JOURNAL: ErMaC

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  • August 3rd, 8:08PM 2002-08-06 01:42:48 Just got back from dinner & shopping. Went with Tae and Courtney to look around for a place to eat. It's been four days and all of us haven't actually had Japanese food yet, so we decided to go look for a Japanese place. We found several which were just bars, and none of us particularly wanted to eat at a drinking bar, so we kept looking. We thought we found oe place, and so we went in. Turns out it was a Korean place. Oh well, looks like we'll have to keep looking another day. It was pretty good though, I can't complain about the quality of the food.

    We had this very weird moment though where we had all finished eating, but we didn't know what to do with the check. The waitress hadn't come back during the meal once, and we hadn't been paying attention to other people to see what they did. Do we wave the little order paper she left at the table? Do we call her over? Do we take it up ourselves? We wound up waiting around to see what some other people did. They took the little order list up so we did, too. It's kinda annoying not having the waitress come back though. We ran out of water early on in the meal and none of us was confident enough to call her over and ask for more because, again, we didn't know what would be considered rude and what wouldn't be. Anyways, afterwards they went to a 7-11 to get a TV guide because Tae wanted some sort of TV schedule.

    What I don't understand about Tsuru is how a town so small can have TWO 7-11's on the SAME street, yet not have any sort of department store where you could buy, say, a FREAKIN' PILLOw. Grumble.

    After that it was about 10 minutes to 8PM which is when the supermarket closed so I raced over and bought some more DP and FF, as well as some ice cream bar things and some chips. I wanted to get some Orange Juice, but I couldn't find where they kept the real stuff. There are several orange-juice-like drinks but they aren't 100% OJ and I'm the kinda guy who grew up on Tropicana and Florida Natural so I enjoy the genuine article. Decided I didn't want to piss them off by staying around too long and just got my stuff and checked out.

    Interesting thing about Japanese supermarkets: You bag the stuff yourself. At the checkout line you put your basket on the counter, and the clerk moves the stuff out of your basket, scans it, and puts it in a different basket (of the same type, left by the person infront of you in line). After you pay you then take your basket to these counters they have after the checkout line and bag the stuff. Just struck me as odd for a place so centered around customer's being like Gods.

    Which is one thing that creeps me out about some places. If you enter into ANY store, you're greeted by this "Irasshaimaseeeee" that is pretty novel the first few times, but then becomes rather annoying. At the italian place we went to back near Tokyo, there were two girls working there who would do it every time a customer came in, and at REALLY high volumes and with REALLY ear-piercing high voices. And not only that, they would carry the 'e' sound at the end for like 3 seconds. I could just envision glass shattering if they did it in perfect unison and found a glass pane with the right resonant frequency.

    I brought along a bunch of books (like real books, English books) and I mentioned I'd read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress already. Well I also brought the first four Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, and I lent the first one to Tae because he asked around at Mos Burger last night for some reading material. He was half way through it when I went to ask him at around 6:30 if he had had dinner yet. He's apparently digging it, which is good because I'm always happy to turn on more new people to Douglas Adams, bless his soul.

    I think tonight I may go do some drawing. Now that I've got even more material to choose from (I brought the first Groundwork of Eva Movie book, and most of my manga with me) I wonder what I'll be drawing. Sadly I didn't bring the picture of Asuka that I'd been working on, but I might actually just try to do it over again from scratch since my first one had a bunch of nasty flaws that bugged me.

    Or maybe I'll start another game of Civ3. Or play DDR. Damnit, I'm such an addict.
     
  • August 3rd, 6:33PM 2002-08-06 01:41:55 After last journal entry I sat down and read for a good hour and some change. Finished The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Must be like fifth or sixth time I've read it. Managed not to cry at the ending this time. A great feat indeed. For those who have read it I'm sure you can agree that Mike is one of the greatest characters in all of fiction. Time to go eat and go to the store. 
  • August 3rd, 4:36PM 2002-08-06 01:40:18 Well last night was lotsa fun. We went out to eat at Mos Burger and afterwards some of us went over to the bookstore to look at cDs and stuff. Then I found their Manga section.

    Oh my GOD. I practically fell to my knees infront of the display. Now I have to admit, I've only been to a few stores that sell Manga, and while I know deep down that this isn't really a lot compared to what they have in Animate or something, but dear lord I thought I would die. I managed to find volumes 6-8 of Marmalade Boy which are the only ones I was still missing at this point, which was very cool and I'm very pleased that now I think I have everything. I also got the special edition Love Hina 1&2 - the 1 which comes with the mousepad and the 2 that comes with the little minicomic. Now I just have to go find the rest of Kokoro Toshokan and Evangelion and I will be in pure manga bliss.

