music: Ryan Adams- Political Scientist Well, quite the birthday weekend I had. On my actual birthday I woke up feeling depressed and lonely as all hell (what else is new) struggled through the day, the staff sang me happy birthday and we had these white bean cake things that were light and fluffy and delicious. All I wanted to do was go home and lay in bed and watch movies. So I went home and rode my bike to Apita, the department store to buy movies. I bought Elizabethtown, Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind and love actually, THEN I found a sweet adorable stainless steel coffee maker for 2000 yen (which Is like 20 bucks) so I obviously grabbed that as well. happy birthday to me. the following Saturday a bunch of us went out for dinner after work for my birthday. Arden, the teacher I replaced came down for a couple drinks with us and she took us to the foreigner bar near the station, its actually owned by a western guy and it serves all western food like pizza and nachos and chicken wings. there were so many western people there. ended up drinking way too much wine, the rest of our group left fairly early and I made new friends with a group of JET teachers, one being from Toronto. We all came back to my apartment (my first party!) . Also woke up with the worst hangover in the history of life, THEN trekked to the family mart where I bought them out of sweet delicious pastries and such and continued to eat ALL of them. THEN, met kanika at the zoo, feeling absolutely sick, ready to pass out. then suddenly feeling better, ready to take on the zoo, with kanika getting all animal rights activist on my ass, and so we rushed through the zoo, although they had penguins, which made me extremely happy. We then went to sakae, to shop, walked around for a bit, cool street fair going on, then kanika started feeling sick so she went home and I decided to spend the rest of the day on my lonesome exploring Nagoya. I shopped a bit (totally bought hair extensions) and then decided to take myself out for a fancy dinner at one of the cool restaurants in Nagoya station. Went to this cool Italian restaurant (because I could actually read the menu) had a glass of wine and salad and risotto with chicken and asparagus, then I went to see a movie by myself! it was great, envigorating really. Hell I’m a better date than any guy. The next day I went to the mall in okazaki, did some more shopping, as usual, then went and met kanika in Nagoya. Met some business men from Toronto in the starbucks while I waited for her, very nice guys. Then had coffee with Kanika (I bought us friendship bracelets from this cool store in AEON mall because im cute) then we split up because I wanted to shop more and take myself out for a classy dinner again. I went to this awesome restaurant in the station called The Kitchen, which has apparently won awards for its thin crust pizza. Ordered a glass of white wine and a pizza with tomato, oregano and young of sardine. The hostess could speak English so she came over to talk to me a bit about what I was doing in japan. she was very sweet and very eager to talk to me. My waitor was the cutest thing in the world and he could speak a bit of English and he kept coming over to talk to me and ask my name and how long I would be in japan. The table next to me was a bunch of western business people who soon struck up a conversation with me after I finished my meal and then invited me to join them. They were a very interesting group of people, one of the men who paid particular attention to me, I later learned was the president of the company, through his business card when he left, also owns a vineyard in California. One of the men was from Italy and gave me the card of his friend who owns an Italian restaurant in Tokyo, he said to go there and say Roberto sent me and that dinner is on him. done. Another man, originally from California, was now living in Japan as his wife is from Japan. She was a very cool lady, speaking fluent Japanese, English AND Italian. Turns out they actually live like 15 minutes from me, know okazaki well, and they gave me their card and said to come over for a bbq one day. This is why I need to a) get out more and b) not complain about going out by myself. When you go out by yourself people are just jumping to talk to you. For one thing, I really enjoy my company, and for another, Ive met the most interesting people when ive gone out alone. I have also made the decision to stop drinking heavily while I’m here. Ive found myself already making the dumb decisions I regret afterwards, as I did back home when drinking too much, then gorging on food and feeling like crap afterwards. Plus hangovers in japan are like 28329 times worse than hangovers back home, I don’t know what it is. so yes, a glass of wine with dinner, or casually here and there, no problem. but no more binging. My body doesn’t deserve that anymore. The extent of my plans this weekend is to go to a movie Sunday morning (also the extent of my money spending) and then spend the day exploring Nagoya, meaning exploring the FREE sights. oh, also picked up, last weekend. Ryan Adams- love is hell, special Japanese edition double disc. probably the best thing ive ever owned in my life. it has not left my cd player, nor do I intend for it to ever leave. Now reading: Hitching Rides with Buddha- Will Fergusonand so far loving it. ok, time for another cup of coffee and need to work on my essential Ryan Adams cd for kanika, and then work time. Its almost the weekend! weeks, just fly by here. I love it.
