200 Apples

Today I did school things such as going to class and eating lunch at school.  Before class, I was shown this majestic postcard.



It's Kumamon riding a horse.  Looking at this picture, I cannot help but feel all is right with the world for the brief moment I'm enjoying it.

Anyway, lunch was a bit of a problem because I only had 200 yen thanks to some idiot stealing my card information.  With that 200 yen I was able to get Calorie Mate (essentially an energy bar) and a drink called "Fruit Village".  It was okay, but I was still very hungry when it was all gone.

This is Cermet giving surprise massages to our lunch friends, which he does often because it's his favorite.  Reactions range from "Whoooo" to "AHHHADJAOIFA STOPPP", but today's reactions were mostly middle-of-the-road confused sounds.

After lunch was more class.  Then after that, we talked with Nana (Banana, because that's how you say that in Japan), Natsuko (Coconutsko), Takahiro (TakeHERO), and Takuya (Takuyaki).  Yes, there are nicknames.  Anyway, this is TakaHERO's special talent.

After that, we discussed things like Turkish story books and how many apples everyone weighs (Nana weighs 200). This is because Hello Kitty is apparently measured in apples, both for height (five) and for weight (three).

Here is Nana bothering Wesley as he attempts to stand at a forty-five degree angle.

On the way home I attempted to befriend these cats, but it didn't work out again.  The bigger of the two stayed long enough for me to get closer than this, but the other spent the duration of the encounter hiding from me behind a bush.  One of my eventual goals here is to make friends with a Japanese cat.  I know I can do it.

Oh.

It wasn't Suntrust; some guy got hold of my card information and was using it in Texas.  Little did he know I am nowhere NEAR Texas and that was a stupid thing to do.

Nothing happened today.

Through a combination of misunderstandings (there are two Kasumigaseki Stations, and Wesley's friend only knew of the far one) and awesome bank stupidity (the ATMs stopped reading my card because Suntrust messed up), karaoke didn't happen like it was going to.

So I spent the day talking to Kayo and then for an hour after that I talked to some guy.

The end.

Doin' Olympics

One interesting thing about Japan that you just sort of have to find out is that they're pretty good about knowing professional athletes' names.  In America, there's a certain group of athletes whose names we may remember for about a month every four years when the Olympics come up, but that's it.  Track and field guys, swimmers, volleyball players -- those sorts of people are only familiar to Americans for a very short time at best.  However, my host family was very surprised that I didn't know the name of some runner that was on TV a few days ago, and even more surprised that most of America doesn't, either.  He was American, so they thought it was odd that we have no idea who he is.  The average Japanese person could probably do a better job telling me who is going to be in London this year than anyone back home could, which is just kind of funny.  For some reason they care about those sorts of athletes over here much more than we do.

Georgia, take your weather back. I don't want it.

The only notable thing that happened today was the weather.  it was bad.  It was fine for most of the day, but around seven tonight, when I was going home on my bike, it started to rain heavily.  I came home drippy, but that's okay because I have since bathed and it's fine now.

I have no pictures for you because nothing was picture-worthy.

Today Stuff

For the most part, it was a normal day back at school.  Truthfully, I'm not super happy that the other international students are back, because English clumps tend to form and that makes it hard to talk to the Japanese students.  I like the other international students and all, but I can talk to Americans in America.  I talked to Japanese people anyway.

SHIORI AND KURARA SHOWED OFF THEIR WRESTLING MOVES apparently.
Kurara is losing.



And Micah apparently went to Kumamoto over the break and brought me some Kumamon candy.  It was great, and this bear's face is still SO FUNNY to me.

Nothing happened after that.  We got new bath additives, so that's neat, I guess.  It's more than one kind, so it's kind of fun to try a new one every night.

Whoops I fell asleep

I fell asleep as I was about to type this, so here it is with very little commentary.



This is an ad for Jigoku Shoujo pachinko (and more).

So Wesley and I went to see this thing where they broadcast a concert at the movie theatre as it was happening in real life.  It was Kara's "Karasia", since we couldn't go to the actual thing and all.  Some of the pictures are blurry and there are a lot of Nicole, so enjoy that.

I just want to note that at one point they played this positively insane video where the members flew around on paper cranes.

They also had a video camera hooked up to the live thing, so this happened.

After it was over, I had a sad dinner at McDonald's.

And here is Nicole again!  It's a clear folder with her on it.  I might use it for stuff.

And just because, here's how the CD collection is doing.