    Afterwards we went out to have fun with one of those picture booths, but the one they went to was in this bowling alley which had an arcade!! And guess what they have? DDR! The only thing I can complain about is that it's a 6th mix machine and the pad can be rather slippery but other than that it's a very nice place. They also have Guitar Freaks 7th and Drum Mania 6th mix, which means they've got almost everything I could want. I'll probably still wind up going to some other arcades like Muthos at some point in the future, but at least I know I've got a very nice arcade within walking distance.

    This morning my dad called at 7AM my time because he wanted to double check some things before he mailed them off, since it was 3PM Friday where he was so he still had time to mail them off that day. I should be getting the parts I need to setup the wireless network along with the watch I forgot and a bigger pillow. Yay! They're expected to arrive on Tuesday. Lets hope so.

    Anyways after that phone call I slept til noon-ish, then played some Civ3 until Nathan and Tae came over to say hi. They had just come back from McDonalds which is all the way on the other side of town. They actually took the train back cause they didn't want to walk the distance. They had apparently knocked on my door earlier in the day but I didn't hear them cause I was so dead tired. ^_^

    They said that it was about the same as any other McDonalds they had been to except that they served soup and a couple other things, but the burgers tasted the same and the size was fine. Oh yea speaking of size, Mos Burger hamburgers are not very large, but their rice burgers (vegetarian ones) are just TINY. I couldn't believe how small they were! Anyways I have to go down to the supermarket sometime tonight to pickup more DP and some other necessities. I'll probably go eat dinner first somewhere and then go shop. We'll see what happens.
     
  • August 2nd, 4:40PM 2002-08-06 01:39:06 So today starts out at 1AM when my extra alarm clock that was sitting in my suitcase goes off and I have to scramble around half awake trying to find it to shut the damn thing off. Then I have to deal with the one thing I hate about this apartment: the pillow. It's like smaller than the size of my head, and it's hard as a rock. I could not sleep on it at all. I wound up sleeping with my head on the matress and I woke up with a really sore neck. Either my parents will have to send me one or I'll have to find one here and buy it because there is no way in hell I am sleeping on that rock.

    Today we got together and filled out a bunch of paperwork: a form to get our Resident Alien Card, stuff to open a bank account, etc etc. We also got our own hankou. A hankou is the way Japanese people sign things - it's a stamp with their name in Kanji on it (or in our case Katakana) that's used for official documents. It's like a seal, basically. I also found out from Yoshi (one of the other mentors, actually he's Nathan's) that DSL will take a month to a month and a half to install and it's not as cheap as I thought since installation with by 6000 yen or so. However I found out that he has DSL and he lives in Park View just like us. Turns out he's next to Laura who's directly above me (I think). So our DSL sharing plan is still going strong, it just now includes Yoshi and his DSL connection. Between all four of us the cost should probably be around 800 yen which is really cheap and means we won't rack up $200 phone bills from dialing up.

    Speaking of dialup they gave us each our own dialup account however we can't use it until Monday - we don't even have a phone number to call. Talk about a let down. In the package they say that the rooms are "Wired for Internet Access." I guess that just means that they have a phone line and a power outlet. What BS. Oh well, hopefully this thing can get setup very soon and I won't be stuck on dialup this whole time.

    For lunch we all went to the cafeteria for the first time. I had the curry, which was only 340 yen so it was very cheap and it was actually really good. I just had water with it but the water here is actually really good (since we're so close to Mt. Fuji) so I won't have to go buy bottled water.

    After that we went and wasted a good half hour just waiting around at City Hall to have our application processed so we know we won't have to go back there until the card is ready. Goddamn that place was slow. I get governments in any developed country are slow beurocratic messes. Pity.

    Classes start on Monday, so we have the weekend to do whatever. Everyone's meeting up at Mosubaga (Mos Burger) in about an hour to have dinner together, and before then I plan on going to the supermarket again to buy more DP and some other things I could use. Not quite sure what I'll get yet but I'll think of something. Or I may just hold off until another day since I've got snackfood to munch on.
     
  • August 1st, 8:21 PM 2002-08-06 01:37:53 Nope no time for DDR.

