January 18

Today was very interesting. I got up and ate breakfast with お母さん, then went with her to her workplace (Foreigners’ Center). We took the Prius to the 地下鉄駅 and rode into the city. On the way to お母さん work, we passed a lot of buildings, but I was surprised (and wished I could do the same in America) to find inside a plant pot, not only plants and water, but goldfish!!!!!!!! I want one. While お母さん taught the foreigners basic Japanese, I wandered around the information office and library. I found a few postings for language exchange in the information office, so I wrote down the e-mail addresses of a few girls who wanted to exchange English and Japanese. In the library, I found an English copy of 電車男 (as told through the messages) and I really wanted to take a picture, but I figured the librarian would be very angry.

After お母さん was finished, we searched the (nearly deserted) city for a restaurant that was open (on Sunday). We finally settled on Starbucks (ironic!) and I had the best green tea latté I know of. We also had sandwiches and I tried to pay, but お母さん wouldn’t let me.

When we were done eating, it began to rain, but お母さん showed me the the book store that sells foreign (English) books. お母さん wanted to show me the foreign books, but I really wanted to see all the Japanese things, since we don’t have them in the states. They had some cute stationary and expensive desk items as well as traditional Japanese prints. We also went to the multi-story (I can’t figure out how many) shopping mall. I was overwhelmed and felt kind of reluctant looking through the clothes at the mall since there were attendants at almost every display greeting me and the price tags were not to even be spoken of.

After we came back, I did a bit of kanji homework and played the piano. At 5:30, we went to dinner with お母さん and お父さんの son, daughter in-law, and grand daughter. It was a lot of fun. We went to an Italian restaurant (and 両親 worried that I wouldn’t eat anything because I don’t like cheese) and had Japanese Italian food. First, there was vegetable soup, then prosciutto salad, pasta with capers, pizza (Japanese style with fish), and the most Asian soufflé ever; it had rice inside. For dessert, we could choose four dishes, so I had tiramisu, coffee cheesecake, and chocolate mousse (I gave my strawberries to 孫娘ちゃん). 両親の son designs car bodies (I couldn’t hear the name of the company when he said it) and 孫娘ちゃん was really cute and has a sweet tooth. お母さん said 孫娘ちゃん was me 18 years ago, haha.