Eyaaaaaaa!!!!

I finally made it out of the house today!!! This deserves a round of applause! *cue cricket noises*

.....Ok ok I guess it is not that big of news, but after a weekend of staying in, it was good to get out of the house. I have been chilling at home doing Japanese homework and playing on my beloved DS. I have missed quite a few games since January that I need to catch up on. There is also this book that Steve lent me called "Dance Dance Dance" by Haruki Murakami. I have made it about halfway through in the past few days. It involves this guy who is recently divorced, works in Tokyo, and trying to piece his life back together. Of course there are a ton of strange and obviously fictional events, but everyone needs to have a quirky side.

So today I got a load of laundry done (clean sheets!) and took a shower. I had been really lazy the past two days as well... I had previously emailed everyone to see what they were doing and from the replies I got made tentative plans. However, what I actually did for the day turned out to be completely different.

First of all I headed to Waseda and ran into Larisa and Eric. They told me that they were going to get some curry for lunch and I was welcome to join. Sweet. I was just going to eat at the Coop. It was the first time I had been to Malibar during lunch. The special is that you get as much Nan (bread) as you want as long as you are sitting in the store. Usually you get one piece per bowl of curry and then have to buy more if you want it. Needless to say I got my fill for the day. We finally got a chance to talk about what happened over spring break. I told my story about the daycare, they told theirs about the schools, and all was right with the world. It seems that everyone had a good time outside of Tokyo. Sad that we all had to return...

Anyway, the next thing on my agenda was to return two books to the SILS library that will be overdue soon. When I was maybe 50 meters away from the building, a large group including Steve, Kyle, Sonja, and Steve's sister Emily flagged me down. Emily is staying in Tokyo for the week to visit Steve. Their tentative plans involved going to Ueno Park and exploring that area. Sure why not? I've got nothing else planned for the day so I'll go! We headed for the local train station down the same path that I had just traversed the past 20 minutes. Not only had we just started when my favorite friend Asuka shows up going the other direction. I have not seen her in ages! Everyone spent a good half hour talking to her. The most interesting part was translating between Asuka and Emily. Some context really gets lost during translation. びっくりした！ and "I was surprised" just doesn't have the same feel from one language to the other.

Anyway, we got to Ueno and puttered around there for a while. The final stop on our journey was a large toy shop where Emily bought some souvenirs for someone at home. I jumped on a deal and bought a large stuffed pokemon named "Achamo". I don't know what the name is in English, but it is a fire starter that looks like a bird possibly from the advance series if anyone wants to help me out (Ed or Logan). From then on, Steve had to go to a meeting with his doctor friends. Kyle and I stayed around to "babysit" Emily. We went to Asakusa and checked out the thunder gate along with all those other little shops. An hour and a half later we met up with Steve at Ochanomizu and went out for Mexican food. I had a margarita and Enchilada which were surprisingly good. The only thing is, the portions were small and they were expensive. Ugh! I hate Japanese restaurants for that! I bought ice creme before heading home ^_^