It is sooooo cold today. Just 3 days ago I was starting to get worried that The Heat was going to start in because it was too warm to even wear a light jacket. Today I’ve been bundled under my kotatsu futon (essentially a duvet for your table with a heater under the table) in fleece pants and a fleece top. I’ve also been on my computer ALL DAY! I finally got all my ADSL stuff all organized so I’ve been able to be online. It’s meant a lot of rearranging things on this site and the first two hours were spent reading all my wonderful bits of love from everyone on my email. I felt loved all day. It was so refreshing to be able to talk to people. I even got to have conversations with some of the guys back home. Made it feel not so far away and not so alone.
I picked up a 10 kg bag of rice today. 2800 yen. Not a bad price AT ALL! It was fun trying to carry it home the 6 blocks or so from the store. I tried to carry it on my hip much like I would a baby, but it just kept sliding off. My arms were starting to feel it. All that fabulous arm strength I had been building up last summer working on the boat and then serving at the hotel through the winter...it’s going fast.
I think I found a church near by. I saw a board with the words "Gospel Choir" when I first met the girl who used to live in this flat and I took down the email address and site. It’s all in Japanese of course, but I was able to glean some information from it, like that the choir is singing April 24th and according to the map that was there, I believe that it’s only like a block down from my school on the main street. I have a phone number, but I don’t really want to call it as I won’t have anything to say but Ohayo Gozaimasu and maybe I could throw a little ‘jitensha’ in there for good measure. That means bike. It’s like the only word that I remembered from 4 years of High School Japanese before coming here. More of it has come back since I’ve been immersed, but at first that was seriously all I had. Now I hear words and I’m like "Hey! That’s sounds familiar. I’ve heard that word before when I was younger. But I have no idea what it means." I will get there eventually. Once I get my Foreigner’s Card I can sign up at the International Society for free Japanese lessons. I’ve heard mixed reviews of the free lessons, like, ‘you get what you pay for’ but I’m pretty much up for anything and if I learn one word per class then hey, I’m one word further than I was the day before.
I had a fabulous breakfast of caramel corn. For lunch I had this tasteless desert tofu with soy milk and bananas for dinner number one I had 4 frozen patties that I was unsure of what they were made of...I’m still unsure, I'm guessing a potato-like substance. And for dinner number two I had what is usually considered breakfast of a bowl of rice with a raw egg mixed in. Ah, what a yummy food day. I love being able to eat yummy things while chilling out at home. It was a good day off...and well waited for. I hadn’t had a day off this week as I was called into work Sunday. It was a chill day, but still not a day off where I didn’t have to get out of the house or put on pesky things like clothes.
