Today was exciting and exhausting. I set my alarm for 8:50, but I’m sure I woke up several times between 7:00 and then. When I finally did get up, I tried to make breakfast for myself so I wouldn’t trouble my host family, but okaasan had already started an egg for me and there was little else to do. We watched a talk show where a guy went to onsen to try them out and it was comical while we ate.
After breakfast, I started out for Yagoto (around 10:30). It’s been really (relatively) warm lately (for the last three days) and today it was particularly nice; not too cold (even jacketless weather for a while). Maybe it was just the weather, but I was really happy this morning as I started my adventure. When I got to the train station, my train was just arriving (and getting ready to leave) and I think they actually held the train for me, since it seemed the doors stayed open an extra second during the normal sound-making and door-closing interval. I spent a lot of time in Jusco (a 6-story mall with cheap, stylish clothing). I found a dress I think I like, but I need a second opinion because it might be too short. D: I also found a stationary (cute things) store in the mall (which is more like a department store with different sellers for each department) where I wanted to buy everything (almost) but I couldn’t bring myself to even buy one thing. Jusco is set up like this; 1st floor: groceries, 2nd floor: restaurants (including McDonald’s), 3-6 floors; clothes, linnens, dishware, children’s items, etc. To tell the truth, I can’t remember exactly what was where, but there were a lot of things to see.
After Jusco, I set out in search of the ToysRUs. Japanese ToysRUs is not that different from the US’s, except for having better things in it. The first section you come to on the way in is a group of hina matsuri dolls (since that’s coming up soon). After, there are all sorts of things like hidamari no tame, an entire aisle of Gundam model kits, gashupon toys, excessive accessories for your phone/DS/psp, etc., and so on.
While I was in the Yagoto area, I decided to wander (and try not to get lost). I visited a few shrines I did not understand. One had cats at the entrance that would come up to be pet (or fed, but I didn’t feed them). There is also an unthinkably large cemetery in Yagoto. Quite literally, once you see it, everything to the horizon is tomb stones. I went in and walked around because I wanted to see it closer, and I honestly worried that I had gotten lost at one point. I’ve posted a picture of the cemetery from one view, but it is even bigger than the picture makes it look.
When I had exhausted Yagoto, I decided to ride the chikatetsu to another stop that was free on my commuter pass, and that turned out to be Hara. There are a lot of car and motorcycle dealers there (one of which had three Corvettes). I found the Japanese equivalent of the not antique, but old junk store. They had some clothes I thought I liked, but since there was no dressing room, they didn’t get my money.
Afterward, I met with Keily to go to Mike’s host family’s sushiya for all you can eat sushi. We ended up being late (because we got lost at the station where we were supposed to make our transfer) and I had to call a lot of people to figure out where to go (since Mike has no cellphone). What happened was that we exited the subway station at a point where it met another subway station and it was chaos. We could not figure out where we were supposed to go (since no map showed our subway line) and the eki was huge (with lots of people and stores too). We ended up going to a tourist agency and the station master to figure it out.
As it turned out, Mike’s house was about twenty minutes from the eki (that we finally rode to) by foot. It was quite a long walk, but well worth it. At the sushiya, we met up with about six other ryougakusei and about eight Japanese people (friends of the owners). We had bento and sashimi (as well as spicy tuna rolls) and did a lot of karaoke. It was all you can eat and all you can drink, so a lot of the ryougakusei got smashed, but it was all fun and as far as I can tell, everyone got home safely. I met daisuke, a Japanese student at Nanzan, and he seems easy to talk to (for a person so heta at Japanese as me), so hopefully he will help me with my Japanese and be another person in my group of friends (who occasionally get smashed) to hang with.
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