Monday, January 18, 2010

The Future Soon

It's gonna be the future soon, and I won't always be this way, when the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away.

So it really is the future soon. Almost two weeks into this thing already. Can you believe it? And still going!

So Saturday I got up late after sleeping for ages (jet lag wearing off makes me stay up till 1:30 AM and then sleep forever the next day, apparently) and spent a good morning playing Red Alert 3 with Mike online. Really fun times with Tim Curry and his terrible Russian accent. After that, Abby and a couple of other people needed to do a Jusco run for groceries, and I needed a couple of things and craved a couple of things (omg miiiilk), so I went with. Unfortunately, they do not sell strawberry milk by the carton. I've only seen it in the little 500 ml cartons in 7-11 :<. I did restock on juice, seeing as I've caught a cold again. It's this Japanese atmosphere. It's soooo dry, which is such a change from Pittsburgh where it rains all the time and is always humid. It doesn't rain that much here at all, and the air is just so dry that it's messing with my sinuses and such >_<. But back to groceries. Got a 98 yen big pack of udon noodles, woo! They're going to be delicious.

Afterwards, we came back and Keisha, Abby and I all *attempted* to make oyakodon, which was okay, but not as good with the recipe tripled. It was easier to handle and such when it was smaller sizes, but now we know. Also, it would've been very delicious if the rice cooker wasn't made of fail and more fail. Apparently all the dorm rice cookers cannot work in one way or another, and this one can't handle more than 1 cup of rice at a time. The rice we tried to eat was gluey on the outside and still hard inside, so it was kind of nasty. Tip: buy your own rice cooker, know how to use it. They're cheap and better than the dorm ones.

Sunday I wasn't planning on doing much other than doing laundry and making curry with Abby, since I wanted her to teach me how. However, I got a knock on my door from Keisha asking if I'd like to go to Shinjuku with them to find the art store. Abby is an art major, and Keisha is taking an art class, and both of them needed class supplies that couldn't be found at the 100 yen store, though a lot of it they surprisingly could. I'd never been to Shinjuku, so I said 'hey, why not?'. Quite an adventure, let me tell you. We had to figure out how to pay for the fare to Shinjuku, seeing as the commuter pass only covers half the trip (from our town to Gotanda, where we switch trains to go wherever). We stopped to ask the station guy, and he told us to pay there. We were kind of wary, but once we got there, we found a fare adjustment machine to set it right. Abby has good tip though: Add extra money to your Suica card other than your commuter pass fee. It'll let you go where you need to go without needing to adjust the fare.

Once we got there, we were kinda lost. Abby had been to the smaller store, but that was really more of a bunbooguya, or stationery store. We needed to find the big one, but had no idea where it was. So after wandering a bit, Abby and Keisha pointed out a counter where we could ask where we needed to go. Turned out to be one that actually spoke English, so my Japanese kinda went to waste. They did actually Google the location for us there and printed out a map, so they were really cool and nice. If the Japanese people are anything, it is helpful. Be careful, though. There are cases where the person you're asking directions from has no idea, but will venture a guess, whether it's right or wrong, rather than say they don't know and appear unhelpful. Ask several people for directions, and don't trust just one. We kinda realized this when we were following the map they gave us and we made the mistake of using a McDonalds and KFC as a reference point. Reeeeally not a good idea, considering how many there are. We kinda wandered around for twenty minutes, got lost, asked many directions, and finally found we'd been going in the opposite direction of where we needed to be.

Good thing though: we passed so many awesome looking arcades! We kinda explored one a little bit, and there was a girl playing Taiko, which is sort of like a simulator/rhythm game of traditional taiko drumming. Think guitar Hero, but with one big drum and you holding two sticks that you need to hit the right spot on the drum with at the right time. And holy woah was she good. It started off slow, and then she just went crazy on that thing. I wanna go back and play :3. ALSO. MOYASHIMON KEYCHAINS YEAH. I need to go back JUST FOR THOSE. I don't think they'll fit on my phone as a charm but STILL. I'm going to see if I can win one or two for me and for people back home, since that show was the best at anime club =).

We did finally make it to Sekaido, the art store. It was BIG. 4 or more floors of just art supplies, and so crowded too. It took us a while and many requests for help finding things, but we finally got most everything. We also met up with one of Abby's artist friends and took the train back to Gotanda with her. She's a big fan of Mos Burger, which is sort of like a McDonald's alternative here, so we all decided to go there for dinner. We couldn't tell what anything was because it was all in kanji, but they had some pretty interesting choices. Shrimp burger, seafood burger, rice burger, chicken teriyaki burger, all sorts of things. I ended up getting the chicken teriyaki burger, and it was pretty good. Really interesting, too. Their burgers here are a lot smaller, but much better quality. The buns aren't soggy and mushed, the lettuce is crisp and fresh (the beef burgers actually have cabbage on them instead), the fries aren't thin and oversalty and overgreasy (they actually taste like potatoes! They're really homemade-tasting), though the drinks are tiny. I got a water, and it was eeeeeensy. The white grape soda is reportedly good, and the melon soda is bright green xD. A neat meal, but overall too small and not really filling and overexpensive. I don't know how the people in my dorm keep going out to McDonalds at least once a day to eat. It's crazy. Japanese food is just better.

But afterwards, Abby wanted something sweet, and we were going by the Baskin Robbins on the way to the train, so we stopped and tried one more Japanese-style American food: ice cream. SO DELICIOUS. But SO EXPENSIVE. It was 330 yen for a small scoop of ice cream. Craaaaaaazy. But it was a good one-time thing. They give you a tiny spoon to match, so you don't eat it as quickly, and it feels like you're eating a lot more than you are. It's also easier to savor that way and not overeat. I got caramel apple tart, and man it was good. Like I said though, only a one-time thing.

We came back home and Abby finally taught me how to make curry! :3. We also didn't fail at rice, so we waited until everything had cooled down, and I packed our bentos for lunch today. They were really cute, but they've been eaten. Bento are usually meant to be eaten at room temperature, but the curry was kinda weird that way. I think I'll heat it up next time. Delicious though! I'll have to buy some potatoes and make some of my own. Tuesday night I'm going to try to make my own bento with cocktail weiner octopi and stuff. We'll see how it goes! I'll take pictures of that one, since it'll be all my own work. Pictures will be up soon! I've been really busy, and as a result, usually falling asleep on my computer. Mike can attest to this, as I usually fall asleep mid-conversation. Anyhow, goodnight for now~ I'll have more on classes later~~!

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