ok. I came in and ran around doing the computer stuff and then changed clothes and started my lesson at 11:03am.
Most lessons went okay for the day, anyway. Saturday is sort of weird for me.
I had thought about going to the Swallows game afterwards, at 6pm at Jingu, but when I went to log out at 5:15pm, Sachi gave me some crap about not being allowed to go. (I had left every OTHER Saturday when I was done with class, but of course since she was gone one week for Obon and the other week in the hospital, she hadn't seen that.) So she told me to please call back my area leader, Chris from Oyama, who had called me the other day anyway, and ask him about it and about ordering books and... yeah.
I called Chris, and we ended up talking on the phone for about 30 minutes. He's actually a pretty cool guy and he explained a whole bunch of stuff to me and asked a bunch of questions (apparently he had also asked Duane how I was doing). So, I guess that was interesting, but by the time I was done talking to him it was almost 6pm so I gave up on the Saturday baseball game again.
I stopped by the 100-yen store by the station and got some stuff (including a rug and some storage stuff and whatnot), and then debated what to do next. I figured I could either go up to Omiya to explore the possibility of going to Sendai on Monday, or I could go over to that big Ario mall that Sam had pointed out. Omiya would cost money to go to and Ario just cost bike pedalling, so I went for Ario.
It was really surreal! This place is just another 3-story mall, like in America! Department stores, clothes stores, even a food court. There's also a big arcade on the third floor and a big bookstore, and a movie theater. I looked at the listings and debated seeing either the Transformers movie OR the Saiyuuki movie. Yeah, Saiyuuki would be all Japanese with no subtitles, BUT cmon, it's Katori Shingo! And Fukatsu Eri, and Itoh Atsushi, and...
Anyway, I ended up going to Ito Yokado and looking at clothes. They have a "big sizes" section, which basically means LL, 3L, 4L, 5L, which basically means an American M, L, XL, and XXL. I'm a little too big for most LL stuff, and I tried on several 3L things. Sadly, here's what happened: I really liked this one shirt, in blue, but they only had it up to 2L. They had it in green in 3L. It fit well in 3L, and fit a little tight in LL. So I called a salesperson and explained this. And then we spent the next HOUR or so, maybe a little less, calling other IY stores to see if they had it in stock... and I stumbled over Japanese to try to explain the sizing... etc. As it turns out, the saleslady was actually Korean, and moved to Japan 5 years ago, but I swear she's fluent, even though she kept saying how hard it is to learn Japanese. She knew a little English, but really not very much, so I had to explain things in my broken Japanese, which got embarrassing for me. Eventually they came to the conclusion that if I wanted the blue shirt I would have to go to Warabi, except it was closed already, so they'd hold it for me tomorrow. Or something. I felt really bad taking up so much time -- and even worse I'd missed the start times for both movies I was interested in. AND the food court was closing so I couldn't try the omurice place.
Instead, I went to the kaiten sushi place that Sam and I had seen. And dude, it's GIGANTIC! I think it's really meant to be a family place -- there's about 8 seats for alone people, and then a TON of tables, and the belt winds around three separate seating areas AND you always see two belts going by at once. It's crazy. They also had a touch-screen menu so you could order things, and a self-serve drink/dessert bar. Also, all the plates are 105 yen each. So I had like 8 plates... it was pretty good.
I stopped by Max Valu after that for some more tea, and juice, and some cheap ice cream. OH, this is the best part, when you buy ice cream there, they give you a token for dry ice. No, really. You take your ice cream in a separate bag, put it in the dry ice machine, hang up the bag so the spout goes into the bag, and close the door, and put in your token, and WHOOOOOOSH!!! they fill the bag with dry ice, which keeps your ice cream cold if you have a long walk or bike ride home. How cool is that?
I ate ice cream and watched some TV until I fell asleep.
I started Sunday by doing laundry. During my third or fourth load of clothes I also went to the Warabi Ito Yokado and bought the shirt I said I'd buy. I suppose I didn't have to, but I sort of wanted it and they were nice enough to hold it for me.
I made some instant noodles for lunch -- moyashi soba, whatever that means. They cost 99 yen at the grocery store across the street and were CRAZY good for something that cheap. I swear instant noodles in the US are nowhere near this good -- these had freeze-dried veggies and sauce and some thickening oil and whatnot.
And then I went off to Tokorozawa around 2:30pm, arriving around 4pm, for the Lions-Fighters game. As I mentioned, Atsunori Inaba hit a home run in the first inning and I got the ball. It was crazy cool. People all wanted to touch it and take pictures of it and whatnot. Unfortunately, the Fighters lost the game. I wrote it up on Marinerds, of course.
I came home on a train sitting with other Fighters fans who all pretty much fell asleep. I went to Ikebukuro and was starving, and I wanted tonkatsu, but the place I was thinking of, they were all staring at me funny as I was reading the menu outside, so I decided not to go there, and instead went to my old favorite kaitensushi place a few blocks away. Yeah, that's two days in a row of sushi, but I pretty much spent as much as I would have on the tonkatsu teishoku anyway, and I used to love these guys when I stayed at the Kimi, they were always really nice when I went in there for sushi.
I played one game of PNM at the arcade I used to always hang out at in west Ikebukuro, and by then I was feeling sort of dizzy and tired, so I decided to just go home. Rode to Akabane, switched trains, rode to Warabi, got my bike, came home, and that was really about it for the day. I wrote my baseball entry a bit and graded some homework, and tried to watch for the baseball highlights but they didn't actually show me! Awww. Instead, I ended up falling asleep watching a TV program about Saga Kita, the highschool which won Koshien. There was an interview with Sadaharu Oh on another channel at the same time, and these both followed a half hour program about Yu Darvish's modelling career, heh. (Incase you don't know, Darvish is the 21-year-old Iranian-Japanese ace pitcher on the Fighters.)
My airconditioner is still leaking. I've put two bowls out to catch the water, but I think I might ask Sachi about it today or tomorrow. (I'm going to stop by GEOS to drop off homework and my washed dress clothes and whatnot.)
Also, I added the picture of Inaba's home run ball to my last entry. Whee.