Week 2

My Quarters
So my apartment is pretty sweet besides the bathroom looking like it came directly off the coach section of a budget airline and into my apartment. The apartment came furnished already. I get to start my life in Japan with all the essentials: plenty of Japanese tea sets, a few Pikachu’s lying around the house, a badminton racket, a bunch of mediocre books, and a hand full of Japanese fans, which yes, I do use at school to cool myself down. The apartment also came with a washer, but no dryer. I’m hang-drying clothes for the first time in my life right now, with yet unforeseen results.
Two main rooms. One is a kitchen/surfboard storage/dining room. The other is my sleeping and computer room. It has a floor covered in new tatami straw mats, giving it a delicate barn smell. I sleep on a futon which when not in use should be folded up and put away in a closet. I tend to just throw it on the other side of the room. See, leaving the futon in the same place all the time apparently leads to a mold problem. I’m doubtful. I plan on discovering the exact limits of laziness one can be with moving the futon. However, just today I hung my futon out in the sun as one should do weekly which was good of me. My sleeping room also has air conditioning, which is much needed.

Talk of the Weather will do.
It’s so hot here, every day. I’m pretty sick of it. I’m even planning a vacation to northern Honshu or the mountains to get away from it. The teacher’s office I spend my time in is on the second floor and has no air conditioning. I watch the inside thermometer hit 30, 31, 32 degrees Celsius, which is right around 90. Sweating through a shirt is no fun at all.

The World’s Largest City
I got my first glimpse of Tokyo this weekend. By 12:30 Saturday, Mike, Steven, and I had already set up a tarp to claim prime seating near the river. The Edogawa fireworks are one of the largest fireworks events in the world with over 1.3 million people watching so getting there early is recommended. We bought a 2nd hand cooler, stocked it with beers, tea, sushi, and meat. I spent the day drinking, basking in the sun, and meeting the rest of our tarp crew as they showed up. The fireworks were pretty awesome, lasting the length of a movie. The next day I bailed on coming back to Hasaki for the drinking BBQ. Instead I went to Ueno Park and the Tokyo National Museum, which had some of the most cherished artifacts and artwork in Japanese history arranged in an informative, chronological order. Next was Akihabara, the electronics district of Tokyo. The streets were barred from cars and instead overflowing with pedestrians, consumers, advertisers and solicitors.

The Food
Hitting Mt. Fuji restaurant occasionally is great, having real Japanese food (which is quite a bit different) every day is quite another thing. Here in semi-rural Hasaki, there’s no way around becoming accustomed to eating traditional Japanese food. I haven’t gotten sick of it yet, in part because I keep trying different styles, but the day is approaching when I’ll be craving any food not Japanese. Luckily, they do appreciate international cuisine, though in its Japan-ified form, like tuna, corn, and mayo pizza.
Most of my breakfasts and lunches are from 7-11, actually called 7 and I Holdings here. I don’t know what most things are, so I tend to go by sight couple with trial & error. Some of the weirder things I’ve had so far are Aloe flavored yogurt (with real chunks of aloe plant), raw egg over rice, the egg/dried shrimp/dried albacore/cabbage thing-y, weird radishes are popular, really sour pickled plums, raw meat one cooks themselves over a mini-grill, and lots of fish I wouldn’t normally eat. Pork cutlet over Japanese beef curry has become my new staple. I had it tonight at the local restaurant and two nights ago.