music: Ryan Adams- The ShadowlandsI Just dumped a bottle of white wine down the sink. Mind you, it was a bottle of crappy cheap Japanese fruity white wine that a drunk Japanese guy bought me last weekend at family mart for my birthday, but still, that’s a big step for me. I still have my half bottle of French white table wine in the fridge leftover from last weekend, so that I may allow myself one glass this weekend, but that’s it. The weeks are absolutely flying by. I cant believe tomorrow is already Saturday! what a great feeling. The plans for this weekend are now: Sunday, clean, relax, read. Monday, meet kanika in Nagoya for a matinee then explore Nagoya, for FREE, as I just found an English brochure guide to Nagoya in my apartment and we can hit up the spots on there that don’t involve paying, as we are both in need of money savage until payday. Im even going to skip out on my usual Saturday night dinner with mike to save money. So I realize in all these entries I hardly talk about japan itself. Lets see, everyone looks amazing all the time, I basically feel like a slob constantly, although the constant reminders from the Japanese how “kawaii (sp?)”- “cute” I am, which is nice. But where I thought I had pretty good style back home, the people here are dressed to the 9s in outfit concoctions I could never even dream of throwing together, and they pull it off effortlessly. Every single boy dresses like my dream guy. I get stared at like im a complete alien, constantly. Sometimes the attention is nice, at other times I’d just like to point out how rude it is to stare and perhaps they should be looking at the road/pole their about to ride their bike into and/or children who are trying to put some sort of sharp object or anything equally dangerous into their mouths. I really truly know what it feels like to be a minority. Every restaurant looks like what all the hip hangouts in Toronto are trying to look like. Even the small, dingy or quaint pubs have so much character that no western establishment could ever even come close to. Everyone, despite their gawking stares, is so extremely polite and friendly. If they know any English at all, they want to speak to you. They also will speak English to you even if you begin a conversation with them in Japanese (not that I can speak any Japanese, at all really, I may have learned 5 new words since I’ve been here). I.e. “kohi, coure sai, hotto” meaning, coffee please, hot, to which they respond “hot coffee? what size?”. Basically, you look like a giant idiot, but its pretty hilarious. I love LOVE the business men riding around on their bikes in the best fitting pin striped, assumably Armani suits. Just a side note, it makes me happy. Everyone is SO law abiding. The Japanese DO NOT jay-walk. If there is a don’t walk sign, on a completely empty residential street with no cars for miles, they will wait for 8 whole minutes, if that’s what it takes, for the green little walking man to light up. The pachinko buildings are the most elaborately lit up, giant, huge, loud, insane buildings you will ever see, where hoards of people sit, zombie-like fitting buckets and buckets of tiny silver balls into these screaming colourful machines. I still have no idea what pachinko is, or how they work, or why it is so popular and why the buildings are sooo intense, but im scared to learn because it looks like a crazy addiction that many of the Japanese share. Ok, I’m totally craving watching a movie, so this is all I will write for the night (I love Fridays because I have super easy classes, but I hate it at the same time because I work until 9 and then I am exhausted and now all I wanna do is curl up in bed and watch something brainless and romantic so I can sigh and think about the boy I like). and so, until tomorrow. P.s. INTERNET IN 10 DAYS!