    So I went to the little party thing. Was kinda nice, we got to meet our host families! Mine's this nice woman Ishihara Shino-san (family name first) and her two retired parents Yoshio and Etsuko. I think Shino-san speaks English far better than I speak Japanese, and she thinks I speak Japanese far better than she speaks English, so at least we're on the same level of Japanese-style humility in that department. I managed to carry on a very nice conversation with her and her parents in Japanese for a good fifteen minutes talking about all sorts of things. They were all really impressed with my Japanese but of course my limited vocabulary was a constant roadblock and I would have to ask for translations of specific words I wanted to say on many occaisions, but it was a definate confidence booster after I choked repeatedly this afternoon with Reiko-san and yesterday with that bastard at the restaurant.

    A word about the Japanese supermarket: it's very cool. First off you can see over all the eiles (or at least I can, teehee) so you can find stuff, and they have SO much stuff. The sheer amount of drinks they have boggles the mind, I must try them all at some point. Thankfully they have my good old standby, of course I'm talking about the nectar of the Gods: Diet Pepsi. It tastes a little different here, but it's very close to the American taste and probably just tasted different cause I was drinking it semi-warm since my fridge thingy was just plugged in earlier today so it's not very cold yet.

    (Goes to test colder DP from the fridge)

    Actually tastes almost the same, although now it's a little flat. =) They sell it in 1.5 liter bottles instead of 2 liter bottles and, at least at the supermarket I went to, they cost 198 so it's not as cheap as it is in the states but it's certainly not a ripoff or anything - which I am very thankful for.

    As for internet access, I'll take the flyer to someone who knows more Kanji than I do (like Reiko-san) and ask her to explain what it says so I can figure out what to do about 'net access. First some explanation:

    When it was time to get our apartments there were two choices. One place cost 12000 per month and the other cost 10000 but was smaller. Since the difference was less than $20 bucks a month I made a dash for the bigger place. Turns out the bigger place has a bit more space an it comes with an additional desk, so I'm glad I did since it gives me a drawing/studying table and a table for my laptop and various other items.

    So there are four of us here in Paaku Biuu (Park View) and the other six are over in FLAT 21 (spelled just like that). Tae (found out his full name's Taejun but Tae is what he goes by - he's Korean) didn't bring a laptop but Sarah and Laura did and Laura came up with the brilliant idea of maybe sharing the DSL connection.

    Being the nerd I am I just had to come up with the idea of doing a wireless network between our various apartments. Since I don't have network access right now and I can't look up the maximum distance of 802.11, I can't tell whether or not we'll be able to get access over to the people in FLAT 21 as well if they get wireless ethernet cards, but if they can we can all consolidate and share the same net connection which would be very cool - however it will require an initial investment in wireless ethernet adapters and it remains to be seen whether 6 months of DSL is worth sharing if we have to buy wireless ethernet adapters.

    It looks to me like the DSL costs 2800 per month, which means under US$25, so that sounds like a really good deal even if we don't share the connection over Ethernet, but it might just be a fun thing to do for the nerd factor involved. I'm gonna call my dad later when it's not god awful early in the morning in the States and see what he thinks - he may have some wireless net adapters that he can send me over airmail that I'll pass out to the girls and then take back at the end of our stay here.

    Oh yea - on subject of phones and stuff, it took Reiko and me about 15 minutes to finally figure out how to change the message on my answering machine, but now it works and I've got my own little answering machine which came with the apartment. The stuff that we get for free with the apartment is so great - we got a CD/cassette boom box-type thing, a desk lamp, the folks in Park View got two desks, we all get a bed, they gave us some plates and one set of silverware and a set of chopsticks, we got a vaccum cleaner, sheets, blankets, a washing machine, full stove/microwave/fridge/etc, a space heater (although I certainly won't be using that for a few more months), some storage bins, a little TV, several chairs, and of course a phone+answering machine. And we're paying only around ~$100 a month for this! Apparently it's heavily subsidized by EAP and Tsuru University. They kick ASS!

    Overall today's been a good day. Aside from the heat and the net access, I gained a lot more confidence in my Japanese, met some really nice people, got to hang out with new friends, ate some good food, and took a nice, long, relaxing bath to finish it off. Now it's time to play some Civ3, maybe read some more, and go to bed after maybe calling my parents around midnight my time (since that'll be 8AM their time). We have to be in Takishima-san's office by tomorrow morning at 9:30AM, but 9 hours of sleep should be plenty, and TRUST me, after today I will get that much sleep. =)

    ErMaC out.
     
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